Hooniverse Asks – What’s Your In-Car Entertainment Preference?
Whether Saturday morning (seriously, is there a better time than that in all creation?) canyon carving, with your ride’s exhaust note echoing off the hillsides and nothing between you and each curve’s apex than a flick of the wheel – OR a long trip with you or a navigator trolling the dial for the audio treasures that abound on local AM stations, your automotive audio entertainment is of paramount importance. Man, that was one long sentence.
I’m getting a package from Crutchfield (hopefully Friday) containing some new audio toys for my daily driver, and I’m getting excited about that. But what about you- what’s your go-to in-car entertainment selection? Are you a Loud Pipes Save Lives purist? Or are you an NPR/hip hop addict whose radio never cools down? Do you still use CDs – or even (gasp) cassettes? Whatever it is, we want to know what it is.
Image source: [mobilitypr.com]
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Ford was nice enough to include an AUX out in their factory head unit, designed for factory satellite radio. I utilized the port to hardwire an MP3 adapter.
The wife's Subaru was nice enough to come with a factory IPOD adapter but the head unit is NOT user friendly for navigating through the Ipod menus.
I wish I had a Becker Mexico.
People never dressed better than in old adverts.
<img src="http://www.strangevehicles.com/images/content/166603.jpg" width="530">
But I digress. One day I was at a red light and I decided to see if the radio works in my car. It did, I was impressed. It was illuminated even, but only AM. It's a great AM radio tough, tunes well and sounds very good compared to when I've tried to listen to the news in the minivan. But then the light turned green and I drove off, and soon I could not hear the radio again. 17 years ago someone did a pretty patchwork exhaust job. I like to say I listen to my car, but in truth I miss NPR. Don't tell anyone.
I frequent the classic rock stations and college radio when I'm at school. If I'm driving alone I like listening to jazz, reminds me of riding with my dad.
Any car I drive is at the mercy of the airwaves because the hearse is radio only / cassette delete and the Regal is so busted that the radio is the only audio that [barely] works. It came with stock with cassette and CD player but both have long since bit the dust.
"…If I'm driving alone I like listening to jazz, reminds me of riding with my dad. " Thanks for that. I had a similar experience growing up. Mix in a little Big Band and I am 10yrs old again.
My truck has the best head unit of all of my cars. It has an AUX input, iPod hookup and controls and also does HD radio. The stereo in the Metro however is made up of leftovers. The CD section of the head unit no longer works and the dash speakers were pirated from a Jetta while the speakers in the back I found in a Chrysler Sebring for $10 at the U pull it. My Cutlass has the most complete system of them all with a CD player, 2 10 inch subs, 5.25 in mids in the doors and tweeters in the dash and a set of 6×9's in the rear deck. All of that is powered by 800+ watts of Alpine amps. Sadly though, I can't actually afford to drive it as it gets 15 mpg on premium so all I use is the Metro with it's crummy sounding radio.
Currently, I am rocking 2 factory head units which split time between CBC 1 and Buffalo sports radio. I have been down the separate-but-parallel paths of FM modulators, both hard wired and over the air, but constantly finding interesting music/podcasts and uploading/deleting/managing them has soured me on that affair.
I am starting "Family Car Build Up" in the summer, and I am planning for a moderately awesome system based around an in-dash GPS/Bluetooth/touchscreen unit similar to:
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/GPS-Na…
Most of the time I'm strictly radio (102.1 The Edge, Toronto's generic new rock station) since nothing has to be turned off or changed. But I tend to keep my MP3 player (since there's a factory AUX jack) and cds (in the map pocket, visor, centre console, and Honda's beloved big bin in front of the shifter) in the car, always prepared in case the mood strikes me (or more likely, the Edge has come to a song so grating on my nerves, I can't listen to it anymore, especially knowing it'll be back in in an hour).
99.1 FM dude. Stick to it for about a week, and you'll never be able to turn on commercial radio again.
In my Impreza I just use my iPod through the AUX input, just running the stock exhaust so I`m not missing much. In my Chevelle it still has the stock AM radio with single speaker which works but is useless, unfortunalty its also running a straight 6 which doesnt provide much inspirational listening. My dads Camaro has chambered exhaust which is basically like factory glasspacks through a 350, quite possibly the best factory option ever leaving no need for music.
My car has to be one of the very last produced with a factory cassette player. Do you all remember tape adapters from the portable CD player days? Now the adapters cost $30! Totally worth it on a long drive, however.
For commuting, I listen to the local Jazz/NPR station. If I turn the radio off, I get worse fuel mileage as the loud pedal is just too tempting.
Mmm, VR6…
Maybe if it was produced after 2006. Up until then, Nissan Maximas still came with tape decks. Kind of strange to see a feature like that still included 15 years after CDs obliterated the 6 track tape market.
Back in October I looked at a new Mazda5. I commented that there used to be a spot where the tape deck went under the radio and now there was just a bit of plastic there. The salesman said they can order one and install it for me, covered under the factory warranty even. Also until I sold it last year I had VW Golf with the tape and CD probably similar to your VR6. I too used the tape adapter, mostly to listen to Car Talk.
Part of Mazda's Multi-somethingorother-Audio System. You can also get a minidisk player, or a 6-disk changer.
Yeah, my Protege 5 had the same slot and I remember reading the dealer brochure about that and wondered who would want a minidisc player.
My fiancee's 2006 Highlander Hybrid had a cassette deck.
For me, it's about the car, not the tunes. Other than a rear-seat DVD player, it has been about 30 years since I upgraded the audio in a car, except when filling a hole in the dash.
Depending on my mood, any one of the following:
The local college radio station (WWVU)
Mix cd's
Nothing but the sound of my car going about it's business and my own thoughts.
Local NPR affiliate. Which is funny, because I'm not anything like the stereotypical NPR listener.
same here…..its a dirty little secret!
In my daily driver I have a 4gig SD card with folders of MP3s that get played as per my mood. Out on the highway? Throw on my Highway folder starting with "Life's a Highway" by Tom Cochrine. Feeling aggressive? Fire up the Megahertz. In kind of a relaxed mood? Fire up the Braveheart soundtrack.
Blow off valve.
So that's what it's called when I'm screaming at the daily displays of idiocy & failed Darwinism on the streets of Seattle?
Entertaining & damaging to my blood pressure simultaneously.
The accelerator pedal.
On the commute to work and home I usually have NPR or a local high-school run dance station on. If my kids are in the car, they want kid music (Raffi, Laurie Berkner, Sesame Street, and so on.) We are running the stock sound system in both cars but both have really nice set ups with 6-disc in dash and a subwoofer.
I listen to all kinds of stuff, it will almost always pull crazy 180's depending on how long the drive is. Just yesterday for instance it went from Early Metallica, to the 70s stadium rock station, a brief stint of early 90s country and then I stuck Sublimes greatest hits in the CD player. That was just in an hour and a half of driving. Though occasionally I do turn off the stereo and listen to the 3L V6 Flowmastered Goodness that is the 1992 Ford Taurus
See Below…
[youtube DYrBTveWfhQ&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYrBTveWfhQ&feature=related youtube]
Weekdays it is the local news-talk station in the morning and that or NPR in the evening. Weekends skip around the various radio stations or maybe CDs. My car has a CD changer in the trunk, I'm not even sure what CDs are in it. On long trips the tape adapter and MP3 player come out.
In the truck it is the MP3 player and an ear bud, the in dash head unit is dead.
I listen to the radio, both AM AND FM. 550am KTSA for the traffic reports and the automotive show on the weekends is entertaining. The local talk shows are okay, as long as the topic of the day is a local issue or football, any other topic just degenerates into the "2-minute hate" very quickly.
On the FM side it's recently been mostly NPR and the local college station that plays some blues. I tried listening to the country stations for a few weeks, but they had the same problem as every other music station = they will play the same stuff over and over and over and over again until you're so sick of it that you go back to NPR – even if it means you have to listen to stories about how sexual discrimination affects left-handed ladlemakers in Zaire and that awful interlude music.
I used to listen to NPR on the way up to school and back… my favourite moment was when they announced their sponsors one afternoon and followed that up with a good twenty second loop (no lyrics) from the end of 'Deeez Nuuuts'.
Wind noise, exhaust note and, on a good day, tire squeal.
Both cars have aftermarket tape decks and four passable speakers. The 244's Panasonic has a line-in jack and a slight tendency to eat cassettes (which doesn't matter, since I just hook up my mp3 player); the 745's Pioneer I installed myself (since it came without a head unit) and just plays the several cassettes I keep in the car – Clapton's Slowhand and Unplugged, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (their eponymous album is somewhere, possibly in the other car), the Eagles' Hotel California, Aerosmith's greatest hits, and a few others. I've got the best of the Charlie Daniels Band, too, which in all honesty would have been better had they just looped "The Devil Went Down To Georgia".
Of course, both cars are also loud enough that music isn't always a practical option. The 244's under-axle pipe simply came out and needs to be reinstalled, while the 745 doesn't have anything behind the cat aside from about 2" of pipe. Both, however, sound glorious.
For short trips I content myself with glancing at the stationary hands on the long-dead clock, hoping to witness a miracle of self-repair, but for longer drives it's fun to watch the counters on the Aifab Gemini lurch into quasi-random positions as the heavily worn drive mechanism clicks in and out of engagement. Its 'reverse' and 'reset' buttons mostly function okay, so I can mix things up a bit. At least the genuine Hawk™ Mario Andretti racing tach works just fine– that's what really matters.
<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2698/4518141434_453279cf80.jpg" width="450">
That AIFAB decal looks amusingly like FUBAR.
Decal? Decal?!? I'll have you know, sir, that this isn't some sort of two-bit metal-cased Halda Twinmaster. No. That logo is an integral, raised part of the plastic casting, highlighted with paint.
That aside, you're right. It's fitting. Doesn't work worth a damn.
My most humble apologies. Also you've reminded me that I always wanted a Terratrip for my Rover, meaning more inappropriate spending could be on my horizon….
I have never owned an iPod, and my iPhone has no music on it. My commute is 10 mins in the morning and 20 mins in the afternoon, so during the week I don't have much need for in car entertainment. It's rare that I take road trips more than 3-4 hours, so the radio is sufficient in most cases.
In fact, when I go out of town, I actually like listening to local radio to get a flavor of the area. I remember getting a kick out of listening to Calgary radio when I was in Glacier National Park. Then again, on that particular trip, we were in my fiancee's car which has a very nice Pioneer nav/stereo and we had 32 gigs worth of music on an SD card. But that trip was 6500 miles through some empty land, so we needed something other than the radio.
The engine. The exhaust. The gearbox whine in lower gears.
Also because the radio stations here suck, the classic rock station rarely plays anything worthy of that title, and the CBC killed the only classical station we had.
In my R/T it depends. On the typical commute to work its usually my iPod plugged into a FM dealie. On longer trips I Usually listen to Podcasts. I still keep copies of my favorite CD's in the truck because they sound better than an ipod going through a FM dealie. Every once in awhile I'll tune into the local talk station, or NPR, especially if their is a storm predicted.
Forgot to mention that If I'm in a tunnel, it's Radio off, Windows down. Nothing like the sound of that 360 reverberating off the walls
What I usually prefer is windows down, to allow the sweet cacophany of the the underpowered 3.0/CVT combo in the Failstyle to blast through, like the mouse that roared. My family tends to disagree however, boo.
My commute is so short it basically doesn't matter, but recently I've fallen in love with the local indie/college station, 88.1 WRFL Lexington. Never a dull or uninteresting moment, and no commercials = bliss.
On long trips I'm still a CD luddite. The Failstyle does have a 6-CD / MP3 changer though, so 6 CDs loaded up = 4GB of MP3s = uninterrupted road trip. Since the driver is the DJ, that's good enough for me.
CASSETTE!
My Audi has that most 90's of combinations, the hedge-your-bets tape 'n CD stacker. The cassette player is doubly handy, I have rediscovered a bunch of old mix tapes that I thought had been lost to the ravages of time forever; I can also use it as an input for my slightly quaint Olympus MP3 player. My 6-disc has had the same 6 discs in it for months, a heady blend of Floyd, Gershwin, New Young Pony Club, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits and Massive Attack. The radio just annoys me, I get fed up switching presets to avoid tunes or DJs that piss me off.
My daily commute has about seven minutes of interesting roads, after that I need music. Neither the four cylinder Audi nor the diesel Alfa sound good enough to listen to for pure aural pleasure while you're cruising at 80.
I prefer FM radio for long drives, as there is more chance there that I'll hear something new than there is when I listen to my own collection.
I recently discovered the joys of aftermarket car stereo. Crutchfield, installer.com, etc. It's like an erector set for your ears!
I've got the PO's old bargain-bin head unit in the CRX, and the tuner never goes off the local rock station. I'd like to replace it at some point, but then I think, "If I get this sucker out, I'm then going to remove the busted old speakers too… and then I'll decide I don't want the added weight, and then I'll not have a stereo anymore." So even though it's marginal at best, I leave that old system in place as a deterrent against excessive lightness-adding in a car that still has to be my commuter for a year or two more.
Laserdisca are where it's at. Because I need a ride that's full up with frikkin' Lasers!
Gas pedal, clutch, gear shift and steering wheel. We don't need no stinkin brakes or music!
A couple of years ago I became hopelessly addicted to WWJ 950 AM in Detroit. "Traffic and Weather on the 8's" I even have WWJ programmed into the phone, so that I can be a traffic tipster.
The new (used) car is one with the antenna built into the rear glass, and sometimes (which I don't understand why sometimes, and not all the time) using the rear window defogger makes AM reception almost impossible. "Do I want to see what's behind me, or hear about what's 5 minutes in front of me?"
I, too, have the integral AM antenna in the rear window of the Benz, and my AM receptions is lousy all the time; now I'll have to see if turning on the rear defroster makes it any worse, just to satisfy my curiosity…
Let me know what you find out. Odd thing is that at different times it seems to affect the reception differently, from barely noticable, to completely unlistenable.
My 1997 E320 came with AM/FM/WB/Cassette as standard; the dealership offered to install a trunk-mounted six-CD changer for 'only' US$1200, which I declined. I briefly pursued getting an aftermarket changer that would work with the existing head and wiring to the trunk, for around $300, then lost interest.
I am pleasantly surprised by the variety of FM radio options here in the Prescott/Cottonwood/Verde Valley/Flagstaff area in Northern Arizona, but for longer road trips I still have my home made CD-to-cassette dubs, some of which date back to the 1980s. I recently bought a cassette-shaped adapter to permit listening to my MP3 player (for $5 at the Family Dollar store), but I have yet to actually hook it up and use it.
Loud pipes or screaming kids is all I can hear.
You need louder pipes.
Note: This may prove to be an iterative solution. Stick with it. It may seem interminable, but the kids can only get so loud.
well, if you stopped offering free candy, that might stop the screaming kid problem
It's not the offering, it's the lack of follow-through causing the screaming.
Brilliant!
I was thinking more duct tape.
Sorry to sound like a shill but Serius satellite radio can't be beat. 150 stations of music, talk, comedy and news. TraveLink updates the navigation system with traffic conditions.
Add the Sync system with the USB in and you've got it all.
41 miles each way in the Falcon, it's probably 85% NPR on my "fake classic" AM/FM/Tape/Aux deck.
You'd think that in a hub of pop culture like LA, there'd be some good radio stations…alas, KROQ leaves me both angry at the annoying DJs and disappointed as to how little progress they've made in the last 15 years of music.
When NPR gets bogged down with a human interest piece that's 10x longer than it should be, I'll kick over to classic rock or remember that I have my 1GB no-name mp3 player hooked up on the aux line. Alas, the battery's usually dead and I'm reminded that I'm in dire need of some new music (at least on the player).
Sadly, the WRXagon is an '06, stuck in an ICE world from 2000, meaning the in-dash 6CD changer doesn't recognize MP3s and there's no aux in.
"When NPR gets bogged down with a human interest piece that's 10x longer than it should be"
Thumbs up for that phrase alone.
An acquaintance of mine has actually fitted up his same-vintage Legacy wagon with a jury-rigged aux-in. I can't recall specifics off the top of my head, but there are plenty of how-to's on the 'tubes. His even had a nicely-integrated minijack set into the center console.
A few years back I had rather long 1-2 hour commutes. I started listening to a lot of books on tape. My car at the time a 96 Z-28 only had a CD player. I would get some books on CD, but the tapes were always cheaper off ebay. So I found my old walkman type cassette player and stuck an FM modulator in the headphone jack. As long as I had AAs I could listen.
My road tunes for now consist of a 160 GB iPod with my entire music collection (about 130 GB) and a cassette adapter for the Buick. I never listen to commercial radio anymore and after listening to Sirius/XM on DirecTV, I'm not interested in a subscription for the car. I really can't take audio books – I hate being read to because it's much too slow and the pace is fixed.
My '66 F100 has never had a stereo, not even an AM radio. It has the grille in the dashboard for the speaker, but not even a hole where the radio would go, and I'm not about to cut one and put some crappy head unit in there. Also, it would be a shame to cut holes in the doors for speakers, if I did put a system in. The Road Condo, my RV, had both the cab and coach stereos stolen or removed long ago, I just use a ghetto blaster when I'm driving or camping in it. Works fine.
However, it gets boring when you have no tunes. Instead of buying three different units for the two vehicles, I'd like to get one decent one and and be able to transfer it from the truck to the motorhome, and from the cab to the coach. I don't even know if you can get those under-dash slide mounts anymore, but that would be a good setup. Also, it's ridiculously easy to break into both vehicles, so I hate the idea of leaving a decent unit in either of them, even though my town isn't what you'd call high crime (everybody's armed to the teeth).
Might I suggest some kind of Murilee-Martin-esque 12V powered head-unit based ghetto blaster in a form factor that you could drop under the seats with the speakers facing forward?
Not a bad idea, but I'd rather design it so that it sits under the dashboard, perched on the transmission tunnel. There's not much room under the seats in either truck. Besides, the Condo has bucket seats (just like what you'd find in a '64 Chevelle).
I think I just figured it out. What I should do is get a marine stereo enclosure, which holds a regular stereo unit and fits under the dash hanging from brackets. It has wires sticking out of it, which I'd connect to power, speakers, and the antenna with jacks, identical in both vehicles. That way I could move the stereo from one truck to the other, and use it in the rear of the RV, too. Plus, it will protect the stereo from dust when I'm out in the desert. Problem solved.
That's funny you mentioned an NPR/hip-hop addict as my radio alternates between NPR and KDAY (check out their playlist: http://www.935kday.com/page/51/Playlist)
I got an aftermarket head unit with an aux in cable that I dremeled a hole for in the little cubby under the head unit for when I want to hear my mp3 player instead.
When I am with company, I prefer conversation to entertain me over music. When I am by myself, I will hit up the local radio. It is nice to be not be in charge of what music I am listening to.
My favorite in-car entertainment was a foreign exchange student I met while she was in collage.
(wipes away tear of joy)
You are a filthy, filthy man, you lucky bastard.
And by collage of course I mean that place where all them hot smart chicks hang out.
Eh? What's that you say? Maintain free fences? Why would I do that? You gotta speak up sonny, I don't hear so good anymore.
What's playing on my radio? Conservative talk, Sports talk, classic rock, alternative, and country (Very rarely). In that order.
At this point in time I'm driving my mom's car with an FM transmitter. I hate it. I'd love an Aux port or Ipod adapter but that'll have to wait until I buy a new car. My car has a CD player which I like quite a bit. The only problem is that it's zip-tied into the "glove box" and it bounces around quite a bit.
Not enough of a commute to matter, nor is anywhere far enough away from me that music is absolutely necessary. Consequently, i'll put one CD in the head unit (aftermarket in an '87 truck, of course, but nothing fancy in terms of speakers) and it will stay there for weeks.
If we're traveling out of town we're in the Honda, which doesn't have a CD player but with an iPhone and an iPod between us there's plenty of music/podcasts to entertain us. I hate the FM modulators, but we have one anyhow. Thankfully we also have one of those minijack to cassette things and the Honda is styling 20th Century music technology.
I am 90% listen to the engine sounds guy. Even with a stock exhaust (kind of a forbidden in the Mustang world), my car sounds better than it goes. And if I drive by a concrete bus stop embankment or anything else I can bounce sound off, I run the gears way out and love every minute of it.
If not then, KNBR, San Francisco sports radio.
If not that, then whatever music I have on my phone at the time. Clipse gets a lot of play, as does Built to Spill.
I have CDs of Van Halen's Greatest Hits and Slayer's South of Heaven in case of emergency.
I was also listening to a book on CD (Robert Jordan's Eye of the World), but I'm kind of embarassed by that. It's one thing to read about wizardry, it's a whole nother thing to listen to it while in view of others. The shame, it is a cloud that will not lift.
My faceplate stolen
I hear nothing but a leak
From my rusty pipes
Nothing but CBC Radio 2 for this fella. Sunday nights are my favourite time to travel because of the line up. Deep Roots, Vinyl Tap (w/ Randy Bachman of The Guess Who), and The Strombo Show. Best 7 hours of radio anywhere in the world.
Cruising in the old Buick, it's either NPR, college radio stations for as long as you can tune them flying by on the highway, or the stacks of old and decaying tapes I made in the eighties and early nineties, the last time I had a car with a tape deck and religiously made tapes of all my LPs and CDs for the car. REM, anyone? Pere Ubu? Sorry, I threw the 10,000 Maniacs out the window when I realized how obnoxious Natalie Merchant was. How did I not notice it back then?
During the week the incessant drivel coming from the passenger seat tends to drown out the radio that is tuned to my local rock FM station. On the weekends or when I am alone it tends to be the All News All the Time station which I turn the volume way down. I have a cd player that rarely gets used except for long trips or again when I am alone.
Well I just upgraded my entertainment, at least temporarily! I put those Hooniverse Hoonicasts on my phone and played them back through a tape adapter in my car on my way to work. I just never was able to find the time to listen to them at home when the kids wouldn't be screaming.
I still use the factory AM/FM cassette in my truck, plus I have a 15-year-old Sony Car Discman CD player stashed in the center console, with extension cables running under the sill plates for power to the fuse block (hot on ignition run) and to the cassette adapter stored in the ashtray. When I want to listen to a CD, I open the center console and pop in a disc, then open the ashtray, grab the cassette adapter, and pop it into the cassette slot.
The left rear speaker has been an on again, off again proposition for several years, but I just live with it. Also, a couple of years ago, some the front panel lights in the radio died (every other one under the buttons – figure that one out), but I just deal with that as well.
If I ever get around to installing an AUX hookup, I may never turn on the radio again.