I’m not too picky in the car realizing that it is not a friendly environment for audio; for more exacting sound I have my stereo setup at home (I prefer vinyl but most formats are supported). Plus at my age (70) my hearing is not the best so I have to tune to try to compensate. Just got done listening to the Ramsey Lewis Trio.

 

Taste varies as you get older.
I think about the only thing I don't listen to is old country.
As for vinyls, I all but sold all my records and equipment years ago but the wife wanted a player, so we now have a new? Old collection started again. LOL.

The newest addition to the household.






As for how I build stereo systems in and vehicle I approach the system as if it were a set of headphones., but with added lower frequencies you can feel (below 200hz) . It does require adding a lot of sound deadening material but it is well worth it even when the sound system is off.

 

I always liked Ramsey Lewis. He used to play nightclubs fairly frequently in the Cincinnati area back in the 60's and 70's and I caught him live on several occasions.

 

Old Benji eh...must be around 1972...German brand I believe.
I had a Technics SL-Q direct drive with and Audio Technica cartridge that cost more than the turntable.
Alas when vinyl became nearly defunct, I switched to CD's to keep my music catalog growing.
I gave my massive vinyl collection to a friend who transferred it to hard drives for me, keeping the clicks and pops
Long ago gave up my turntable and Akai dual cassette decks and just recently gave up my CD collection as well.
I transferred all the CD's to SSD but I still have my Sansui AUD-77X DC integrated amp and TU-&&X digital Syth receiver.
Much easier playing music with everything cataloged on the computer now. Not sure my old geezer hands (yeah I'm 70 as well) could properly handle vinyl now anyway. Especially with a glass of wine in hand, much easier to use a mouse or voice control

 

Yeah I had gone over to CDs back in the 80s but never got rid of my vinyl collection, but I did leave it with my ex when we divorced some 12 years ago. She has had no way to play them so she brought most of them to me a while back and I have been building that. I have a few from my brother who passed away last fall so playing them is a nice remembrance of him. All of my stereo equipment is new except for multiple vintage turntables that I have bought and restored in the last year, including an ELAC Miracord that is my favorite, a Thorens TD145, and a Garrard SL95.

 

My ELAC Miracord 50H is the only thing remaining from my original system of the 70's that I put together while living in Germany (well, I may have a pair of Kenwood bookshelf speakers in the attic that I haven't used in years and which probably sound like crap now after sitting up there). I still have a pair of AR3a speakers as my Zone 2 in the living room which I had rebuilt a couple of years ago and they still sound great.

 

Mine is the 770H but very similar just 2 generations newer. I’ll never get rid of it although it is missing the strobe ring (only plastic and very common for them to crack with age).

 

Hello dannyw,

Thanks for the reply the Thread where I introduced myself.

Regarding your speaker concern, I will tell you my solution for pushing the sound quality up a notch in the configuration my car has. I do not know what control features the Base model has, but the Select has “Type B” Connect functions. Here, I started playing with the equalizers under the Advanced Sound Settings to use with both a USB stick (CDs uploaded to) and terrestrial radio. I am terribly sensitive to peaks at certain frequencies, and many CDs are poorly mixed and mastered; radio stations vary in sound quality as well.

I changed the settings in all three Custom choices to address some of the possible issues the family would face listening. Custom One works best with thin and tinny sounding sources, for example; Custom Three we use for many radio stations; and Custom Two splits the difference. Whereas Stevie Wonder’s “The Definitive Collection” is virtually un-listenable on a good home system, we find we can enjoy it in the CX-5, for the most part.

 

And aside from your interesting way of adjusting, the main empirical information is that the reproduction of the sounds/music will vary depending on the source. The other is also the environment and the speeds you are traveling. So what you may set up for one specific music may not work as your vehicle speeds increase and influence all the sounds in music (Sound frequencies). So unless you like constantly playing with adjustments you find a compromise and adjust it for the most commonly used reproduced music whatever that may be.

I can tell you how many times I have built a full ground up custom stereo system for a custom and think it is fantastic and I tell them DONT change any of the gains or setting only the volume that they ALL seem to return in a couple of weeks saying the stereo is sounding very bad and something must be wrong. I look at their setting and ask them "do you remember when i said don't touch the setting"! I make a record both written and with pictures of their setting so it is easy to quickie reset them. They always have the big simile and I repeat to them, DONT TOUCH THE SETTINGS or next time it will cost you 50 bucks and I will super glue the adjustment controls. LOL

 

"DONT TOUCH THE SETTINGS"! Thank you for sharing that, Callisto; it made me laugh.