Is a good car stereo important for you?

[Sharky]

Well, this could be a bit of a dumb post but I was just wondering how important is the car stereo to you. I mean, I've seen cars with stereos that literally double the price of the car (recently saw a Renault 4 that wasn't worth more than 400 bucks with an audio system that costs about 750 dollars) and others just want something that makes a sound or just want something in which they can listen to the news while they drive.

For me it's vital. I've spent quite a good deal of money in my stereo. The car had an old Pioneer with cassette player and cheap speakers but I bought a Pioneer DEH P3150 with 45*4 watts power, CD reciever, 3 band equalizer with 5 presents and 1 custom, CD box control capabilities and detachable faceplate (About 180 dollars at the time). I also bought 2 way pioneer speakers (80 dollars) and recently bought the rear speakers with the same specification as the front ones (50 dollars).

I don't regret a bit spending all that money on a car stereo because I just love playing my favorite music at full volume while I drive with top quality sound and thanks to it I've really learned to enjoy traffic jams.

[SL]

Sorry but no.

I've got a standard issue Nissan radio / cassette with 6 player CD in the boot. Pretty good quality but not outstanding.

I did have a top of the range radio / cassette a few years ago but regretted it latter as I never really used it to it's full potential.

Invest your cash in a system at home. Just now laid out, bottle of wine, Kenwood CD player though Trio amp and Wharfdale speakers, all hard wired. Sometimes makes those wet / cold evenings at home preferable than the 15/20 min walk each way to the local.

Simon

[TimD]

Hmm. Well, I don't know what it's like where you are, Sharky, but in Britain, there's a real nuisance with the kids who buy basic cars, and then fill every last crevice on them with a bass bin.

They do make city streets a very tedious place to be on a summer day. There's a lad round our way has a grey Ford Fiesta panel van - totally unassuming, scruffy little van - but when you're behind it at the traffic lights, the bass coming out of it vibrates the glass in your mirrors. He's got a hardboard partition between the driver's seat and the cargo bay, and mounted on that partition are a pair of bins. Those two speakers are the width of the interior of the van!

For me, as long as the radio picks up BBC4 and Five Live wherever I'm driving, then it's adequate. And if the tape deck does justice to Pink Floyd, BB King, Beethoven and Motorhead, then that's a bonus.

I haven't paid more than £75 for a system in my life. The Corsa has the factory cassette in there at the moment, but I've got a nice Blaupunkt deck waiting to go in when I can be bothered!

[Bluebottle]

I like my cars stereo to be able to give me good, clean full-range sound with enough poke to be able to hear it on the motorway with the hood off / windows open (depending on which car I'm in) and with plenty of headroom. None of our cars actually have such a system, the best one being in the Dutton. It's not important enough to me to justify the cost of a monster system- and I've heard some really expensive rigs which sound just awfull!
Why do they always quote peak power, when everyone else quotes an r.m.s figure for sound stuff?- but either way it dosn't tell you how loud it is anyway!!

[EERO]

Our new Golf has a system that makes the Stereo in the Passat sound like a Victrola. There is nothing I like more than arriving at work after my hour drive with my ears bleeding, and my heart suffering arythmia because the bass was cranked to "11".

I particularly like how the bass make the windows flex in and out on P-Funk songs.

[Airhead]

The stereo is the least important thing attached to the car.

I'm with Simon mainly because I ride a motorcycle and am opposed to anything that further removes the brain dead driver behind the wheel from the environment they are navigating the car through. For me it can be a matter of life and death.

My solution has always been to replace the standard exhaust system of my motorcycle with a louder after market alternative. Better to annoy the neighbours and arrive home safe and sound than be the victim in the police report that commences with the words:

"sorry officer I didn't see him"

Yes, deep down I am the enemy.

[Sharky]

He he he, well I know what type of car audio enthusiast you're talking about. I'm really not that type of listener. I like my radio very loud but I usually have the windows up so the only thing that the people outside hear is the song I'm listening to but in very low volume....almost unnoticeable thanks to the noisy sound of the engine (natural......I've added nothing to increase it's sound). And I have the equalizer set to give me a lot more trebble than bass so the earth doesn't vibrate as much when I drive trough. But inside I can hardly hear anything appart from the song. If fact, I have to get myself a tachometer because I'm missing my "shifting point" and I'm reving the engine too much as I'm unable to hear it.

The main reason why I listen to it at such high volume is that I don't know what it is with people in this city and their car's horn but......it's almost as if they had a circuit that made the horn sound every time they press the brake. Also it's almost automatic that as soon as all the drivers that are behind in the trafic light see the light go yellow (not even green but yellow) they start to sound their horns. For me that's one of the most annoying things. And I'm not even mentioning traffic jams. But now I just listen to some "Björk" at volume level 15 and all those nasty sounds just disappear.

[Liz]

We have regular accidents in Toronto when ambulances, fire trucks and police cruisers are rammed by people whose car stereos are so loud that they can't hear the sirens.

This is a very dangerous habit, to so surround yourself with your own little environment that you can't tell when the end of the world is coming up behind you.

[Airhead]

"This is a very dangerous habit, to so surround yourself with your own little environment that you can't tell when the end of the world is coming up behind you."

Exactly..

Plus apart from the safety angle, you are in the car to drive the thing and experience the pleasure involved in doing so. Because most people see it as a right to drive, a right that they do not equate with the attainment of skill, vehicles are made to pander to their lack of skills. With ABS, power steer, traction control and automatic gear boxes. Basically, all those cars are being made to keep the less skilled off motorcycles. These people don't need to be distracted they need all their faculties for the job at hand. So it saddens me that the selling point for a new car is the capacity of the CD Stacker. What is the world coming to?

For me their is no better feeling than being part of the scenery and not watching it pass TV-like through the front windscreen while listening to loud music. Why sanitize everything?

[mtpanorama]

The car stereo isnt that important to me. I actually prefer the sound of the 2 1/2" sports exhaust system on my XR6, especially around town where you can get some good throaty roars and backfires and burbles. It makes the pedestrians have another look.
My stereo is as it came from the factory in 1993, all i have done is added a 10 stack cd player for those long drives when you run out of radio range or when you feel like listening to a whole cd and not just the one song on the radio.

[DAVID PATERSON]

I've never added or upgraded a car stereo, in fact in quite a few cars I've owned over the years, i've actually removed the radio! If you can't hear it over the engine/tyres, then it's just dead weight. As my engineer friend frequently tells me, weight reduction is 'free power.'

I think the standard factory radio in most new cars is quite sufficient, and very loud music when you're driving is BLOODY DANGEROUS!!!

[marcus]

Im with the NO posters on this one...I barely turn my radio on..mainly only on long trips i enjoy listening to a tape or two ..but around town ..No way ..in fact the only thing i have listened to in the last 3 months is the cricket as Im driving to work and thats not very loud.

I prefer to hear the sounds the car is making..the engine,tyres squelling around corners and brakes locking up entering a roundabout

its simply a safety thing for me..I like to hear whats going on around me ...god knows there are enough idiots out on the roads these days so if i have a slight advantage of hearing them coming it just may save my life.

AND WHAT THE HECK IS IT WITH BASS ANYWAY..IT MAKES MY STOMACH HURT !!!!!

turn it down folks !!

[Craig]

oooh... what a load of boring old farts

[Bluebottle]

Craig, thats the best description of the sound of big bass systems I've heard!!!!!

The big bass systems are not for those in the car but to attract the attention of people on the outside- there is often more bass outide the car than inside! I'm no expert in accoustics, but I know that on stage I have to stand some distance from my bass amp to hear any low end- I don't think the average car has enough room in it for low frequency wavelengths to form!

[MichaelC]

Im with TimD on this one.

My Stereo should be able to cope with anything ranging from Vanessa Mae, through BB King, Eric Calpton and Shania Twain all the way to Aerosmith. It should not wake up people in their houses when I drive past.

All those named Kevin, repeat after me:
1. I will not buy a clapped out Nova or Escort Van worth about 30 quid.
2. I will not rip out the rear seats and replace them with a bass box and 48 million speakers.
3. I will not drive through the middle of town in the middle of the night at 100+ mph with my stereo on full volume, attempting to attract the attention of a young female who seems to have confused her skirt with her belt.
4. I will save the 30 quid I spent on the car and the four grand I spent on the sound system, and a decent car in the first place.
5. I will not overtake in a 30 zone because you're going 30 and it's not fast enough for me. Contary to popular belief, speed limits are not just advisory.

Bitter, moi?? Never. Someone pass me a Tetleys...

[Neil C]

When it's fahrfignugen I'm after, I'm with you AMoffat, nothing better than a motorbike and the sound of your own humming reverberating inside your brain bucket.

But on a daily commute, you'll catch me conducting a Beethoven symphony, singing a duet with Dwight Yoakam, or low-riding with Miles Davis.

I just bought a new car. Didnt buy the door rattler stero, but paid a few cents more for a few more watts and capable speakers.

Besides, when the car gets old, it's useful to help you ignore the sounds of worn mainbearings and rattling wheel bearings!

[Bluebottle]

"You call them bass speakers?- Nah mate, stick one of these in yer old Escort van, this is a real bass bin......"

[Sharky]

IK know the "bass type" drivers. They just want to get some attention but I really look for fidelity on my sound system rather than power.

The Renault 4 I talked about in the first post had a bass thingy like the one bluebottle posted and the guy had that thing at full volume and although we were on an "open enviroment" it felt as if we were on disco because that thing sounded extremely loud.

I recall finding a page once about a Twingo with a ridiculous car audio system. The guy said that he had to change the windows with others that are like those on armored cars because the stereo was so powerful that it would just break regular windows.

I also saw on an exhibition a Mazda Protegé with an audio system that was worth over 2000 dollars.

[Lorna]

When I was 19 and had my first car (Ford Fiesta 1300 Sports) I wanted a loud stereo in my car but then I grew up. I have a stereo that plays CDs, audio cassettes and picks up radio stations. I love listening to music when I am in the car - especially when I am travelling 30 miles to see my family but that's it. My stereo is for the benefit of me and not for every person walking down the street. Loud stereos are not necessary in the car.

[Dino IV]

Yeah I agree with the no-boomers here, but I like some good music at times as well and some music needs to be played loud. Always keep the noise low enough so I can still hear engine and tires, especially when there is some pedal-to-the-metal involved - so I hardly play it loud.

My stereo actually is TWICE more expensive than my car!
But that has less to do with the astronomical sound equipment, as more with the little I paid for the thing: $100 for a '88 Subaru Justy 1.2!
I started graduating 5 months ago at a company in a town 60 km from home so I needed transportation and fast. I own a BMW 2002 Touring but I'd taken it apart completely so out of the question. I looked around, found that car, nagged a bit and got it for 100 bucks. Ok ok, I replaced the tyres, hand brake line, front rotors\pads and some hoses for about three times that but nonetheless a great little 70hp\700kg car doing 5 l\100km or in my case 10 l\100km . But no stereo ...

I looked around for a few weeks, got some information for the best deals and bought a JVC 4x50W CD-player, two JBL 80W 8" oval speakers that fitted in place of the 4W ( ) standard ones in the dash and a great set of 20 cm 180W Pioneers in the (how do you call it?) behind-the-back-seats-plank. The set of those 4 realy good speakers I bought for $80. Together with the $120 CD player that makes $200, twice as much as I paid for the car.

[bella]

i don't have much say i the matter - the car's not mine. may as well be, the amount of petrol i put in it...

anyway. my stereo's a little philip'stape player with two factory issue speakers. it's like wiring a kid's tape walkman up to a set of headphones. the car laughed hysterically at me when i asked it to play fatboy slim through a cd player.

music helps my brain concentrate on the road. if i'm only looking at the road, my mind starts to thin, and that's dangerous.

my mum, however, has a little suzuki jeep that has a stereo worth more than the car.

so yes!! stereos do count. 'cept if you're a barry driving around in a shed with a dustbin for an exhaust pipe and a 1.2 litre engine with a stereo that weighs more than the car.

that's just silly.

[EERO]

Crikey, I feel like I just walked into a party and there's something unpleasant stuck to my shoes.

Now the disclaimer: I was JOKING.

Of course there is some music that merits being played loud, but as marcus has said, I like to hear what's going on around me.

[Sparky]

OK, confession time.

Until recently (late '99), I WAS a bass-head in a hatchback.
My general excuse was that it was a showcase for the kind of work I was doing at the time, part of which was designing and constructing speaker enclosures and bass-boxes. The sad little nuggets that float around town every night in their rattling econo-boxes are, surprisingly, not afraid of spending a penny or three on stereo equipment and paying someone to throw it... sorry, expertly install it into their twerp-mobiles.

I had a total of 1600 watts, (powering 14 speakers from four 400 watt amplifiers) a Kenwood head unit, 10 disc CD multiplayer, 22-band graphic equaliser, Isobaric sub-woofer chambers, custom 'stealth-shelf' rear panel, (constructed from MDF and trimmed to look like a factory rear shelf, but substantial enough to support four 8inch bass speakers, and hide the equipment from prying eyes) seperate split charger system, (to compensate for current loss through amp use) oxygen free phono cables, gold-plated connectors, etc, etc.
I used it primarily as a rolling advert, but also to play music at reasonable levels.

All in, if I'd bought that lot new, I would have been looking at a bill for £3500 to £4000. Instead, I'd trade and work for components and fit it all myself.

I totally agree that driving with the volume so high you can't even tell if your car is running, let alone being followed by emergency service vehicles, is criminally stupid. But there is a lot to be said for the quality aspect. A multi-faceted system can be set exactly to the listeners tastes, without being pushed to its limits. You don't have to turn it up to max Q volume to appreciate it. Much like having a car that will do 170mph, and using it around town, the quality and power can still be appreciated.
I'm not defending the morons with no hearing, but I know that a 'high-power' stereo system can offer so much more than volume.

[Bluebottle]

I should point out here that the pic I posted is a long throw sub-bass speaker for arena size sound systems, my former employer had about 20 of these in there rental stock- I think they can handle 1000 watts r.m.s. each, and they turn lots of that into sound!

I'm straying from the point a bit....

Oh, and it's an E.A.W. S.B.1000e.

Isn't that interesting?


er..

I'll get my coat.....