Car Audio, what a waste

[justin_tx_16]

I got a new Audi A4 this year, to replace my 2001 Honda Accord. My friend was supposed to buy my Accord because she had totalled her Celica. Well, months later her dad decides she has earned (in ways I am oblivious to...) a 2002 Lexus two door. Whatever. So she leaves me with $16,000 worth of metal in the pool house garage.

Anyways, I decided I would keep it for when I go to college, no need to have a nice car torn to bits but idiot college drunks. I drive it a lot more now because of the wonderful gas mileage, and since my brother totalled my dad's new car, and he will not get his new car because of it, I am thinking of selling him my Honda. But that won't happen for a while. Mean time I wanted to put in a new sound system. I was thinking, JL Audio or Alpine with a nice sub and amp, keep the indash cd player cause it is more than enough for me.

So I go to Best Buy and Circuit City. I started with the budget system. Pioneer with a 10" MTX sub and 5 channel Pioneer amp. Price was around $597, not TOO bad. But sounded like utter crap.

Up to the next level. Infinity, MTX 12inch sub, same pioneer amp. Can we say tinny sounding? I like klipsch, it can be 'tinny, harsh, horny' and I love that sound. This however was the breaking point. So tinny that I just could NOT take it. The bass was quite boomy, the Infinity's were not too shabby, still liking the amp. $1000.

Up to the premo system. Alpine speakers, Dual MTX 12inch subs, 4 channel Alpine amp, 1 channel Pioneer amp for the sub. Ok. Finally I get some decent sound. Decent at best. Still sounds tinny. The bass is way too boomy, appealing to bass freaks, bass above 45Hz, It gets very loud, but I never smiled during the music. $2300.

Up to the MAXED out system they would have to order. JL Audio speakers, RockfordFosgate/Infinity Sub options, 4 channel Rockford Fosgate Amp, Alpine 400Watt sub amp. Did not hear this system in full but it sounded pretty good. Except the total price was round $3000-3500!

Ok. call me crazy but car audio is highway robbery, literally. For $3500 I could build a home audio system, stereo, that would murder any car system in that price range. Do people only care about boomy bass and high spl? What happened to sound QUALITY? How can they charge $120 for a MDF sub cabinet for a 12" subwoofer? How can they make speakers 120watt RMS at 2ohm? 2ohm?!?!?! That is a BS rating IMHO. a sub at 4ohm, ok, 2 ohm... yeah, i could live with that, but a $169-300 speaker should have a >4ohm rating! I am talking about the midranges here, not subs.

I was totally taken aghasp. The sales people thought I was an idiot. Never even heard of Klipsch as I was telling them what I currently enjoyed at home. They were just plain jerks, trying to add things I did not need to the bill, like expedited installation, +20%. 4awg Monster Cable... BS!

Oh well, I got the last laugh at Circuit City. I put in my home theater test cd. Not only did I blow a channel out of the $399 Pioneer 5 channel amp (front right Alpine speaker), I bottomed out their MTX sub which did not take it so well... Lets just say it will be an open box sale item next week, along with the Sony Xplod 6x9 with its paper thin surrounds (they apparently don't like too much bass hehe).

I guess I will just have to take my mom's car on the weekends. She travels every weekend, so I can enjoy her wonderful car audio system, Mark Levinson... bliss.

What are your takes on car audio?

[Orange Peel]

It depends, the stuff you were listing is no where near top of the line, it's the crap CC sells. To get nice car audio you need to go to a smaller independent car audio shop. They will carry JL, MB Quart, Clarion, Alpine, Orion, etc, not lower end Pioneer crap and Sony stuff.

You can get a real nice system at a decent price, my stuff rocks and I didn't spend a ton on it, a fair amount, but it lasts a long time.

Rockford Fosgate sucks balls now, they have sold out big time to Best Buy etc, and their product has fallen like hell. I would never buy RF again!

I love my JL Audio Sub, hits hard and plays LOUD!!! They aren't cheap by any means, I got a deal on my setup. It's the JL Stealthbox, made of all fiberglass and killer driver developed just for that enclosure, retails for about $450 I got it for $300. The driver alone sells for about $200.

I have always loved Alpine head units, I have one now and won't buy anything else, I think they are #1 in head units, and always have been. Some don't like them but they are probably hard to find. I have the CDA 7949, Alpine's flagship model for 2000, retails $800+, I got it for $500, it has no power output, you HAVE to have amps to use it You'll find most competition equipment is like that.

I have an older Orion HCCA 225 amp for my sub, AMAZING amp, I've had it for several years, still kills that sub! Retailed for about $500 or so I think, got it for $300.

I have an Alpine V12 Expert MRV-T505 2 channel amp for my highs, great amp, better for a sub application, but handles the high duties just fine, it has a parametric EQ on it, etc. I just doubled up the speakers on the terminals to make it work as a 4 channel amp in 2 channel mode. Works fine. Retailed for around $450, got it for $330.

I have Polk Audio DX-3065 6.5 components for the front and Polk DX-6's for the rears, got the rears for $100, retailed for about $200, and the fronts retailed for $300. They sound great, not the best out there but work well for me.

I use 4 gauge wire for my power, you really have to with amps, 1 or 2 it's really recommended, you don't have the huge power supplied like you do with home audio, you need to carry as much current to the amps from the little battery as possible to keep the power up on the amps. I use a 1/2 farad capacitor to keep the sub from kickin' my batteries ***. It still moves the battery voltage a little, but no where near as bad without it

I was BIG into car audio and cars before I got messed up in HT, so I spent a good amount of money on it. I would say it's worth it, if you drive a lot, which I do, so I get LOTS of enjoyment out of it.

Some don't drive as much so they don't care as much. Each has their own preferences on car audio just like Home audio

[Mighty Favog]

Man, I remember back in 1984 when I worked for an audio store Pioneer had a really nice custom coach (bus) pull up to our store for demos. The first time I ever heard a sub for the road was this little 7" gizmo that had it's own amp that mounted under the seat. I played Rock-it from Herbie Hancock and it sounded pretty good for the time. This was when just five years earlier treble-horns mounted to the trunk deck firing forward was all the rage. Oh, they were mounted with little more than exhaust pipe u-bolts.

After I got my first (street legal) car I put a Sony cassette deck (cd players for cars weren't out yet) two 6X9 Pioneer 4 ways in the trunk deck and a Pioneer 60wpc (X2) in the trunk. All I did was run RCA cables to the amp and it sounded SOOOOOOOO much better than (common for the day) already amplified speaker wires in to the amp.

Here's' the good part. The car was a 75' Mercury Montego (a mutt between a Cougar and a Torino). So I went and started collecting all the disco I could find. This wasn't easy in the mid-80's, mostly 45's. So there I was at stoplights playing Cheryl Lynn's "Got to be Real" and "Shame" from Evelyn "Champagne" King in a period correct car. People would look over with either the look of "What the f*** is that?!" or they would start bouncin in their seats with the look of "Hey! I remember that!!" There's a pic of her below.

[prodj101]

if you want a good car sub you have to go Audiobahn or Adire Audio. but if you want a really good system, can you say Burmester Sound Werks? (german company, designing the sound system for a 3 million dollar sports car, Bugatti I think it was, lol.) http://www.burmester.de/english/welcome.html theres the website for them incase your interested.

[Soundthought]

Hey Tom, Good looking ride.

It's definately got the cougar nose.

I have a '73 XR7 in that same color.

Man, they built 'em like tanks back then.

[prodj101]

lol, when I get a car I'm gonna put klipsch in-wall speakers in it. I wonder if that would work well.

[Mighty Favog]

AR-

Thanks alot. Sometimes I do miss that thing. Especially when I find people are crossing the street outside of a crosswalk just a little toooooo slowwwwwlly. Something about a big V8, dual exhaust, passing gear and an eight foot wide chrome bumper just hurries them along. LOLOLOL

I can't let this go without a story. My grandfather bought a new Cougar Eliminator in 69'. Grandad also passed away in 1971. Now Grandma never held a drivers license in her life and would have my 50 year old aunt from up the street come down and drive her wherever she needed to go (usually not far, a couple miles or so per week). Other than that the car just sat in the garage. One afternoon Grandma had to make a trip downtown about 10 miles away. Aunt Kay and Grams were on a street that parallels the Ohio River, mostly used by trucks, called Mehring Way. At a stoplight a twenty-something year old girl pulls up in her new convertable thinking she's hot s**t. After a couple of stop lights worth of this girl gunning the car between stops Gradma leans over and softly says to Aunt Kay "Show 'er what the Cougar can do." Aunt Kay looks back in surprise and reaches for the gearshift. The light goes green and in another second or two there's two healthy black stripes on the concrete from a posi-rear end (personally I would have gone back and put my initials on them). Kay didn't let up right away and was looking in the rearview mirror. Now there are a lot of train tracks down in that area and Kay found a pair. It sent the car air-born about a foot high and twenty feet long. This was with one 50 year old and an 73 year old in the car. CPR was not needed but possibly getting debriefed by a priest was.

[gooch]

Hey AR, I have that same car (73 Cougar XR7 - white) sitting in my dad's backyard, covered, waiting for me to get time to work on it. Man, that thing is definitely a tank, good thing it has that 351 Windsor in it!

I used to be into car audio, but that was in my teenage years, when all I wanted was big time bass. I would have to agree that CC and BB, and other big electronic chains are not the way to go when looking for decent car audio. Another thing to consider is that we all know how 'knowledgable' most of the sales people are for their home audio section, I would assume that the car audio salesmen are of the same caliber. But I am sure there are a few good ones, somewhere...

[kenratboy]

Well, let me tell you about the kickass system I have in my 1989 Chevy pickup. Well there are two systems actually.

The first is a AC Delco AM/FM cassette with full range speakers and rotted foam surrounds. It excels on AM talk radio and will power to volumes that allow me to hear it an <1/2 throttle. A true work of audio engineering. It even had a 9 band digitasl EQ that will let me extract enough bass out of the speakers to hear a guy with a low voice.

The second system is the serenade of the 5.7L. V8 as I put my foot on the gas. Well, this is the system I use the most. Now, a blower and preformance exhaust.

[Soundthought]

Tom- Great story!

And from the sound of it, great car.

I can just imagine them screaming down the street laying down rubber.

They actually got some air?

Damn...

Now, that's what I call gettin' it.

Dukes of Hazard style.

YeeeeeeHaaaaaaa!

Gooch- Cool deal.

They're a great car.

I love the body lines.

I've got mine about 70% restored.

Stock paint/exterior, Stock interior, Modified 351 w/an Edelbrock top end package, and a stock ehuast/drivetrain.

It still needs dual exhaust and headers.

Plus at least a 1500rpm stall converter and a rear end overhaul.

Plus, plus,plus and the list goes on.

I'll probably never reach that 100% mark, but it's sure fun trying.

I hope that you get a chance to enjoy it, someday.

I really like putting the top down and taking her out to give them old legs a strech.

As far as smoking off her skins,

Sometimes my foot get the itch and "The sleeper must awaken" LOL

Boy, what she could do if I let her breath.

Mmmmm. A set of Hookers coupled to dual 2.5 inch pipes.

That's what she really needs.

VVVRRRrrrooooommmmm.

At that point, who needs a car radio?

The ole girl with headers and duals would be music enough for me.

If I could curb my audio addiction for a month or so, I could have them by spring.

he-he... like that's possible.

[kenratboy]

That Bugatti is 1001 HP and about 950 lb. ft. of torque. Not bad at all... Also, a little on the $$$ for me!

[cluless]

Justin -

Get a cheap system for your car while you go off to college - You are going to want to go to party places off campus, and the stereo thiefs target these places. You generally have to park down a side street, and they just "smash and grab" alarm system be damned.

[kenratboy]

I will second that. A car like an Audi A4 will draw attention as it is.

My friend has a POS 1991 BMW 318is (soon to be a 1995 M3!!!) and a $1000 system, he has not washed the car in over a year, and, well, it is safe.

[Super_BQ]

Personally I think car audio during the mid 80s to the early 90s was far superior than your typical consumer car audio gear. The whole scene has changed and changes in technology hasn't done much good in car audio today.

High SPL and efficiency is the focus nowadays. Class D amps are the norm and IMHO don't even come close to the sound quality of a true Class A amp. Those who lived in the 80s and early 90s would know what i'm talking about. Harman Kardon CA-260, Alpine 7909 head cd unit. I remember guys like Richard Clark doing their own modifications to their 7909 to run 8+ volt pre-out back then. The 7909 was a straight no nonsense cd player. What we see today is fancy disco light displays... it's no wonder these head units sound awful.

I'm sad to hear that there simply isn't any market for high-end sound quality in car audio. The Sony ES line has been discontinued which is a shame. Stuff like copper chassis and balanced circuits no longer exist in car audio like they did decades ago Not to mention the quality control is out the door - find me something that is still made in Japan???

Keep in mind that what you hear in a car audio showrooms is by no means a good measure of how the stereo would sound like in your car (room acoustics don't match to the car's interior). See if you can find an IASCA or sound off competition and listen to as many cars as you can - noting only the ones you liked best in sound and use that as a measuring stick to building your car stereo.

BQ

[Mighty Favog]

I've never heard one but McIntosh car audio looks good on paper.

[DrWho]

ya it's a waiste, i spent lots of hours searching the internet for all the car audio garbage available and I was very depressed...the best speakers (by their rating) were 4 speakers by kenwood costing only $55! they're rated at 96 db @ 1w/1m and can handle 130watts total that's plenty loud for a car i just recently installed them in my car, and i was actually surprised how good they sounded. granted, they're nothin like klipsch, but wat's the use of 'quality' in a car system? there's so much other ambient noise from ur car, traffic, etc, that there really isn't much use to trying to get something that sounds good. funny thing is this...i had to build cabinets for all my speakers (6" rears and 4" fronts) cause my old speakers were like 2" fronts and 1x9" rears...i was too lazy to do it myself, so i went to tweeter to have some custom made...it cost me $100!!! twice as much as the speakers...now that's lame.

i bought a new reciever too, having only radio sucked really bad...so i prob made a mistake and went with sony...but they advertised fully custimizable passovers and all that, but after installin everything i don't get any low end outta my nice speakers (the 6" rears go down to 60hz), but they're cut out at like 110hz oh well...the powered sub in the same line costs $1,500. which is prob why the speakers were so cheap (cause ppl only buy subs nowadays). i tried my old radio only reciever and besides the radio noise, they sound way better than this sony garbage cause it actually doesn't filter out my low end

i thought about using the klipsch in cieling speakers as well, but they're rated at like 8ohms, and the most powerful car amp i found was rated for 4 ohms...i know u can get away with unmatched ohm ratings, but its not worth spending a $1,000 on amps (that will prob suck anyway).

so now im looking for some kind of "sub" to put under my chairs. bass in the trunk is so stupid and noisy, but i think small 4"? subs firing out the front and back underneath every seat would be way cool. any1 know of any low response speakers that are small? response is more important than volume, cause i'll be runnin 4 of em

ok im done, conclusion...car audio sucks

[cluless]

Justin -

I have to repeat myself - Nice car stereos near clubbing areas are bad news, Especially in TEXAS!

My former college roomate had an Alpine system...SMASH GRAB...so she replaces it with a Blaupunkt (Okay so she wasnt the brightest crayon) ....SMASH GRAB. I buy an Alpine (aren't those green buttons lovely (SMASH GRAB). I replace mine with an el-cheapo Kenwood, and one morning I find my cigarette lighter missing, and the knobs from my stereo gone (no smash, one door unlocked), so I dont report it. Coupla weeks later, the police call me about fraudulent credit card usage (I hadn't missed the card), it was grabbed from the console.

[Lone Palm]

Great car Tom. Ihad two '73 Torinos. One the color of yours and a Grand Torino Sport in black. 130+MPH!