memfree's Journal: the hell of installing car stereos

When I purchased my new car, I didn't bother getting a CD player in it because we all know how crappy factory sound systems are in most cars (exceptions for some high-end vehicles). Instead, I wanted to go the after-market route, get some decent speakers and an MP3 player (if they made OGG players, I'd have bought one in a heart beat).

The purchase was fraught with difficulties. Sounddomain.com lead me to believe the head unit had better FM mono reception than it does. The particular unit in question does not let me manually flip to FM mono to reduce signal crossover -- and this was a primary reason for choosing it.

Further, I only checked my car's (year/make/model) speaker sizes online, and it turns out that both the two sites I saw, *and* my local dealer's book ALL gave incorrect stats -- so on the day I went to install (and after waiting 2 weeks b/c the speakers I wanted had been out of stock at the manufacturing plant), the service guys tells me the speakers he ordered do not fit.

Why was I having someone else do my work? Well, having taken apart the dash in a previous car, I knew I did NOT want to do it myself. I would much rather work under the hood than in the dash. IMO, the hell of replacing radiators is minimal compared to the hell of working in the dash.

To make a REALLY long story short, after hours of frustration (4PM to 2AM), the guys convinced me that it was better to NOT void my new car warranty by cutting holes into the vehicle, or to do a bunch of other questionable things, but to instead buy some random speakers they had on hand (that were not already reserved for other customers), and let them finish up.

End result, I know have 5.25 in. Visonik speakers in front, and 6.5 in. Power Acoustic speakers in back. The Visoniks would do better if I had an amp -- they're too much for my system -- but I don't want to go deaf any faster, so I'm sticking with what I've got.

I'm all about performance, so the MP3 player is a bit flashier than I need (though not nearly as flashy as the top of the line ones). It is really distracting to set the display to cycle through background colors, but it is so pretty I can't resist doing that. Oh, and I gotta remember to NOT program in 8-digit names for CDs while driving. It takes longer to set than your average stop light.