Car Audio Upgrade

gdnrbob   Hadn't heard that one.  That's funny.

@sttt,
He must have been like Stirling Moss. When another racer and his wife rode with him, he scared the bejezus out the wife when he took a cloverleaf at 55mph whilst searching for a cassette in the glovebox.

I have to say, I love having music when I drive.
My current ride is a '16 Audi TTS coupe. The B & O stereo is complete garbage. The Bose in the MK2 TTS was better.
I would have my auto stereo guy work on it, but the new MK4 should be coming next year.
Bob

I remember years ago riding in a Porche with a guy who used to race Porches.  I will never ride with that guy again.  Scared the living poop out of me.  I think we took a curve in town at 100 mph. 

Used to do this back when I was a lot younger. Driving a 911 though puts things a lot more clearly. You can't really be driving while thinking of other things and without being able to hear the car. You can try and tell yourself this, just like you can try and tell yourself you can drive while texting. Yeah. Right. Stop lying. Nobody is believing you, not even yourself. This is before even considering the noise level which even in a really, really quiet luxury car is still way too noisy for listening.

But you're not always driving. Certainly not in a Porsche. Yet even for commuting in 4-wheeled appliance-mobiles it makes no sense to upgrade because of the noise levels. So instead of throwing your money away on a bunch of stuff that says "break in and steal me!" it makes a lot more sense to get some good IEMs. 

As Tuco said, "When you have to drive, drive!" Or something like that.

I upgraded my Silverado 2004 and my 2014 when I purchased them, but I did not upgrade the 2018.  It's not a bad stock system, but I hope to upgrade it one day.  I usually keep a new truck for 10 years, but I broke with that this last time, as the 2014 had a V-6 and I didn't like it.  I want to upgrade this one at some point, but I need some cash first.  If I am driving down the interstate with the windows wide open, I have to turn the stereo up as far as it can go so i can hear it over the wind noise.

I bought a used truck recently and the stereo wasn’t working and I was spoiled by the backup camera, nav, and handsfree bluetooth calling. The truck already had an amp in it, so I had them put in a head unit that works with Android Auto so that I can use Waze for nav and they installed a mic and backup camera. I stayed with the amp and stock speakers that were in the truck. Sound quality isn’t awesome, and there is either a problem with the amp or stock speakers, as sound from the front right speaker is lower in volume than the back and right front speakers. I’ll replace the amp and/or speakers eventually to fix that and possibly add a subwoofer, but I'm not going to go crazy with it.  The main purpose was to get the safety/navigation features and to be able to listen to music, not so much for sound quality/quantity.

I do listen in the car and love quiet music to help with the stress of driving.  I used to do all the upgrades myself, but not these days.  You are correct about hard to upgrade.  Trying to get all the functionality back using wiring harnesses is awful.  I had an installer who could not get my backup camera to work.  I finally figured it out myself.  I had a bed liner sprayed on and they disconnected the tailgate wires and did not reconnect the camera.