AndsX

In my old car i had a Pioneer 9600 MP (awesone unit) with infinity speakers (4) and a Single woofer at the back .. Which gave the sound i wanted ..

Now i have a couple of questions ?

I need Mp3s in my car ? Should i go for a aftermarket one or one from the factory ? I am always looking for the best sound ?

The player i had tons of features to play around with .... but if i go for an aftermarket player .. only problem would be i can't make it to work with voice commands and Steering remote ? Any ideas on that ?

Should i have to replace the speakers ? I am thinking of just replacing the woofers @ the back ? or should i add a new woofer altogether with a new amp ?

My Car

Black TSX with Navi

HondaGuy347

If you are that concerned with great sound, forget the MP3s. The two are mutually exclusive.

KingV

I agree, I have the factory MP3 unit which is convenient for playing large volumes of music, but I'm seriously considering swapping it out for an XM kit if that becomes possible in the near future, the sound quality on MP3's is not very good at all.

acuratsx03

skip a new deck, get an iPod and a SNHOND3 best way to go to not mess with the 6cd changerand all the other acura goodies. as for speaker swaps it depends how much bass you want. if you dont want a lot, replace the 6x9s, thatll make a big difference. but if your looking for more, ditch the 6x9s and add a sub.

AndsX

I love to have rich bass ..may be i should go for a sub ..

How good is the head unit from the factory ... Is it better than a good aftermarket unit from pioneer or kenwood ?

acuratsx03

well, im sure any aftermarket head unit will be better than the stock one, but it just seems to introduce more problems...well, maybe not problems, but loss of the steering wheel control, 6cd changer. and i dont think youll be pulling the stock one out because of the A/C... but people have added flip screens, so ask them what the deal is

musicbox

that depends. I ripped this from.. http://www.audiophilez.com/faq.php

1.(b) Are MP3 files really CD quality?

This question has been a source of debate for many years. While most people are happy to download and listen to 128kbps MP3 files, experts tend to agree that bitrates of 192kbps and higher are necessary for CD quality encoding. Put simply, most MP3 files of 128kbps or higher bitrate are quite listenable and considered to be near CD quality. The downside of encoding MP3 files at high bitrates is that they require more storage space as the bitrate goes up. Given the recent proliferation of broadband Internet connections, large file sizes are becoming less of an issue.

1.(c) How do bitrates equate with quality?

The bitrate an MP3 file is encoded at is usually the best indicator of the fidelity of the sound. In general, the more bits that are allocated during the encoding process, the closer the MP3 file will sound to the original recording. You can use the following table as a rough indicator of the sound quality to be expected at various bitrates:

8-32kbps: Very low bitrates often used for streaming and encoding voice recordings. Not suitable for encoding music at high quality.
40-64kbps: Suitable for high quality streaming and low quality music encodings. Often used for poorly recorded live shows.
80-112kbps: Reasonable quality for encoding music content. FM radio quality.
128kbps: Good quality. Often considered to be close to CD quality.
160-256kbps: Excellent quality. 192kbps is often the choice for encodings indistinguishable from the source.
320kbps+: Considered 100% identical to the source. Very large file size is a trade-off.

AndsX

OK ... to keep it clear .. Any one here put a nice aftermarket system on car with Navi ?

jiggaman

have you searched the threads in the audio section at all?

HondaGuy347

Yes, you can have high quality MP3s, but I expertly deduced from the questions asked that AndsX is not making perfect representations @ 320bps. If you are going to download shit off Kazaa and burn it onto a CD-R, you need not worry about having real high-end equipment to accurately reproduce your material.

There are probably 2% of people who 320bps info applies to. My original post was aimed at the 98% of us (which includes me) who are content with 128bps, and our sound systems are not holding our media back.

AndsX

I did a search ... couldn't find any //

jiggaman

check this install out

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/greg_freedman/my_photos

Tsx536

Adding an aftermarket deck can definitely be done. Find a custom shop that will add one in the storage bin compartment behind the folding door. They will most likely have to cut the back of the storage bin off, but it will work. Make sure to have them keep the door functiontality though, so it's stealth. You can also get the mp3 attachment kit if you're not worried about people be able to see it.

Go with a good aftermarket deck. I have a Pioneer mp3 player in my non-navi TSX hooked up via the AUX input. It still sounds good. Not as good as the 6 disc changer, but still really good. As mentioned above, unless you have a high bitrate, you're not going to get CD quality sound. 160-192 kbps is close to CD quality. You could always rip your CD collection onto your computer and burn a bunch of mp3 CDs. The Pioneer decks have features such as SLA Sound Level Adjustment, EQ adjustment, and Loudness, that really help to boost the sound on the mp3s. You can probably get an MP3 one for about $190.

I download a lot of my music and I still get good sound. I have my speakers heavily upgraded though, bought I would imagine you could still get decent sound out of the stock ones.

You could also go the IPOD & icelink route as mentioned above. This is a good route because of the portability of the Ipod. You can bring it in and out as you please. I'm not sure how easy it is to find a particular song, since the current track does not get displayed on your deck or anything. I'm also not sure how easy it is to find certain albums either. Maybe someone else with the icelink can talk about this.

Good luck man!

musicbox

Er, ok, you lost me, but it sounds like you expertly deduced that AndsX is in the 2% and not the 98%...Sorry if I offended, just trying to add some actual information to the thread...

AndsX

Today i got my Black beauty ... The sound system is awesome .. I am really thinking if i have to change anything in that ... Its cool ..

May be i would an OEM mp3 player .. after making some more money ...


BTW .. is there a way we can mute the audio sound using voice cmd .

elduderino

Stand down, stand down, he thinks the OE system is Awesome : )

"It's awesome, sir.

You mean, like a hot dog?

Like a hundred millon hot dogs, sir."

Eddie Izzard, Circle

bhjazz

Close. MP3 encoders can also filter out high and low frequencies to save space as well. It has a lot to do with what is called perceptual coding. So while 320K might sound great, it is still not the full waveform that would appear on the CD. (I agree they do sound good, though!)

For fun, go download a copy of IsoBuster and throw a CD into your computer to see just how big the original files usually are. (most are 35MB or more wav files...)

Some references/reading...

http://www.mp3-tech.org/
http://dvu.ath.cx/codecs/audio_codecs/mp3