Vote

The car is not a good acoustical environment. I could listen to 8-track in the car forever and be extremely happy.

To a point, it doesn't matter how good the car audio sounds because my car isn't quiet enough to fully capture a great systems performance.

How can you seriously listen in a car anyway with road noise and the fact that you are supposed to be watching where you are going?

I have tried to make my car stereo sound as good as my home system and I have come close to this with a Denon cd player a 12.5 wpc Sound Stream Refrence amp and 10 inch sub, Mb Quartz mids Denon tweats, Audio Control Equalizer and Phionex Gold Cross Over.

I spend alot of time in the car, and have slowly put together a good sounding system: MB Quart RKB 160's in front, lesser Quart coax's rear(mistake),PPI 5440-5 channel amp(very clean with little if any electronic debris),Alpine 7965 pre-tuner-cd (very detailed and sounds refined if processor functions bypassed),8" Quart Woofer(blends nicely,not a thumper,also currently have woofer in small MTX box lined with sound deadening material behind passenger seat which keeps it musical and from drawing attention to the rear of the car),Cascade Audio Engineering sound damping slurry in rear-hatch and side panels, and doors. System has enough oomph to be heard at speed, and quite enjoyable at a stop with the motor off.

It nice to have a decent system.

I spend more time listening to my $800 car system than to either my main system ($5000) or bedroom system ($1500). I'm never in the car without tunes... huh?

as long as I can turn up the volumn for my music and not have to hear the gang bangers crap, then and only then, is car audio important.

Our present car doesn't even have a radio, and if I have anything to say about it, that's the way it will stay. You see, my husband and I have very different tastes in music; he can't stand my Pavarotti and Perlman and certain guilty pleasures from the '60's, and I can't abide his Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Doobie Brothers. Oh, and if he doesn't get his way, he pouts and throws tantrums. So, as far as music in the car is concerned, silence is golden.

Yes, I've installed a new CD/FM head unit from Sony and uprated speakers to replace the absolute drek that came with the little VW Cabrio. My biggest issue was the listener fatigue and the cassette deck in the original equipment. I'm getting too old for all the heavy investments of subwoofers, etc. Cheers....