ok. im huge on music... for example, my limewire has 8gigs of songs on it

so... im looking to replace my $25 pioneer for something real highend once im on top of things again... so what do you guys recommend?

i personally like infinity and bose... but have always owned larger cars, such as a chevy express hightop conversion, chevy lumina and a 79 cadilac fleetwood

what do you guys like best in your birds?

I LOVE music as well...can't go without it. Bose is awesome but i personally love Alpine's products. The setup in my car currently is this: Kenwood headunit (top of the line model as usual haha) along with a kenwood iPod hook up running along the inside of the console to the glovebox where my ipod sits. Then i've got 2 Infiniti Kappa's with the tweeters up front in the doors, I've got OEM replacement sail paner subs and stock speakers in the rear. My old 95 Vert had an Alpine headunit and speakers all around.

I'm thinking about going back and replacing my head unit with a stock Monsoon system, since they crank out way more watts (500), the only reason i replaced mine was because the CD player stopped working. I would do it right now, the only thing is that i LOVE my ipod hook up and that's all i ever listen to on there. If i can find a way to hook it up to the stock monsoon head unit, i'll do that (then i can also get my steering wheel controls back again!)

This is what i may replace my kenwood with since it's getting to be a bit old and buggy now:
It works perfect for me cause i love using my iPod thru my stereo
http://www.alpine-usa.com/US-en/products/p...?model=iDA-X100

Since you are into your Ipod so much, I would have to recommend the new Sony headunits. I purchased the top end with the Ipod direct plug and I love it. They are very good for the money, and the mp3 browse feature is awesome.

i definitely need something with a mp3 jack. i hate the radio... and im more into "good sound" if you know what i mean. i hat people around town who turn the bass and treble all the way up in their stock civics and think theyre cool... id rather have a mild stereo and beautiful sound than a defining stereo and shotty quality.

ive been looking at stereos all over the place and i think for speakers imma go with the kappa 6x9 3-way loud speaker (model KAPPA693.9I) and just stuff as many as i can fit into the car

subs imma go wit the basslink t (model BASSLINK T ) and keep it right behind the back seats in the window

and for a head unit im really feelin alpines cda-9885.


btw, i havnt bothered myself to look into whether this will fit in the car.. or if theyre even compatible with one another.. im just goin by individual stats right now...

the alpines cda-9885 is an EXCELLENT stereo. I've heard so many great reviews about that one. Does your car have the Monsoon sound system? Reason i ask is because they did some funky work with the monsoon system's speakers. The door speakers run on 2 ohms impedance and MOST aftermarket speakers are 4 ohms...meaning if you put those 4 ohm speakers in your car, the power going to each one is going to be cut in half...so it wont sound as good. Really there is only a small selection of speakers that will work, and the ones that i have to recommend are the Infinity 6022i speakers. I've got them in my car and they sound VERY nice. Not bad price-wise either. But yeah, when you shop around for speakers make sure to take that into consideration, because many people are unaware of that.

yeah.. i read about the 2ohm monsoon stuff somewhere else on here... but i dont have that so im all set

personally i prefer anything kenwood. the excelon head units are pretty neat. also...check whatever head unit you choose's volt pre-out. especially if you have monsoon. excelon units typically have a setting to turn off the internal amplifier for clarity when used with an external amplifier. the excelon units typically show what rms they run instead of peak power as well.

I love Kenwood, i had a Kenwood Exeleron Headunit for about 4 years. It still works great, and it has the ipod hookup and everything. I just got a new Alpine CDA-9886 for Christmas this year, and it's amazing. I still love the Kenwood tough, it even has a motorized faceplate where you can adjust the angle it sits at. It's a nice system. 4 years old and still even better than most new units.

only problem i've found with the older ones is the wma format problem. they never wanna use mp3 cds. too many different file types anymore. pita is all any of them tend to be for any music pirates

btw...just a personal opinion. but if given the opportunity, pick a head unit with a usb hook up and/or an auxilary hook up. Ipods and jump drives hold a little more music than a cd and take up a little less space. oh and portable

THis is an old thread, but thought I would put my two cents worth into it and maybe somebody could volunteer a better way to transfer music to an iPod than what I'm currently doing.

I too like a "mild" car stereo, but built with quality stuff. I don't turn the treble and bass all the way up on my OEM Civic system like some have mentioned. I, too, like using an iPod connected into the factory system, but only becuz it is so convenient to use. However, at first was really put off by the lousy quality of the music and almost tossed the thing into the trash (stupid iPod!). Then discovered transferring a CD by Lossless Wave File, then into iTunes and then into the iPod Nano. Eight Gigs allows only 13 CDs, but the sound quality is really good. If someone has a better way to transfer lossless music files, please publish the details.

For you guys that like to build your own stuff, and several of you do....here's something interesting. Am currently having built a set of custom home speakers. Now, these are not just ordinary speakers. These suckers are gonna flat rock! The woofers will be 8 inch Klipsch Reference series (direct from Klipsch and they are only doing this, becuz I have these woofers already). The custom crossovers will use Auricaps and Jantzen copper foil ribbon chokes, etc., and the tweeters will be something really special--RAAL 140-15D ribbon tweeters (Frequency response is 1,400 to 120,000 Hz!). These tweeters aren't for everyone and the price assures that, but the sound is supposed to be spectacular. Used in a car audio system, the crossover components, the woofer and the tweeters alone will put to shame anything commercially available at this time, and I will give a full report on what these things sound like when they arrive in about 2 or 3 months. Incidently, these speakers will be available for sale by the company at a later date--mine will be #0001 and #0002 (prototypes) and will be called the KR-1 (Freq response will be better than <40-120,000 Hz, efficiency better than 95 dB at one watt/meter), weight--about 40 lbs. At first we played around with silver ribbon chokes, but after finding that there wasn't much of a difference in sound and the $800 price (that's each and 4 are required!) made me rethink that one.

I think that these components are directly transferable to a car audio environment. Driver quality, particularly tweeters and crossovers is hardly ever addressed, even by the best car audio stuff...except for woofers, and car audio definitely has home audio beat there.

My 98 T/A is everything JL audio except for my panasonic headunit which os course has the ipod attachment in the glove box and all that fancy stuff, very convenient. had all the speakers and tweeters replaced to JL and i have a JL audio W3 10" sub in the back but thx to our cars shape and the hatchback it creates the "bullhorn effect" yell something then cup your hands around your mouth and do it again... much louder huh, sounds like i got a couple 12's back there and it's very crisp and nice even the bass hits very crisp i love it but very pricey about $1800 for everything. that doesnt include labor lol.

You sir, must have the JL audio stealthbox in your hatch. What amp are you running?

Yeah, the JL Audio stuff is really, really good and expensive. I wondered about that horn effect coming out of the hatch area. Looked to me that is what would happen, but never bought the Stealth box as had to sell the car before moving to Japan. Wanted one, though.

What I did about six months before selling the car was line everything with Dynamat and Tsunami Mat. The hump in the rear got two layers, lined the entire trunk area, both doors including the inside door skin and the door upholstery, built boxes for the door speakers and lined the sail panels where the woofers were. Also, lined the rear speaker plastic thingies--that helped a bunch. Didn't get to the floor or the firewall, but did buy a sheet of the corrugated foam that people put on top of their mattresses and stuffed big wads of it everywhere that Dynamat couldn't be stuffed into. It made a HUGE!! difference in the way the stereo sounded. Enormous! The car got quiet inside and the lack of panel vibration really made the speakers come alive. I seriously recommend this to anyone contemplating any kind of change to their stereo systems and even for those who want to keep the system stock--it improves everything.

Yeah I have the JL Audio G1700 Class D Mono Subwoofer Amplifier right now but I'm gonna be going back to the audio shop here in the next week or two and I'm gonna have a W6 installed with a larger amp, was gonna go for a W7 but it wont fit in the stealth box BOO and I'm not changing anything or taking up any space want to keep it stcok looking and fully functional. oh and thats a good idea to dynomat and everything my friend said I shouldnt lol siad wouldnt be worth it but he has an Expedition so he's into a different mindset? lol. Gonna have to do do that myself cuz it's already loud with just the W3 and very very crisp and hard hitting so can only imagine if i did that.