What To Look For In A Car Stereo?

[mnbcm]

I'm planning to purchase a car stereo. Nothing fancy. Just a single CD player with an auxiliary input for my ipod is all I care about. I may expand the system in the future with a sub and amp, but again, nothing too fancy or expensive. Anyway there's quite a wide variety. Are there any important specs that make one better than the other in terms of sound quality or does that only depend on the speakers in the car? Thanks!

[Greenside]

I can't comment on sound quality but here are a few things I have recently found important:

• In addition to iPod connectivity (although I don't use one) a USB port is really a great thing to have. As far as I'm concerned they should start making units that are simply radio/USB/iPod/ and forget about CDs altogether - a small 4Gb drive is so handy to just drag and drop stuff onto unlike messing about compiling CDs which you can never lay your hands on in the car anyway. Usb ports with sliding covers are neater than the ones with a feeble bit of rubber that hangs around untidily when the drive is occupied. The unit in my truck will play from an external notebook drive too.
  
• Given the above, a decent navigation system to enable you to find what you want is essential. Take a bunch of material in on your own drive and have a play.
  
• Lastly, so many of the units have really fiddly controls I would rate that as an important issue and especially if you have a truck with a jumpy ride.
  
• Pioneer currently have a two year warranty and some places will throw in a 2Gb thumb drive in for free.
  

[Cuban]

A subject beyond the limits of a forum sub, however.

As you are in a noisy car, forget CDs as mentioned above. USB or my choice is SD card reader equiped ICE head unit, many will have AUX phono inputs for your iPod (might need to knock up a suitable cable) - I'm sure there will be kits availible.

The quality will be in the speakers and more importantly how they are fitted into your car. Custom glassfibre and wood cabinets are not the cheapest option - but Thailand as many shops that do custom fittings of ICE systems and the work is good (from what I have seen).

If you want quaility (not just damaged ear drums) spend the money on a good amp, look at 1 Farad capacitors fitted at the amp's power supply to avoid distorded sound when playing heavy bass.

I was in a nice car some months ago that had had the tweeters mounted in the A frame alongside the windscreen, the interior had been stripped and custom moldings made for the speakers - pity it looked better tha it sounded.

I've not kept up todate with developments - but Drivesoft used to be a good option if you wanted something a bit special.

Also internet radio is a popular choice here.