In Dash CD Players R.I.P.?

I don't think car CD players will be eliminated anytime soon. Lots of people have lots of CDs, and it'll be a long while before everybody's ripped their entire music collection onto an iPod or equivalent. You still need a radio (satellite or standard) and a place to plug your iPod into. Adding a CD player to that costs car companies next to nothing.

Do you really expect to hear high-quality audio on a motorcycle? Cripes, your S/N must be negative!

If you continue to fantasize while commuting by motorcycle, YOU may go the way of the dinosaur. Please be careful, I've been there, done that.

Hell, they still have TAPE DECKS in a lot of new cars. Im sure CD decks will be around a long long time. But im sure more and more of them will be MP3 and XM sattelite.

ill never understand the attraction to mp3,it sucks!

I'm so frustrated with all the so-called advances in technology that are just steps sideways. I'm going to dig through the garage and find my old 8-track player! To @#&%$ with the new stuff, I'm sticking with the old stand by.

I don't know the time-line but,the double Din opening for indash CD/Tuner is giving way to touch screen navigation and DVD in many upscales. This trend is steadily growing.
Me...I hardly use the audio in our Pilot(just so-so tape/cd/dvd/navi performance) because,here in sunny California I need full attention on the road-crazies which are steadily growing in numbers as well.
On the open road XM or Siri would be enough for me.

don't forget that when using an ipod, you have the choice to rip your music using apple lossless codec. it sounds considerably better than mp3.

A friend who owns a high end shop and used to sell car audio got out of it because the car manufacturers are making it so you can`t put an after market deck in without having to use a bunch of adaptors. They want the return business at 4 times the price.

What's with all anti-MP3 the noise I'm hearing? Rip your CDs to 320k MP3, they sound pretty damn good to these ears and certainly more than good enough for the target environments.

-rw-

I almost ran a Honda Pilot off the road the other day in Santa Monica, heheh.

Look, this is probably going to be the last time I bother saying this, particularily to one of Cwlondon's posts. It really is no skin off of my back, I just figured I would try to help in this forum situation...has anyone complaining of mp3 sound (in some driving environment nonetheless) actually ever listened to an mp3 which was CORRECTLY ripped using EAC, LAME and either a APS, APX or API setting? Cwlondon, I know you've reported hearing an obvious audible difference in your Porsche with aftermarket work. There's either no way those met the above criteria, or if they did, there's a problem with the way your ipod hooks into your Nakamichi receiver, how it drives it etc.

I generally prefer not to listen to mp3 (and from now on, when I refer to mp3, it is only those mp3s which meet the above criteria. You will get no arguments from me that 128kbps is garbage) on my main stereo as I can occasionally tell a difference between that and the original disc (usually a lack of dynamics with the mp3). In Cwlondon's other thread, I maintained that I have never been able to tell the difference beteen mp3 and .wav with the ipod as a source into a variety of highend headphones and earphones with and without amps. By the way, I have never talked to anyone else who has actually done an HONEST ABX test with the above equipment and heard a difference either.

I frankly don't care if people would like to maintain their preconceived notions of the mp3 based on the era of billions of crappy Napster 128kbps or worse files flying around the internet. However the fact remains that you can enjoy excellent music quality right now with the current formats and equipment available. That the mp3 is a "flawed" format (in that it is a compressed format) I won't argue. But I would maintain that it can be tweaked until it is indistinguishable from the original on headphones and car audio (of course I've never heard a $30,000 car audio system so take that comment with a grain of salt). I am not advocating replacing your Audio Aero with an ipod.

I realize with the rampant Audiophilia Nervosa on these forums this will likely fall on deaf golden ears.

Rlwainwright, you should give VBR a try, save yourself some file space--you don't need all the bytes in a 320kbps mp3 to have it sound identical.

Cwlondon, I'm sort of responding to your other thread here (since they're basically the same topic). Anyone that picks on a lossless format loses all credibility in my eyes. I'm not really sure how bit for bit accurate files can result in different sound (and what I mean is, I'm sure they can't be different because they are the exact same thing). When you .zip or .rar a photo or text, do you uncompress it only to find it altered? Here are some results I pulled off of hydrogenaudio. The first is the original .wav file, the second is the uncompressed FLAC file--it is exactly the same for Apple lossless or any lossless for that matter.

c6427dcb856794b0179893165084796a *track01.wav
c6427dcb856794b0179893165084796a *track01_decode.wav

How do you propose to distinguish in any way between those two files? And you are proposing to do it audibly, without a double blind test? That the world is flat would be a less absurd statement. That at least I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt without getting up from my chair...

Ultraviolet:

Regarding lossless files, you are correct that they are perfect match bit-for-bit to original wav file, but there is a catch.

The player for each lossless file type could sound quite different depending SW configuration and etc. For example, foobar2000 will generally sound better than WMP if using ASIO or kernel streaming. Bypassing Windows' internal mixer is always a good thing because it will bypass a resampling step from 44.1kHz to 48kHz.

Eric

Per your M.O. Women and kids in it right?

Clbeanz, actually it's the cars with the women and kids that run ME off the road. Why is it they never look left before deciding to plow in front of me? Heheh. I really like the Honda Pilot. That may be my next lease.

CWlondon, I can definitely relate to your longing for your old Porsche and the Nak CD player. Let me guess, '87, '88 Carrera? Great car! And I greatly prefer the aesthetics of the CD players of the late '80s and early '90s. Simpler, less flashy like the Alpine I once used around that time. I sometimes miss the Blaupunkt 2001 cassette deck I had in the late '70s. Nice looking and had a great tune for the time.

USMC could pull out of Iraq and send in the 'SMSDWKOMV' force...
Soccer Moms Suburban Drivers With Kids On Multiple Ventis. even w/o a cellphone,the deadliest killing machine on earth.
8^))