I'm tired of a broken factory deck and crappy speakers so I'd like to make my first purchase. Please help steer me away from poorly chosen gear and towards things which will better meet my needs - I would very much appreciate the benefit of your collective wisdom. any thoughts would be helpful, not just alternate purchase suggestions. here is a list of stuff I'm eyeing and an explaination of what I'm after follows:
- Pioneer DEH-P390MP / DEH-P490iB, or DEH-P690UB
Of these decks, I haven't decided which I'd be willing to put up the money for. As far as I can tell the sound quality will be the same from each, so the difference to me is whether I'll be cheap (P390MP), get a reasonable option for bluetooth handsfree phone through the speakers (P490iB, add $42), or be able to use a usb link to solid-state or portable HDD storage (P690UB, add another $88).
- Blaupunkt GTc652 6 1/2" components in the front
- Infinity Reference 6012si 6 1/2" 2-way in the rear (snicker)
- Polk Audio db 460 4x6 in the dash
- some speaker wire to replace what i presume will be factory trash
- a mounting kit with a storage space would be nice (since it's bigger than a DIN)
- no amp (i've heard the difference at some stores, but it seems out of my price range, and seems like an advanced purchase if that makes sense)
- no subs (i haven't decided where I'd put them, and it also seems like an advanced purchase)
I feel alone with my modest expectations in the world of feature-overloaded, crappy electronics. Specifically, I haven't been able to locate the deck I want. It would be:
- able to play some lossless format off a burned DVD (FLAC or at least PCM/WAVE) - OGG would be good enough. is that too much to ask? one JVC deck i found does this, but it looks like it will not be very good at powering these speakers. these pioneer decks do WAVE but they are CD-only. i don't have huge reservations about using MP3, but it definitely sounds worse to me. . screw wma, screw aac, atrac would be a pain ...
- have a _responsive_ interface (queues up actions, quick seek, no button lag)
- have several good pre-amp outputs (which so far i understand to mean high-voltage)
- sound decent without an amplifier
- if your deck needs to have an ipod link to be viable, so be it. i don't want to spend money buying a big screen, though (be it a big DVD-deck touchscreen or just a huge on-deck screen with pretty pictures).
so ends my deck rant. i have a 1.5 DIN (?) slot, a pair of 4x6s on top of the dash and two pairs of 6 1/2" in the front and rear doors. ideally i would have a deck i could play DVDs burned with lossless audio which could drive a pair of component speakers plus whatever would best match them in the other holes until i feel i have a good enough idea of what i'm doing to get an amp. when that time comes, it'd of course be nice to have good pre-amp outputs. after some reading, and some looking at prices, i've tried to settle on some less expensive speakers because i get the impression that without an amp, some ~150 dollar-ish ones would sound muddy.
on the subjective side i'd like _super_ clear sound, with detailed and not overly bright highs, full midrange, and mildly punchy bass. i play lots and lots of trance music and whatnot, and i find i like it best when you can just feel the bass (so that you kind of feel worked over) but not let it overpower the rest of the music (as the regular thumps can certainly do). i really liked the clarity from a pair of rockford fosgate component speakers my friend had in his crappy truck in high school several years ago, and i know that the responsive, powerful bass i'm looking for can be achieved because another friend had it in his sub-less (though maybe not ampless) 4-6 speaker arrangement in his car.
thank you in advance,
