Car Music

[thewinelake.]

I've been wondering recently about listening to music and how it affects others in the house. I suppose it can be a pretty selfish thing if (as is the case in my family) there isn't much in the way of shared tastes or shared views on how loud it should be.

I am rather fond of the audio system in my car - it's nothing particularly special - just the "Canton" upgraded system in a Skoda Superb (MkIII), but I can go there whenever I want and listen to whatever I want at the whatever volume I want. The sound is decent, actually. I was just thinking this morning that it's in someways a cross between headphones and speakers. The imaging is OK and the bass decently thumpy when required. Made me wonder why bother with a decentish system indoors at all!

Maybe instead of splashing out £500 on some new speakers for the new room, I should put that money into dampening in the car doors....

 

[LDTM]

I understand your point of view, its good of you to consider the other members in your household. Having said that however, its not too much to ask from your family to indulge your interests; one presumes you don't play the hifi all day.

In our house I cannot stand the sorts of television programmes Mrs LDTM enjoys. But she does, and that's reason enough to let her do so. I'll quietly leave her to it and rejoin when its over.

Car audio is certainly an interesting parallel to hifi: quite possibly better cost performance too. Still, with road noise, risk of theft, and the distraction factor (some of us really don't multitask well...) a static system is preferable to some.

 

[expat_mike]

For a lot of people, a large proportion of their music listening time does happen inside a car - so I think that many people do ponder the same question.

I think that people have two use cases - firstly in a car they maybe listening to music for several reasons, to avoid boredom, destress after a bad day at work, destress before a day at work, raise the adrenaline levels and drive faster, etc..... But for all these cases, the driver can never fully relax, because they need to be alert, in order to drive safely.

I have the bog-standard media unit in my Dacia Logan, and it only plays MP3s, but even so I think that the overall sound quality is better than that which was available in previous cars that I have owned. True, the treble may be missing a little bit of top end, so I have wondered whether to upgrade some of the elements. The answer that always keeps returning is that I could be wasting my time and money chasing something that is unachievable - in a car you are always battling road noise, car noise, external environmental noise, etc, so although I could listen to FLACs by connecting my phone to the media unit, i might not be able to replicate the sound quality that I can get at home, by upgrading the car speakers, adding damping to the doors or whatever.

By all means try upgrading the damping in your doors, but you may find that you have started a long (and expensive) road of in-car upgrades, and never arrive at perfection.

The second use case is listening to music at home, and there you can devote all your attention to the music, and not worry about driving. You can also remove a lot of the environmental noise, by shutting the doors and windows, or wearing headphones. This all allows you to relax more when listening to music, so there is a justification for spending more on your system at home, to enjoy better sound quality.

Overall you need the two different music systems, and spend enough to tailor each one to suit your precise needs.

 

[Paul.]

I updated the stereo in my old car, a mk6 Fiesta ST. It was wonderful at traffic lights but lost all detail due to road noise. Was downright crap at motorway speeds.

My Clio is 10 better in terms of noise damping and tire noise so even without upgrading the stereo it's already much better. It has component speakers where the tweeters are in the dash, this helps with detail but again the soundstage disappears at higher speeds.

I would only bother upgrading if your car is very quiet. Quiet tires are also a big upgrade (the kumho on my fiesta were rated at 74db, the Eagle f1 on my Clio are rated at 68db)

 

[knaithrover]

Tidal offline into the aux on my new(ish) Beemer sounds very good as do cd's regardless of speed (the car is pretty quiet) Mp3's via memory stick sound naff though.. I get the point about not being able to listen at home due to offspring and wives, fortunately I have stumbled upon a fantastic invention - headphones...

 

[thewinelake.]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

 

[expat_mike]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

Imagine the fun that you will have sitting in your car in the depths of winter, and the windows steam up, and your neighbours speculate on what you are doing.

Why not just sit inside your home, and use your phone, feeding an OPPO HA-2 or Chord Mojo, plus a pair of decent headphones. You will get far better sound quality, than a car stereo.

 

[thewinelake.]

Headphones and speakers are different. I have some quite decent headphones (B&O H6) that are very comfortable, but even then, I much prefer to listen to speakers.

Having said that, I have never tried using a dragonfly or similar to get the best from them.

Actually, that's not quite true - I found that using a Google Chromecast audio sounded better than using the DAC in my Mac or iPhone.

 

[knaithrover]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

I get it now sorry. I don't know what's worse though, sharing the fact that you sit in your car on the drive listening to music or admitting you have a Skoda 'Superb'....

 

[thewinelake.]

Well, my entire life is so embarrassing, what the hell? ;-)

 

[The_Lhc]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

I get it now sorry. I don't know what's worse though, sharing the fact that you sit in your car on the drive  listening to music or admitting you have a Skoda 'Superb'....

Why? Other than a slightly comical name it's supposed to be a very good car.

 

[knaithrover]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

I get it now sorry. I don't know what's worse though, sharing the fact that you sit in your car on the drive listening to music or admitting you have a Skoda 'Superb'....

Why? Other than a slightly comical name it's supposed to be a very good car.

Regardless of the reviews Its a horrible looking box with a silly name. And it's a Skoda.

 

[thewinelake.]

There are plenty of criticisms possible, but ugly is not usually one of them (the MkIII, that is)! What are you comparing it to?

 

[Deleted member 108165]

Nowt wrong with Skoda's these days, since they were taken over by VW, you know the same people that own Seat, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti. The Superb is actually a very tasty looking piece of kit, looks as good as any other euro-box, including BMW!

 

[The_Lhc]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

I get it now sorry. I don't know what's worse though, sharing the fact that you sit in your car on the drive  listening to music or admitting you have a Skoda 'Superb'....

Why? Other than a slightly comical name it's supposed to be a very good car.

Regardless of the reviews Its a horrible looking box with a silly name. And it's a Skoda.

Yes it is a Skoda but this isn't the 1980s anymore, so you may want to update your prejudices...

 

[Gaz37]

I know the OP was referring to sitting in his parked car listening to music but I can't help thinking that anybody who is listening carefully enough, whilst driving, to appreciate the nuances of their car's audio system then they probably ought to be concentrating on the road a little more.

I have a radio on in my car but could rarely tell what the last track they played was, unless I'm sitting in slow moving traffic of course

 

[MajorFubar]

In the early 90s WHF ran several features on installing decent audio systems in contemporary cars, including aftermarket amps, door-speakers, subs, and audio treatment. Back then the front ends were range-topping cassette radios with CD changers, and the odd MD radio. It was a fascinating aspect on the hobby fed by the realisation that enthusiasts were probably spending as much if not more time in their cars listening to music while commuting than sitting in the haloed hot-spot at home, so why shouldn't they have the opportunity to listen in hifi quality. But unfortunately, in WHF at least, that side of the hobby died a death after a few years and they started reviewing bloody tellies instead.

 

[knaithrover]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

I get it now sorry. I don't know what's worse though, sharing the fact that you sit in your car on the drive listening to music or admitting you have a Skoda 'Superb'....

Why? Other than a slightly comical name it's supposed to be a very good car.

Regardless of the reviews Its a horrible looking box with a silly name. And it's a Skoda.

Yes it is a Skoda but this isn't the 1980s anymore, so you may want to update your prejudices...

I'm quite happy with my prejudices/opinions as they are thanks they are bang up to date

 

[The_Lhc]

I'm talking about listening to the car system while parked on the drive!

I get it now sorry. I don't know what's worse though, sharing the fact that you sit in your car on the drive  listening to music or admitting you have a Skoda 'Superb'....

Why? Other than a slightly comical name it's supposed to be a very good car.

Regardless of the reviews Its a horrible looking box with a silly name. And it's a Skoda.

Yes it is a Skoda but this isn't the 1980s anymore, so you may want to update your prejudices...

I'm quite happy with my prejudices/opinions as they are thanks they are bang up to date

Fair enough, it's endlessly fascinating to watch someone glorifying in their own shortcomings.

 

[Paul.]

I've known a few people who swear by octavias and superbs, they are bloody good cars.

 

[Gazzip]

In the early 90s WHF ran several features on installing decent audio systems in contemporary cars, including aftermarket amps, door-speakers, subs, and audio treatment. Back then the front ends were range-topping cassette radios with CD changers, and the odd MD radio. It was a fascinating aspect on the hobby fed by the realisation that enthusiasts were probably spending as much if not more time in their cars listening to music while commuting than sitting in the haloed hot-spot at home, so why shouldn't they have the opportunity to listen in hifi quality. But unfortunately, in WHF at least, that side of the hobby died a death after a few years and they started reviewing bloody tellies instead.

WHF has always been a follower of the Hifi market, not a setter of its trends. I suspect the reviews of in car systems ceased with the decline of aftermarket setups for the car, which fell away when car manufacturers reacted to the 90's trend of bricking a car window to nick the removable stereo...

 

[jjbomber]

I've known a few people who swear by octavias and superbs, they are bloody good cars.

Whatcar gave it 5 stars:

Review: http://www.whatcar.com/skoda/superb/hatchback/review/

Meanwhile the Jaguar XF only hets 4 stars.

Review: http://www.whatcar.com/jaguar/xf/saloon/review/

 

[thewinelake.]

...then I wouldn't necessarily set much store by their star ratings!

However, it does seem to be a good car for the money, even if a bit boringly sensible - which seems to be what you get these days from all the major marques. Previous car was a Volvo convertible, which wasn't quite as dull - and the stereo (once upgraded) was excellent with plenty of power (I guess you need more in a soft-top). The road noise (and wind noise) was a pest, though.

OK, I can see that I may be the only one around who thinks that using the car as a home-auditorium is a great idea! ;-)

 

[Gazzip]

I've known a few people who swear by octavias and superbs, they are bloody good cars.

Whatcar gave it 5 stars:

Review: http://www.whatcar.com/skoda/superb/hatchback/review/

Meanwhile the Jaguar XF only hets 4 stars.

Review: http://www.whatcar.com/jaguar/xf/saloon/review/

You have to compare apples with apples, it is all relative. There are plenty of multi-thousand pound amplifiers with 4 stars within the WHF review. That doesn't make the £300, 5 star Denon DM40 "better" than its 4 star elder brethren.

The Octavia is however a good car, as are most new family/saloon/estate cars on sale these days thanks to Euro NCAP, the need for manufacturers to compete from a warranty/longevity perspective etc.. You have to enter the more exotic world of Ferrari etc. to get a meaningful uplift in performance, and even then quality can be an issue. There is the occasional exception to the rule such as the Nissan GTR, but that looks like pants even though it goes like stink. All sounds a bit like hifi to me!

...and yes I do know the car/Hifi analogy has been done to death...

 

[jjbomber]

...then I wouldn't necessarily set much store by their star ratings!

Yep. Both Michael Heseltine, or Lord Heseltine these days.

.... so the Apple car is guaranteed 5 stars!!!