Let's try this again... Stereo Technology Level Survey

[steponmebbbboom]

If you all can figure out how to keep that technology working for you, by all means enjoy the new format.

[Amskeptic]

[fukengruvenoval]

Ah,

But us "digital" guys (and gals) can have all three, and more without lugging around the tapes, 8 tracks, or vinyl!!!

Just kidding. I run the original Motorola Canada AM radio in my '72 Bug and I love it!
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Check out my video series at www.youtube.com/midnightoilgarage

[MrBreeze]

Them damn "talkin' picture shows" will never take off anyways.

[mattg]

I have still not updated my sound system - am radio with a boom box for fm radio that rides on my passenger seat

[mightyart]

[tobewonekanobe]

As long as you have the choice to enjoy music and what if brings to society, rock it\jazz it\funk it\spiritulize it, I dont give a funk
In the bus I have the mp3 player but mostly have my Ipod Vidio pluged into it(3000 songs and 30 movies). Some Day I may fork out and buy those instructional dvd on fixing the old bus, that way I can have both my books laid out, my freinds giving the their 2 cents, the video playing on the Ipod, and still be stumped on the edge of the road with the engine lid up.
As for the sat radio, it has its place when your spending time in Wallowa County struglin too pick up that one radio station hiddin in the mountains.
As for my house I mostly play the record player, LOVE the big V. But they are so tempermental in there old age and you have kids in the house, a crack is a terrible thing to witness as the kid bats her little eyes at you standing on your Charlie Daniels "Way Down Yonder" album
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I will take "Victims of the All Mighty Sarlacc" for $800 Alex!
1978 Riviera "Earl Da Pearl"

[NASkeet]

During our past overseas travels, we had always carried a portable, ITT KB, multi-band transistor radio, with short wave, which was useful for BBC World Service, Voice of America and other English language broadcasts; including those from the USSR and Australia.

Sometime ago, I was lucky to obtain a mid-1980s vintage, second-hand Blaupunkt Toronto SQR 46, 4-­speaker, stereo radio-cassette player (180 mm width x 52 mm height x 160 mm depth), advertised in the classified For Sale section, of VW Motoring magazine. The unit features both DNR (i.e. Dynamic Noise Reduction) and Dolby B tape-noise reduction systems, cassette track search, forward & reverse playback, front-to-rear & left-to-right volume balance, bass & treble tone controls, plus VHF, long, medium & short wave; each with five pre-setable stations (i.e. a total of twenty) and more besides.

In the near future, I shall install it beneath the dashboard (using a custom-made bracket, which I shall fabricate for the purpose) of my right-hand drive, 1973 VW Type 2, to the left of the steering column, which is easier for the driver to reach, than the standard, mid-dashboard position. It is far from easy, find suitable audio speakers and fitting locations, for a 1973 VW Type 2 Westfalia Continental campervan. One of the difficulties, is to find speakers which are sufficiently shallow, to recess into the cavities behind the trim panels.

The main available speaker locations, to which speaker cable can be routed, are the top portion of the front kickboards in the cab, the forward portion of the cab-door trim panels below the quarter-light windows, the narrow ceiling trim panels on either side of the elevating roof aperture and the upper portion of the rear-hatch trim panel. It would also be possible to fit small-size tweeters (i.e. high-frequency response speakers) in the steel top-panel of the dashboard, but this would first need to be removed for drilling, cutting and repainting.

So far, I have fitted a pair of 5 inch single-cone speakers in the front kickboards and a similar pair in the ceiling trim panels, either side of the elevating-roof aperture, adjacent to the stock Westfalia, recessed Hella fluorescent lights. With hindsight, the 7 inch x 3 inch Blaupunkt single-cone speakers (with 7½ inch x 3½ inch grille), originating from the rear parcel shelf of a 1979~84 Vauxhall Astra Mk. 1 Hatchback (i.e. Opel Kadett D Hatchback), might have been a neater installation in the ceiling trim panels.

At sometime in the future, I might substitute a pair of 5 inch, 100W, three-way Alpine speakers (salvaged from a derelict car, at the local fire station) in the kickboards. On the off-chance, that I might sometime, find some suitable speakers, for the rear-hatch trim panel, I've also incorporated speaker wiring into the custom, home-made, rear-hatch wiring & hose loom (designed to serve a cross-over, twin-arm, pantograph rear-window wiper & washer system, heated rear window and high-level brake lights). Not everyone travelling in a vehicle, might wish to listen to radio or audio cassette tapes, so a possible system modification, might be to incorporate a selector switch of some sort, so that the audio signal is re­routed to headphones, rather than the speakers.

Tudor C-boxes (twin-drawer units, ex Austin-Rover Montego), holding four audio cassette tapes and/or the better known, clip-together, modular Fischer & BASF C-boxes (two marginally different, inter-compatible systems, obtained at local boot fairs), will also be fitted at sometime. Some Fischer C-box systems, were individually tailored to fit the dashboard apertures of specific car models (now found in car breakers' yards), dating from the 1980s and 1990s, but they all incorporate standard clip-together, drawer modules, which can be used to create one's own custom C-box system. There are also various patterns of universal fitting, Fischer C-­boxes, with an adjustable mounting bracket, for fitment above or below the dashboard, plus a C-­box carry case, which accommodates 12 audio cassettes, having an integral handle and two detachable brackets.

Regards.

Nigel A. Skeet

[Phyllis]

I have the orginal Sapphire AM radio.
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1971 Deluxe Transporter "Winston"
1970 Westy Weekender "Cornelius"
Andrew

[Bajatacoma]

I'll take my Alpine with the auxilliary inputs and the 20GB Dell MP3 player hooked to it.

And Katie is a) not attractive- too much makeup and plastic surgery b) a socialist douchebag
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'78 Westy

Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
Hunter S Thompson

[shiningstar76]

I kept the origional am saphire in my square. The origional speaker still worked so it was pretty cool.....if you like right wing radio, mexican polka, or basketball.
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KK4NTP
96 Tacoma
86 4Runner
My bus caught on fire and is now on the other coast with someone who gave me money for it.

[EZ Gruv]

[EZ Gruv]

[JMazier]

I just upgraded the old no name worth mentioning cassette deck with a Pioneer CD Head unit directly connected to a Pioneer iPod link (no wireless frequency issues to deal with). I no longer purchase CDs, I buy all of my music online and download it to the iPod. No CDs taking up room, no scratches, no burning to any format…just music from the internet store directly to the iPod. The connection for the iPod is in the glove box so I just plug it in and listen to hours of music. Speakers are 6.5” Pioneer in the front doors and Yamaha outdoor speakers mounted in the back to the walls via brackets. Sounds nice…
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Cheers!

Jérôme

’79 Cali Westy 2.0 F.I.
'74 Honda CB 350 Four
'78 Honda CB 750 K
'12 Golf GTI
'11 Ural Patrol

[Hot Ron Scorcher]

this is all pretty hilarious really. but on the "mp3 versus everything else" argument i might have to chime in.

i love how not one person i've ever met in person can tell me off the top of their head what the memory requirement specs for mp3 and redbook cd audio are and the difference. yet, all my friends have ipods and love them.

redbook cd audio is roughly 10 megs per stereo minute
your average mp3 is roughly 1 meg per stereo minute

you do the math. where is that extra 9 megs of audio going? it doesn't just get "squished" like most people would like to think.

digital audio is recorded with something called "samples per second" (in laymans terms here). how many "snapshots" the computer takes of the audio signal every second. it CANNOT by this principle capture all of the audio signal all of the time. this means that strictly speaking when you listen to digital audio you are not getting the entire signal but "snapshots" of it here and there.

like this....

analog
_____________________________________________________

digital (cd quality)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

digital (mp3 quality)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

so the lower quality the mp3 the more it takes out of the picture and so on. if any of you understand the way a DAW does timestretching you basically have mp3 encoding in a nutshell.


i went to college for sound engineering and have worked at various recording studios and done live sound for the museum of fine arts in boston and i listen to vinyl as my primary music format. i don't "hate" digital and i can see where it makes sense for functional purposes, but anyone trying to tell me it sounds better or the same as a good analog recording is just plain ignorant.

in terms of home audio equipment colin is the only one with his head straight i've seen on here so far. i personally listen through Event 50/50's (active not passive), amplifiers built in, one seperate amp for the lows and one for the highs, which is the ONLY correct way to have an audio set up. most of you guys are using one amplifier, if that, and no crossovers and sending it all to shit speakers. that i don't get.

so ipods may be here to stay but they are for the ignorant masses that just buy the new hot item without even questioning it.

[hambone]

It's all sound waves, everybody. Vibrations. Just like "fine wine" is grape juice no matter how you label it.
Me, I'm rollin a tape deck still, but to tell you th' truth, I don't lissen much anymores. I'd rather have the peace of the wind, th' tires on the pavement, and that soothing burble coming from the back. Besides, most of the music I listen to was recorded 90 years ago, talk about analog! But this ol' fart surely doesn't represent th' masses....

[borninabus]

AM was not a choice. i sport the OG saphire in bus & ghia--i don't like not hearing the engine.
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88 Van WBX, A/T - 13 JSW TDI 6M/T - 2012 Touareg TDI Sport

[James1v1]

I'm rolling the original Motorola AM with a twist: Radio is disconnected internally with a mini-jack wired into the amplifier. Plug in the portable MP3/CD/Radio and listen to whatever you want over the funky single dashboard speaker. Not hi-fi, but it's cool to listen to Elvis while wandering down the road in the oval!
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56 Oval - Daily Driver
Single Family Owned

[Busafied]

[steponmebbbboom]

Has anyone looked into Tayman Electrical to get their stereo retrofitted? I might just use their service for the dart, if I didnt have the Nak deck Id probably do up a Saph for the bus too. With FM you could use a CD shuttle or MP3 player inline with the antenna.

www.taymanelectrical.com