Interesting post. Opinions all over the board, so here's mine:
No car stereo can compete on sound quality with a home system in a dedicated room, with room treatment, using a dedicated AC line. The noise floor in my room is around 35 dB. The average noise floor in a car (any car) being driven is up around 70 dB. You lose all dynamic range in a car, you lose any sense of a soundstage in a car, you are hearing all sorts of delayed reflections from all those hard, vertical surfaces causing temporal smearing in a car.
I'm a car enthusiast, and an audiophile. IMO the two don't mix well. When I'm driving I'm focused, usually well above the posted speed limit, and I'm having fun. I never even turn on any music on when I'm driving because some cars have such wonderful engine sounds (inline-6 BMWs, flat-plane crank Mustang Shelbys, Corvettes, exotics) that I much prefer listening to them.
My dedicated listening room is for just that. Listening. No TV, no games, just listening, and it sounds wonderful.
I guess my response would be that the OP is listening for certain aspects that his car system is able to provide.
They sure don't do it for me.
Happy listening, to each his own.
Tom
No car stereo can compete on sound quality with a home system in a dedicated room, with room treatment, using a dedicated AC line. The noise floor in my room is around 35 dB. The average noise floor in a car (any car) being driven is up around 70 dB. You lose all dynamic range in a car, you lose any sense of a soundstage in a car, you are hearing all sorts of delayed reflections from all those hard, vertical surfaces causing temporal smearing in a car.
I'm a car enthusiast, and an audiophile. IMO the two don't mix well. When I'm driving I'm focused, usually well above the posted speed limit, and I'm having fun. I never even turn on any music on when I'm driving because some cars have such wonderful engine sounds (inline-6 BMWs, flat-plane crank Mustang Shelbys, Corvettes, exotics) that I much prefer listening to them.
My dedicated listening room is for just that. Listening. No TV, no games, just listening, and it sounds wonderful.
I guess my response would be that the OP is listening for certain aspects that his car system is able to provide.
They sure don't do it for me.
Happy listening, to each his own.
Tom