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djkeev
Samba Moderator
Joined: September 30, 2007
Posts: 32987
Location: Reading Pennsylvania
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randywebb
Samba Member
Joined: February 15, 2005
Posts: 3815
Location: Greater Metropolitan Nimrod, Orygun
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 Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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| ThankYouJerry wrote: |
| Steelhead wrote: |
I am extremely wary of answering direct questions on the samba with a "buy something else more expensive" answer, but in this case I would really suggest considering an alternative to fixing the old deck.
I've said it before in these pages but I HIGHLY recommend the nakamichi decks for clean power, timeless looks, and build quality. Not cheap but occasional deals on ebay...like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nakamichi-CD400-HIGH-END-A...35cdeb71db
someone should buy this. |
That is RIDICULOUS money for an old CD player. Starting bid $230?!?! That kind of money will by you a top-of-the-line brand new Alpine deck that is Bluetooth, HD, Pandora, etc enabled and looks great in a Vanagon. |
The Nak is a highly regarded audiophile brand with a lot of history behind it. It is also NLA IIRC, and "vintage." I don't think that price is out of line.
I have an Alpine in my Vanagon...
I got the cheapest one that had a 1-bit D to A decoder.
What I'd really like is no CD; Weather Band, and very high quality D to A and FM, and AM as well as easy to use simple buttons and dials. Also, no amp in the head unit as the amp should be outboard IMO. Nothing like that exists.
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1986 2.1L Westy 2wd Auto Trans. |
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sammyman
Samba Member
Joined: May 18, 2004
Posts: 195
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| Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 10:55 am Post subject: |
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Hey guys! I appreciate the responses. One BIG reason why I am posting here is because I love the fact I have an original radio in there and some high schooler hasn't got behind the radio and chopped up the wiring. That alone is reason enough to deal with and or fix the current radio. The one I have is like the pic posted in this thread (Heidelberg).
Ok, so I am going to clean it today with alcohol. I did find out that both the rear and front right speakers are out. I'm guessing this means I have a blown right channel.
Does this mean my plan to keep the stock radio is out of the question?
And I agree with some posts here about keeping a black stock looking stereo. I used to love Alpine but they don't look very stock IMO. |
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Syncroincity
Samba Member
Joined: April 15, 2007
Posts: 1557
Location: New York City
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| Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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See the links in my first response above for replacements.
The amplifier power transistor is usually the culprit, especially if you can still hear the channel faintly. Unless you have electronics repair experience it will be more economical to simply install another head unit.
Search also for Fox, Cabriolet and MKII Golf/Jetta OEM units, same radio.
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'86 Syncro CHC Top AAZ Turbodiesel
'04 Passat Variant 4Mo 5MT
Vanagon Build: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=466866&highlight= |
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K58
Samba Member
Joined: July 01, 2006
Posts: 1173
Location: Santa Barbara
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| Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2013 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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Imagine an audio giant that made exact replica OEM appearing units for pre ~2000 veicles but filled them with all the good stuff..MP3, USB, Bluetooth, etc.
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Westy HID Projector Retrofit |
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Syncroincity
Samba Member
Joined: April 15, 2007
Posts: 1557
Location: New York City
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denwood
Samba Member
Joined: July 29, 2012
Posts: 1047
Location: Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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I do have the original radio/tape unit removed from my 90 Westy about 14 yrs ago...pm if you're interested 
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Cheers,
Dennis Wood
The Grape |
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jchughes05
Samba Member
Joined: December 28, 2013
Posts: 42
Location: HdG, MD, USA
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 4:45 pm Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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My 91 has a Heidelberg unit, and it squeals when I play tapes in it, any idea what's wrong with it or how I can fix it??
Thanks!!!
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1991 Vanagon Carat Weekender-"Clifford" |
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chase4food
Samba Member
Joined: February 27, 2016
Posts: 636
Location: PNW im Amerika
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| Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 5:10 pm Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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I am not here to pick a fight. I love most things German, but not so much when it comes to modern (by this I mean this day and age) consumer electronic and audio, especially automotive audio. I have spent a part of my young adulthood selling and servicing AV equipment after I dropped out of high school countless of times... And I can tell you German electronics, with the exception of medical, automotive, industrial, is seldom anything to love.
True German cassette, turntable transports are some of the worst. I can see if you try to keep for sentimental reasons or as an authentic show car.
Japanese brand car audio runs circles around them, and among them I like Alpine for their typically restrained styling. Most Japanese name brands are neck to neck in terms of performance.
I will not retain a German head unit for its appearance. 
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- Vince 飲食玩睡
what Isolde wants Isolde doesn't always get, 4 I know what is best for her - Liebe macht frei |
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drumbum68
Samba Member
Joined: October 15, 2010
Posts: 566
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:02 am Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| My factory deck is a Matsushita/Panasonic. |
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chase4food
Samba Member
Joined: February 27, 2016
Posts: 636
Location: PNW im Amerika
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:12 am Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| drumbum68 wrote: |
| My factory deck is a Matsushita/Panasonic. |
My factory deck is a German made blank plate. I ordered the "Radio Prep" option so there would be crappy paper cone speakers with puny magnet. Of course that is the cost to have the speaker holes precut, and the speakers went to the trash fast.
There is one universal constant beside Pi. It is all auto factory audio sucks for what they charge you, regardless if it is a Yogo or your fancy pant Ferrari. Does not matter if it is badged as Bose, Infinity, or B&O. The car makers will squeeze out every last penny and charge you handsomely for the sell-up options.
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- Vince 飲食玩睡
what Isolde wants Isolde doesn't always get, 4 I know what is best for her - Liebe macht frei |
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kamzcab86
Samba Moderator
Joined: July 26, 2008
Posts: 8432
Location: Arizona
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 11:04 am Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| jchughes05 wrote: |
My 91 has a Heidelberg unit, and it squeals when I play tapes in it, any idea what's wrong with it or how I can fix it??
Thanks!!! |
Do a Google search for "cassette tape player squeal"; lots of potential repairs come up.
| chase4food wrote: |
I love most things German, but not so much when it comes to modern (by this I mean this day and age) consumer electronic and audio, especially automotive audio.
Japanese brand car audio runs circles around them |
^That's a personal opinion. For audiophiles who demand premium sound reproduction, they desire the best components regardless of continent origination. For those who simply want to hear music as they drive, the OEM equipment is just dandy. My Cabriolet would still be sporting its Heidelberg IV (which I have in storage), but I prefer simplicity in this modern era of music portability: SD card/aux input, no tape player or bulky CD player and a stack of cassettes/CDs to carry around. The OEM speakers were just dandy as well, until they croaked (I will admit, the 3" Alpines I put in the rear are great; Alpines wouldn't fit up front without modification, so I went with Kenwood instead).
My van came to me with an (ancient) aftermarket Blaupunkt cassette player retrofitted, which had a dead LCD screen and no aux input of any kind. I replaced that Blaupunkt with a Kenwood, then a Sony (both of which sucked), followed by an inexpensive, retroish-looking BOSS (which has been awesome). I simply want to hear music while driving down the road in a steel can, which is far from being a concert hall.
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~Kamz 
1986 Cabriolet: www.Cabby-Info.com
 1990 Vanagon Westfalia: Old Blue's Blog
2016 Golf GTI S
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." - 孔子 |
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chase4food
Samba Member
Joined: February 27, 2016
Posts: 636
Location: PNW im Amerika
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 11:39 am Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| jchughes05 wrote: |
My 91 has a Heidelberg unit, and it squeals when I play tapes in it, any idea what's wrong with it or how I can fix it??
Thanks!!! |
Cassette tape transport has a lot of moving parts inside. Many of them has rubber wheels for their frictional characteristics. There is also a slip disk (typically a felt pad sliding on a nylon disk) on the takeup spindle to accommodate the viable diameter of the tape spool. The kingpin of the cassette that regulates the tape so it run at constant speed regardless of the diameters of the two tape spools (dispensing one and the collecting one) is the capstan which also has a rubber wheel. All these rubber parts don't do well over the span of two decade as the rubber continues to vulcanize, oxidize. Then there are the abuse they take form users lack of hygiene in keeping their cassette from dust and grits. In some older transport design the rubber friction wheel at the capstan does not retract when one turn the cassette off after playing. Overtime the rubber wheel ceases to be round...
You might be able to service some of these parts, clean and lubricate the bushings inside. Servicing cassette transport in a DIN size head unit is not a job for average person as the inside is jam packed with PCBs, interconnect harnesses. Often you have to unsolder something just to be able to remove it.
For a very long time, Japan made cassettes (I am referring to the cassette medium) are the only ones I would buy due to their superior quality in the magnetic tape and the design of the slippery mechanism inside.
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- Vince 飲食玩睡
what Isolde wants Isolde doesn't always get, 4 I know what is best for her - Liebe macht frei |
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chase4food
Samba Member
Joined: February 27, 2016
Posts: 636
Location: PNW im Amerika
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 11:55 am Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| kamzcab86 wrote: |
| jchughes05 wrote: |
My 91 has a Heidelberg unit, and it squeals when I play tapes in it, any idea what's wrong with it or how I can fix it??
Thanks!!! |
Do a Google search for "cassette tape player squeal"; lots of potential repairs come up.
| chase4food wrote: |
I love most things German, but not so much when it comes to modern (by this I mean this day and age) consumer electronic and audio, especially automotive audio.
Japanese brand car audio runs circles around them |
^That's a personal opinion. For audiophiles who demand premium sound reproduction, they desire the best components regardless of continent origination. For those who simply want to hear music as they drive, the OEM equipment is just dandy. My Cabriolet would still be sporting its Heidelberg IV (which I have in storage), but I prefer simplicity in this modern era of music portability: SD card/aux input, no tape player or bulky CD player and a stack of cassettes/CDs to carry around. The OEM speakers were just dandy as well, until they croaked (I will admit, the 3" Alpines I put in the rear are great; Alpines wouldn't fit up front without modification, so I went with Kenwood instead).
My van came to me with an (ancient) aftermarket Blaupunkt cassette player retrofitted, which had a dead LCD screen and no aux input of any kind. I replaced that Blaupunkt with a Kenwood, then a Sony (both of which sucked), followed by an inexpensive, retroish-looking BOSS (which has been awesome). I simply want to hear music while driving down the road in a steel can, which is far from being a concert hall. |
No argument about we all have our relative difference on our desire for the degree of fidelity in our mobile audio. I listened once of an interview with a very well regarded jazz musician. He enjoy music just fine from listening to a boombox.
Of all the vehicles I ever own, The Westfalia Vanagon has the best acoustic, so makes for an excellent blank canvas for one to design a great sounding system. Recognize when most vehicle is being driven the noise floor erodes 1/2 to 2/3 of the dynamic range, that does not negate my want to have excellent sound. We spend a good deal of time camping in them in wilderness so to me I want to have an excellent sound system - without breaking the bank, and I don't have to.
Recently I rip out ~$1000 worth of CD changer, amplifier, and a head unit, and replace them with one $103 head unit. It hugely improved the overall system sound, but with the biggest windfall. Power consumption is cut down to 1/3 or more. At even a very loud listening level, the average current consumption is around 1.5A (of course this is impossible to quantify due to highly dependent on the music content, i.e. the energy density of it). There is no need for subwoofer nor external amplifier to consume battery power we all try to be carefully budget for its use. Further by keeping the built in equalizer set to level power consumption is kept minimal. Each 3-dB increase of setting typically doubles the power required to drive the speaker in the given equalization bandwide. The most power hungry is cranking up the bass gain.
Today, it is the golden era for consumer of aftermarket mobile sound equipment. All the few remaining brands are competing for a very small pie and they are all neck to neck in features and performance. What I have to spend near $1000 20 years ago's dollar can be have for 1/3 of today's dollar. A $100 head unit today outperforms a $500 head unit then, and have all the features that manufacturers would tier them to sell up.
Sorry for the long digression.
I thought I would add a photo of the current consumption playing at 20 volume setting, playing a jazz CD. Naturally, it only convey a rough idea as the current consumption is highly dependent on the music at the moment the reading is taken. However the average current is much lower.
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- Vince 飲食玩睡
what Isolde wants Isolde doesn't always get, 4 I know what is best for her - Liebe macht frei |
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Ahwahnee
Samba Member
Joined: June 05, 2010
Posts: 10210
Location: Mt Lemmon, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:25 pm Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| kamzcab86 wrote: |
| ...I simply want to hear music while driving down the road in a steel can, which is far from being a concert hall. |
I saw an interview with Neil Young where he essentially said just that (he was driving an old car with the radio on at the time).
He said he could tell if a song/singer was any good just by listening to them on an old car radio - didn't need modern equipment to enjoy the music. |
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Merian
Samba Member
Joined: January 04, 2014
Posts: 5212
Location: Orygun
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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it's not just fidelity, and not just music systems, radios, etc.
German cars have a poor record on reliability of various electrical systems - all the way down to power windows on BMWs
I sometimes think the Germans just don't understand electricity very well
maybe the country's cultural expertise is limited to mechanical systems, beer and chemicals |
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chase4food
Samba Member
Joined: February 27, 2016
Posts: 636
Location: PNW im Amerika
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:34 pm Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| Ahwahnee wrote: |
| kamzcab86 wrote: |
| ...I simply want to hear music while driving down the road in a steel can, which is far from being a concert hall. |
I saw an interview with Neil Young where he essentially said just that (he was driving an old car with the radio on at the time).
He said he could tell if a song/singer was any good just by listening to them on an old car radio - didn't need modern equipment to enjoy the music. |
There are countless example of that. Even being an audiophile most of my life, I in recent decade, has been enjoying music more than enjoying the hi-fi systems. However with my recent audio update to the Vanagon Westy, I started to audition all my mobile audio systems. I thought the one in the James Cook sound very good, until I compared to the revised and simplified system in the Vanagon. I was so blown away and it remind me listening an excellent pair of small bookcase Celestion high end speakers decades ago. It did not have super low bass, but has excellent imaging, high end, and most importantly mid range and mid bass. The attack of the clear uncluttered transients are something to behold, often difficult to obtain with speakers with more elements.
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- Vince 飲食玩睡
what Isolde wants Isolde doesn't always get, 4 I know what is best for her - Liebe macht frei |
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chase4food
Samba Member
Joined: February 27, 2016
Posts: 636
Location: PNW im Amerika
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:38 pm Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| Merian wrote: |
it's not just fidelity, and not just music systems, radios, etc.
German cars have a poor record on reliability of various electrical systems - all the way down to power windows on BMWs
I sometimes think the Germans just don't understand electricity very well
maybe the country's cultural expertise is limited to mechanical systems, beer and chemicals |
I will give it to the Germans for their electronic drivetrain control systems, and these include ABS, traction control, and extremely sophisticated dynamic driver performance enhancements. And of course the safety nanny for the constantly driving distracted. Just look at Porsches'. Siemens and Bosch have much of the OEM market cornered.
Now, I done it. We totally side tracked this thread. My apology! 
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- Vince 飲食玩睡
what Isolde wants Isolde doesn't always get, 4 I know what is best for her - Liebe macht frei |
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djkeev
Samba Moderator
Joined: September 30, 2007
Posts: 32987
Location: Reading Pennsylvania
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chase4food
Samba Member
Joined: February 27, 2016
Posts: 636
Location: PNW im Amerika
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| Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 4:53 pm Post subject: Re: OEM Stereo Woes |
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| djkeev wrote: |
Me?
I'm still rocking old school OEM audio.
Music is no more than background noise when I am fighting to stay alert or my Wife dozed off.
Most of the time we watch the countryside slip by, I listen to the Van (it's always talking to me), the wife and I chat and we do at times listen to audio books for hours on end. (Most recently "A Walk in the Woods")
As long as I can hear it (I tend towards deaf) and it isn't garbled and tinny...... I'm good!
Also, I keep it because I like the look of the old radio, it belongs there.
I just cleaned out the volume knob control because of static when adjusting, works great now.
I added Bluetooth music and phone via a cassette adapter and a Knivo Bluetooth setup.
I am happy with my classic tunes.
Dave |
There is nothing wrong at all. Good to see someone's audio need is easy peasy. Great to see you manage to bridge the Bluetooth gap with a cassette adapter using the magnetic gap of the cassette pickup head.
Bluetooth is so indispensable that is the main reason for my head unit updates.
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- Vince 飲食玩睡
what Isolde wants Isolde doesn't always get, 4 I know what is best for her - Liebe macht frei |
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