Car Audio - The missing link in music forums...

I'm still one of the car stereo holdouts from when I was younger, I'll never forget getting hooked when a guy I worked with sold me a pair of A/D/S components....they retailed for around $600 back in the early nineties....I've yet to hear any components that surpass those, although some have come close. I've always wanted to do a high end system in the car, my current system consists of an Audison Bit 10 processor, a McIntosh 6 channel amplifier and a mono Alpine PDX amplifier. For the front and rears I bought some Focal Utopia Bes to pair with a JL 12 W 6. It sounds amazing, especially for a car stereo.

 

Fair enough. Enjoy your evening.

 

Wow, nice setup! My Focal and JL are a step down from yours.

 

Stunning workmanship!

 

I had some fun recently installing a mix of vintage and new SQ gear into a 1985 Porsche 928. It's not quiet by today's standards, but it's the Mercedes of classic Porsches. I decided that a new head unit (disco dash) would not suit the car, so I went with a vintage rebuilt Alpine CD, new Focal separates up front, Audiofrog coaxials in the rear, a little Fosgate PBR amp, and a powered JL Audio sub. Sounds really good, and looks essentially like what I might have done if I had bought that car in 1985 (of course I was only 16 then...).

Prime Photos

 

WTF? Is that an Alpine 7909 in your dash? That was a great head unit!

 

I'd rather upgrade the turbo in my car then put in a better stereo.

 

Haha, mine is turbo 4, but sounds like deasel. Fortunately I have better stereo.

 

Must be the lone wolf here. Have a decent sound system in my car but rarely turn it on. Find it rather peaceful to drive with total quiet and be able to observe surroundings without a lot of noise going on

 

I'd rather have a supercharger and a surround system.

 

You must have nice car. With the road conditions in my area, totally turn off audio would make the road noise too obvious. Turning on my stereo, I hear nice clean music and the annoying road noise is mostly gone.

 

It's actually a 7909J (Japanese market unit). Completely rebuilt with the stations reprogrammed for the US. It also runs a Bluetooth connection through the CD Changer function for phone and wireless iPhone music. Sounds amazing!

I added some additional photos to the album

 

Is that the Bang & Olufsen or Bose system in the SQ5?

I ended up with B&O in my A7, and I have enjoyed music listening in the car more than ever (though sometimes I just want to hear nothing but the sweet noises made by the engine, and I'd bet you do too ) . I know a lot of purists around here have negative thoughts about digital signal processing, but with this system it's obvious that it is used to good effect to mitigate the poor acoustics inherent in a vehicle (though it also helps that Audi does a great job with noise insulation).

 

i have the optional Canton system in my 2015 Skoda Octavia.
way better that the stock system, but in my opinion it's still lacking in the dynamics department

 

If possible, put something like dynamat on your doors. It will clean up distortion and may improve dynamics.
But, if what you want is strong bass kick, I am afraid only a good trunk sub with good amp would do that for you.

 

That's funny, I'd rather upgrade the stereo in my car then to put in a Turbo...

 

My cars don't portray a soundstage as well as my big rig, but if I put my head in the right spot they do surprisingly well. The Levinson system in the Lexus does have a 5.1 system with a center speaker which anchors the center. It sounds amazing for mono recordings but lacks the three dimensionality that I hear on the big rig.

I wouldn't say I do critical listening in the cars but I will admit that some things actually sound better in the car than on the big rig. I have basically the same sources on the car systems as on the big rig in that they both run JRiver through external dacs, thought granted the mobile dac's don't compare to the Grace Designs m905 I use on the big rig.

It is awesome to have all my music, including all the hi-res, available in the cars and I actually was doing more listening in the cars than in the house. I can't drive for a few months, so that's not happening at the moment, but I've been known to sit in the cars while parked in the garage just to listen to music.

I should mention that I bought both of my current vehicles because of the quality of the sound systems. In fact I bought my two houses because they had suitable sound rooms. That was my primary concern much to the amazement of my real estate agents and car sales people.

 

I'm gathering parts for a pair of 10" subs for an 08 Infiniti G37 Coupe that I bought myself for a retirement present. The car's got the Blose system in it so adding the subs is going to be an adventure. The Blose outputs a balanced preamp signal so AudioControl line drivers will be involved to convert the preamp signal to unbalanced for my Alpine MRX-M100 mono amp. I've got a bespoke sealed box made just for the G37 Coupe but it only has 0.5 cu ft of space per chamber. I got a pair of Dayton RSS265HO-44 10" subs that will work in a 0.51 cu ft space sealed. I wanted to use a single 12" but I couldn't get a box small enough to fit in the tiny trunk and still have a usable trunk. The custom box slides in the trunk up against the rear seat back and fits perfectly, but 10's are the biggest size speaker that can be used in it. I'm going to leave the HU and the rest of the oem Bose system alone and just add the subs and their amp to it. This things got super shallow 10" woofers in the doors. Replacing them would be a gigantic PITA. Actually the oem system doesn't sound that bad, it just doesn't have any low end.

 

I have a friend that is in the process of buying a house. His first priority is for the house to have a room good for music. If no good room, the house is out of consideration.

 

i would not hesitate to invest some money for improvements, but i can't find a shop catering to "audiophile" customers.

 

Yeah, you might need to learn to do the dynamat thing yourself and order it from other countries. I visited online web sites for advise and did the dynamat myself. Not that tough, but not that easy either.

The trunk sub and amp part, I did let audio shop install the amp for me. So, you might want to learn that too and order parts from out of country.

BTW, I will be visiting Austria for a couple of days this summer. Most likely to the famous Hallstatt area.

 

Yep. This was the case for me with both houses. The rest of the house was not so consequential. The agents both thought that I was nuts and couldn't understand how I could tell a suitable room just by looking at it.

Car dealers were pretty amazed as well. I tried Mercedes, Infinity, BMW, Lexus, Lincolns and a few other luxury bands and it was very strange. Some of the dealers wanted to stay in the car with me when I played my music and that was far too intimidating. One of the dealers wouldn't let me play my music telling me that their Bose 5.1 demo was the best way to tell. LOL. When I told him 99% of my listening was to be 2 channel he started to lecture me about how I was behind the times.

 

Yup, my next house will need to have a great room for music too. Currently I am compromising as best as I can.
For car, it is getting harder to customize. I may need to listen to all different brands like you did. Or, select a brand or model that still allow some modifications without spending too much time and money.

 

Bang & Olufsen

 

I have the B&O system in the A5 cabriolet and it rides surprisingly quiet for a ragtop. Had a long drive today, with the Tull SFTW 5.1 mix cranked up.