In Car Entertainment!

[JSW]

Originally posted by sofaboy
I dont think that cd will go out of fashion for in car..but i think new sound systems will come out... like DD 5.1 or DTS....

so you have the quality and the volume....
only what I think....

Check the Clarion link in my post above, lots of Dolby stuff from them.

[ReTrO]

We've got a Clarion DAB/MD head unit in our Mercedes van at work. It would be nice if it had a CD changer on it, but I don't think it'd get used much as the DAB radio is brilliant.

The bad thing is when Clarion have no DAB tuners for demo in mags and keep asking to borrow it!

(We have an in car dept at work so we also have a nice GPS sat nav system.)

[stevemoss]

to answer your question on incar formats all I can say is I work in a car hifi shop and we only stock about 3 cassette decks these days everything else is pretty much CD tuners or multiplayers - mp3 CD tuners are taking off alot more this year (we had only one last year - a kenwood one ) but this year we have them from Alpine,Sony,Pioneer & Kenwood - all you do is burn a CD with your mp3 files then choose the folder on the disc that contains the album you want to listen to - Sony have released a unit that comes with an external 8GB hard drive & is also memory stick compatable as well - all you do is stick your CD into the head unit as usual and it gets recorded onto the hard drive as you listen to it - It'll store 134 hours worth of music - thought it costs £1499.99 - I believe Pioneer have something like this to but I've not seen it yet - hope this helps

[Fartpants]

I have an mStation MP3 box linked to a Panasonic head unit. I upgraded the hard drive to 80Gb and now have just over 18,000 tracks on it.

You can play random within folders, or across the whole disc, so I can do random artist, or music type, or get really dangerous and do a random on everything.

I hope the Macc Ladds don't come on if I'm giving the vicar a lift!

Whoops nearly forgot, I got a home docking station, so I can play em indoors as well!

[Bonesy]

(We have an in car dept at work so we also have a nice GPS sat nav system.)

and what a top dept it is! I'd use them for every install I have.

Food for thought: http://www.In-CarMP3.com

[Networkguy]

Originally posted by sofaboy
I dont think that cd will go out of fashion for in car..but i think new sound systems will come out... like DD 5.1 or DTS....

so you have the quality and the volume....
only what I think....

Not sure on this one.

I have dolby pro logic in the car but I tend to switch it off as it does strange things with normal CD music.

I am not even sure if audio CDs are dolby encoded but either way it seems a bit odd.

[PJONG]

Well how about that, here's me just the other day, contemplating getting rid of the cassette-player and going to a CD unit and a new thread pops up. Already have a CD burner so makes sense to me.

Question is which unit go for?

Does anyone have any recommendations or links to review sites etc?

Cheers

Phil

[Networkguy]

Well if you go down the CD route, the head units can be bought for almost the same price as a tape unit these days so cost isn't an issue.

Even on the cheap head units, the sound quality is better as well.

Plus with a CD burner, you can mix your own CDs to suit what you want and more importantly, not have to leave your CD collection in the car for the low lifes to take.

Have a look into head units that can read CD/RW because then you can have many of the benefits of minidisc but with better sound quality and lower costs (and here is where the minidisc owners start claiming that MD is as good a quality as CD).

[Fartpants]

I've now upgraded my MP£ in car to 120GB, I now have over 19,000 tracks.

I am just about to order an upgrade from the states that will make they play speak what buttons I press and what tracks I select, so I will not need to look at either of the screens (1 on the bay one on the cabled remote) when changing tracks.

This will be helpfull when I use it on the docking bay indoors, as when I use the remote I will not have to read the smal display on the hard drive bay.

Cooler than a polar bears bottom

Dave

[buns]

Since this is an in car entertainment thread.....this seems like the place to ask my question!

I have heard enough supposedly fancy car systems that major on flashy lights and club like bassy sounds...... but this isnt my kind of thing! I dont spend fortunes on my hifi only to have my ears jumped upon by some over weight car stereo!

Soooooo......does anyone do proper car hifi? I heard dynaudio did in car speakers, i would imagine these to be a step above the run of the mill stuff. But what about the other bits? Can you get a cd player to rival a decent buget home deck? What about an amp.....i dont care if it kicks out 400w..... i want one that sounds good! Then what about more serious toys? A sub.....now car subs dont fill me with joy.....cheap pieces of crap in my view! Does no one make respectable active subs?

im just being nosey for future references!

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[ReTrO]

From the time I have spent at the car audio pertament at work I can tell you that JL make good subs, and sub amps.

I don't think active subs are common in cars, probably because it is easier to put all the amps in the same place.

Look at JL's W7 subwoofer driver, think it's around £600 ish, now that is good in-car bass.

Linn do an in-car speaker/amp system for Aston Martin. They use Komri drive units in it (the Komri is their £25k speaker), but from all acounts it is nothing special. B&W have done in-car before, but the only two i can think of that do them at the moment are Boston and Focal (JM Labs are their in home devision) both who do very good jobs.

[Networkguy]

Originally posted by buns
I heard dynaudio did in car speakers, i would imagine these to be a step above the run of the mill stuff.
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These are what came as factory fit in mine together with a couple of nice subs in the back and an Alpine head unit (although it doesn't have an Alpine badge on the front) and an external amp.

I was quite surprised as normally, when I buy a new car, the first thing that gets changed is the stereo but in this case, after 18 months, I still don't need to change.

Yes you can get better (as the others have said) but these days it is possible to get a good quality in car sound without pawning the cat.

[Bimbeemer]

http://www.caraudiodirect.com/forum/

Pretty damn good forum....just like this place, plus reviews of head units, speakers, subs etc.....

[TheDufster]

An MP3 player for the car sounds like the ideal solution for me, but they don't seem to be that common, just like hard-disk based systems for the home. I only know of two, SONY & YAMAHA.

I can't beleive that digital radio is not taking off in a big way. We should be seeing new cars with digital radios fitted. Medium Wave transmissions are a joke in this day and age.