A Crutchfield catalog came in my mail...

nathanm · « **on:** 11 Jan 2003, 09:25 pm »

Things look mighty grim for car audio my friends...I've never seen so many ugly faceplates in all my days. Who here (vendors, namely) has the courage and fortitude to fight this evil? Who will step up to the plate and stand steadfast against the tide of meaningless glitz and tacky feature creep? Who will raise the battle cry for simple controls and build quality?

Are there no audiophiles among you who want a MAN'S car stereo? Will we forever be at the mercy of the tastes of high school boys and THD-lovin' SPL competion lackeys?! To this I say NAY!!!

Who has the power to turn these pixels you see before you into reality? I issue a challenge to any and all manufacturers of electronic sound-reproduction equipment on this board or elsewhere to rise to the challenge of making an AUDIOPHILE-GRADE CAR STEREO RECEIVER. Give us ONE alternative in this sea of multi-colored flashing nightmares! Shall we never leave the comfort of our couches and chairs? Shall we never enter our vehicles, our sanctuaries of privite listening, and feel the touch of hot STEEL KNOBS under our fingers?! I hope I live to see the day when one brave soul will rise from the filth and say to the unwashed masses: ENOUGH!!!

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #1 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 12:54 am »

Amen, brother. Why do they all look like Aiwa boomboxes? Christ, some of em are so bright you have to drape something over them at night so you can see to drive.

I'd like to see them ditch the goofy-ass eq modes, flashing lights, faux analyzers, and row upon row of identicl lighted keys in favor of a restrained LCD panel and some knobs.

Ironically, it seems that the more you spend the worse the situation gets.

rosconey · « **Reply #2 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 01:20 am »

remember the 80's panasonic super tuner with the big round dial, one of those that has cd and lfe. that thing would pick up stations no other reciever could.

would this be able to pick up satellite radio also

Brad · « **Reply #3 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 03:03 am »

Check out the McIntosh MX406

www.mcintoshlabs.com

I agree about the stupid proliferation of flashing lights on most car decks.
Keep it simple and focus on the sound.

One other brand with a nice clean look is Nakamichi.

http://www.nakamichi.com/auto/cdplayers/cd_700specs.htm

Mathew_M · « **Reply #4 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 03:47 am »

more reason why this board is completely stupid. Where the hell is that runt Castaway Wilson. He wanted to start this board and then surprisingly

disapears.

I agree that I wouldn't drop a dime on this crap. My Craig POS that I bought at Circuit City for 50 bucks ten years ago is still going strong.

Mathew_M · « **Reply #5 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 03:47 am »

more reason why this board is completely stupid. Where the hell is that runt Castaway Wilson. He wanted to start this board and then surprisingly

disapears.

I agree that I wouldn't drop a dime on this crap. My Craig POS that I bought at Circuit City for 50 bucks ten years ago is still going strong.

nathanm · « **Reply #6 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 03:49 am »

Yes indeed, I had seen the MX406 before and thought it was about the only car stereo thing in the world I would even give a second of thought to buying. But if I am not mistaken that sucker alone is like 2 grand (and you still need a freaking amp!). I contacted them a couple years ago and they were supposedly sending me a brochure on it, but I never got it. But anyway, I don't think you should have to spend a fortune to get a clean front panel. It's the industrial design that I have an issue with, not necessarily sound quality or internal circuit designs per se.

My design assumes the amp is integrated into the main box. Not that you couldn't use an external one, but personally I don't feel like messing around with that. My amp also would do away with those goddamn nonsensical proprietary stupid ass all-in one connectors. Mine would have insulated binding posts so that if need be, you could just strip the damn wires and tighten them down. What's with this crap about looking through some database to find the right whatchamacallit that works with your vehicle? It's nonsense. My design would be 100% No Bullshit.

Andrew Lamb · « **Reply #7 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 05:59 am »

If you are looking for a good quality audiophile pre-amp for your car, then look no further than the Denon DCTZ1.

Unfortunately, it is only available in Japan, although many North American dealers bring it in, the only information is on Denon's Japanese site.

http://denon.jp/products/DCTZ1.html

24 bit Burr Browns throughout and a gorgeous (you really have to see/touch it in person) faceplate.

You can pick them up for around $3500.00

Andrew Lamb · « **Reply #8 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 06:10 am »

Also, we must bear in mind that the general market for car audio caters to the same consumer as the flashy all in one HT in a box systems do.

Mainly late teens through to late 20's who are looking for flashy shiny stuff to impress their friends with.

The market for high end car audiophile equipment is pretty slim, as you can agree that it is less than the ideal place to put something good sounding where you would like to sit for hours on end to enjoy.

Also I for one am in favour of a much simpler way then butt connecting a harness into a radio, but for the practical reasons that there is already a harness there, and the issue of room to put decent connectors there, I don't see that changing in the near future.

Just my humble observations.

bubba966 · « **Reply #9 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 06:11 am »

Whoever's charging $3,500 for the Denon is making some serious cheese. The listed retail on the link you provided comes to about $2,350.

It does look mighty nice though...

Jay S · « **Reply #10 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 08:41 am »

I can't stand the look of most aftermarket car stereos now. Way too flashy. For this reason, I'd prefer to stick with the factory head unit and put in better stand alone amps and speakers.

Brad · « **Reply #11 on:** 12 Jan 2003, 04:22 pm »

Most factory cd players use the cheapest single bit d/a converters possible (and speakers for that matter

).

The McIntosh can be had for down about a grand now. Separating the amp(s) is a terrific idea - would you buy an all-on-one unit for the house and expect it to sound decent?. No proprietary cables - just your standard RCA's (albeit with a 12v trigger lead running down the middle)
The "whatchamacallit" is to tie the head unit into the rest of the car (power, ground, dimmer, speaker cables that are already run, etc).

The Nakamichi's I listed, except for the top of the line, all have conservative styling, and decent d/a's, and are priced reasonably. The top one is pretty 'spensive.

Denon used to make excellent car gear, but pulled out of the US market a few years ago.

ZooDog · « **Reply #12 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 04:11 am »

I was given a Kenwood head-unit for X-mas that I am having installed in my car next week. Yes, it has all the graphics and shit but I will deal with it because it was free. That Mac unit is really cool but I have heard that the Nakamichi can be a little unreliable. Some of the older Alpine's like the 7909 are decent looking and are supposed to sound great.

You have to look at situation in car audio from a marketing perspective. If your comany's head unit is going to be stuck into a wall in Circuit City with units from 6 other manufacturers of course you are going to want it to stand out from the crowd. Thus, you have all the eye-catching graphics and lights and buttons and stuff.

Brad · « **Reply #13 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 12:30 pm »

Face it though - if Circuit City is selling your gear, it's most likely crappy sounding anyway

I understand the motivation for the flashing lights to make it stand out - but I don't think that's what any of us here are focused on. I don't remember too many debates on the home audio side about which Circuit City receiver to get.

Maybe we could get Shanling to make a car audio player....

ZooDog · « **Reply #14 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 02:54 pm »

It would be nice to see a couple of higher-end manufacturers get into the car audio game. I think companies like Adcom, Parasound, and Rotel would be good candidates.

I don't think car audio will ever achieve the degree of fidelity that is possible with home audio but that is not the point for me. I like to have music wherever I go, and it doesn't have to be perfectly reproduced for me to enjoy it. I even like listening to MP3's on my Rio portable. I can't stand it when some people act like it is going to kill them if they have to listen to music on anything but a high-end system, it's such bs.

Brad · « **Reply #15 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 03:02 pm »

Adcom does make car amps - just not head units.
(Whoops - looks like they discontinued the car amps - never mind

)

I agree to some extent about enjoying music however you can get it, but some of the boom/sizzle systems pushed by CC or BB get fatiguing in about 10 seconds.

I spend a lot of time listening at work to a Tivoli Audio Model One table radio. It's mono, but has a terrific sound - and it's $99.
It's even got audio in, so I can pipe MP3s from my computer into it.

nathanm · « **Reply #16 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 04:06 pm »

I agree with what you guys are saying, but just for the record, my personal crusade is driven more by the user interface than the sound. It's not that I think 3rd party stuff doesn't sound "hifi" enough, but rather it's those awful front panels which seemingly have absolutely no thought whatsoever given to the fact that people are driving when they are using them. You shouldn't have to look down to adjust the stereo. Accidents can happen that way. The controls need to have a tactile feel. You should be able to adjust the volume and skip tracks with one hand, not even looking at the thing.

The factory stereos are usually better than the aftermarket ones. Occasionally you may even be blessed with a volume knob. The reason I brought this up is because my own factory stereo's tape deck ceased to function and so I started thinking about replacing it. That's when I realized that car stereos had gone off the deep end. Not even children's toys are this kooky-looking! Why are they putting these ridiculous graphics on there? Who is supposed to enjoy this? The driver? I think not! If I'm not mistaken some of these things have DVD players and miniature screens on them so you can watch a movie!? That's ludicrous to me.

The entire market seems to have gone SO FAR into this extreme schmaltz direction that I find it unbelievable that nobody from the other side is trying to pull back. That's why I think we need to see what the audiophile companies can come up with. As I said, I'm not trying to achieve "pinpoint imaging" or any other hifi jargon you can think of, I'm just trying to get someone to build a PRACTICAL stereo for people a little bit more refined than those who think dancing red spectrum analyzers and a million LCD labels are really cool, dude. I think IRD would also be a good canidate. Their new preamps have the look I'm kinda thinking of. That and I am impressed with how cool the LeAmps run.

If I had ANY electronics skills I'd build my own, but unfortunately I don't. I don't wanna spend 2 grand for some kind of esoteric high end thing with a set of 300B triodes in it, I just want something that plays music, is easy to use, and is well-made. As I see it that is not available in the current offerings out there.

Brad · « **Reply #17 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 04:57 pm »

Great idea.

I bet IRD could come up with a very clean front panel.
I think the only issue would be integrating a tuner into it.
Basic LLC with a 25wpc or so amp built in (and preamp outs for those who want them) and a decent cd player.

BTW, is anyone really making a car deck with 300b tubes?
That would be a very limited market - and

I think I'd be interested....

rosconey · « **Reply #18 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 05:21 pm »

my 62 dodge polara still has a tube radio , and it works.

used to run a fm converter from it -remember those.
when i finaly finish my system its back to restoring it.

Brad · « **Reply #19 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 07:18 pm »

I've got 2 AM only tube radios for my '56 GMC.
One works and is in good condition - the other is for parts.

It's not S.E.T. though