Car Audio moving forward. A reflection.

[sarasota2k4]

Jon - Great post! Thanks for the reflection; enjoyed your "road trip" down memory lane. I, too remember the transition from AM to FM (mainly in my Dad's family station wagon), to 8-track/cassette (my older brothers cars), to CD (and DVD-A most recently in my 2013 Acura MDX) and now USB. Currently I have my 128GB iPod connected to my Acura's USB port so I can listen/access my 14K+ song library whenever I'm not listening to my 5.1 DVD-As. Recently, I've been using the same USB connection for my iPhone so that I can get access to the over 2 million songs in Amazon's Prime Music library simply by asking Alexa to play a certain song, album, artist, genre, station or one of my own playlists.

OUR POSSIBLE FUTURE: For many of us, our "personal" libraries of music have taken decades to build through all different types of sources and media. Many of us have also taken the 100s of hours to transfer that media to a digital format (wav, flac, mp3, etc). What's interesting is watching what today's younger generation is doing to access music; having 4 kids, 21 years-old and younger, I've noticed most of them "subscribe" or "stream" their music and don't outright purchase it like we've done for years. They could care less about "owning" the media. That brings me to "my opinion" of what future lies ahead. With the introduction of 5G wireless networks on the horizon, that will provide gigabit speeds to nearly everything, including our cars, we will see an even further utilization of "streaming" of music. Whether you have your own personal library of "digitized" media or use a subscription service, the stereos (more likely to be called Entertainment Centers) in vehicles will access the media from the cloud (public/private). Whether it be a 192Kb MP3 file or a 6 channel 24-bit, 96kHz audio file, you won't need to have your music "physically" in your car and the wireless companies will have no problem transmitting the files, regardless of size on a 5G network. Acura taking the steps to include "discrete" 5-channel playback through the ELS system in the 2019 RDX is encouraging because it leaves the door open to "stream" from the cloud. Since no physical media (CD/DVD) is needed to distribute the product, it may open the door for the recording companies and artists to again produce and distribute more surround sound music. Although our "older" generation appreciates how discrete music sounds, it will be the "younger" generation that determines its success. It wasn't that long ago that millions of people jumped on the MP3 craze and started listening to all their songs on an iPod, even if it was at a lower audio quality. Convenience outweighed quality (remember Steve Jobs announcing in 2001 that you can "carry a thousand songs in your pocket."). With 5G (Gigabit) speeds to their homes, cars and smartphones, they will no longer need to sacrifice quality for convenience. We'll see!

 

[LennonCobain]

Anyone miss the days of pulling out the entire radio unit out of the dash or carrying around a detachable faceplate?

 

[Quadzilla]

Anyone miss the days of pulling out the entire radio unit out of the dash or carrying around a detachable faceplate?

The stereo in my Datsun 240Z still has a detachable faceplate. I never take it off though.

 

[atrocity]

I played those tapes over and over. All the work it went into making them - adjusting the levels for each song, cuing up the record, starting the recording with just the right gap, figuring out how much time was left and if I could squeeze in one more song...

Yep. Having those things saved my sanity in office jobs. It was always FAR easier for me to concentrate with the single distraction of music going into headphones than with the endless bits of random human noise happening all over the place. It also resulted in good performance reviews because I had a really good incentive to just sit and work!

I guess it's very easy to make playlists on iTunes or streaming services but it's not the same.

I actually have recreated a few of my old tapes via identically-named playlists. A lot of what I put on them were 12" singles, so once I got those digitized it just seemed like the next logical step.

 

[JonUrban]

Well Jon...knowing your interest in music while driving....what is it going to be(music) for the maiden voyage of the new Acura?...some mellow tunes...or rock out..is it going to be just straight home....OR...maybe a little scenic trip in the new ride

Time will tell. So far, no answer.

 

[Q-Eight]

Here's my 3rd car just out of high school in the late 90's. Look familiar, Jon? '68 New Yorker 2-door Hardtop! Very rare beast. Was a gift from my High School shop teacher for graduating. Mine didn't have a reverberator, but did have a thumbwheel on the underside of the dashpad (above the radio) that was the fader. For a very short time this car had a "Mustang Stereo" 8-track deck with the grooviest purple track indicators. I wish I'd kept this car, but the engine had spun a bearing just weeks into the summer after grad. Traded it to a buddy for a purple '74 AMC Javelin which sort of began my obsession with AMC's.

Still miss the New Yorker, though. We used to call her "Tessie". As in two tonnes of ?

 

[Cibola]

An AMC memory, my older brother had a Hornet, which seemed to me an odd green and it naturally became known as the Green Hornet. It made a name for itself in the neighborhood but went away under uncertain circumstances. We didn't ask a lot of questions back then.

 

[Snood]

Awesome car

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Anyone miss the days of pulling out the entire radio unit out of the dash or carrying around a detachable faceplate?

Just got in a few minutes ago after a nice evening of live music with some old friends (one of whom I haven't seen in close to fifty years). The car is parked out on the street, and the faceplate is parked on top of the fridge. Old habits die hard.

 

[Odys]

My first car audio memory. I was 16 in 1977 and just soent $150 on a 1967 Buick Electra 225 with an 8-Track player. I was driving with my dad sitting shotgun and my mom and little brother in the back. I was stopped at a red light when I decided to pop in my Exile on Main Street tape. I must have let my foot off the brake, because I idled forward and tapped the rear tire of the motorcycle stopped in front of me. I was in the wrong, but I seriously barely touched him. He got off the bike dramatically holding the back of his neck. My dad got out and $50 later the guy on the bike rode off. My dad got back in the car and wordlessly yanked the tape out of the player and flung it out the window. Then my mom made him get out and retrieve it because of how much I had spent on it. Thanks mom.

 

[Quadzilla]

My first car audio memory. I was 16 in 1977 and just soent $150 on a 1967 Buick Electra 225 with an 8-Track player. I was driving with my dad sitting shotgun and my mom and little brother in the back. I was stopped at a red light when I decided to pop in my Exile on Main Street tape. I must have let my foot off the brake, because I idled forward and tapped the rear tire of the motorcycle stopped in front of me. I was in the wrong, but I seriously barely touched him. He got off the bike dramatically holding the back of his neck. My dad got out and $50 later the guy on the bike rode off. My dad got back in the car and wordlessly yanked the tape out of the player and flung it out the window. Then my mom made him get out and retrieve it because of how much I had spent on it. Thanks mom.

More parents should be doing that to teenagers' smart phones when they text and drive.

 

[JonUrban]

That's

Here's my 3rd car just out of high school in the late 90's. Look familiar, Jon? '68 New Yorker 2-door Hardtop! Very rare beast. Was a gift from my High School shop teacher for graduating. Mine didn't have a reverberator, but did have a thumbwheel on the underside of the dashpad (above the radio) that was the fader. For a very short time this car had a "Mustang Stereo" 8-track deck with the grooviest purple track indicators. I wish I'd kept this car, but the engine had spun a bearing just weeks into the summer after grad. Traded it to a buddy for a purple '74 AMC Javelin which sort of began my obsession with AMC's.

Still miss the New Yorker, though. We used to call her "Tessie". As in two tonnes of ?

View attachment 33451

That's it. A big spaceship car. Powerful engine though, like a 440 or something. You know I may be remembering it wrong. That knob under the dash was indeed the fader front to back, but the big surprise I had was if you pulled it DOWN, it would add the reverb. It was actually a switch when pulled down. I don't think many people knew that because when I discovered it, it was like WOW! What did I just do?

As I recall, his car started popping "freeze plugs", which dumped the anti-freeze all over the highway and overheated the car (obviously), so he got rid of it. It was a great, ahem, make-out car though! Great for the drive-in's because you could pack a pile of friends in the trunk then remote open it once you got in the drive in.

 

[Q-Eight]

That's it. A big spaceship car. Powerful engine though, like a 440 or something. You know I may be remembering it wrong. That knob under the dash was indeed the fader front to back, but the big surprise I had was if you pulled it DOWN, it would add the reverb. It was actually a switch when pulled down. I don't think many people knew that because when I discovered it, it was like WOW! What did I just do?

Mine had just a thumbwheel hanging down from under the dash but I would not be surprised at all if there was a reverberator option! I foolishly removed the thumbwheel when I installed the 8-track so I could use the speakers as a stereo instead of mono. I might even have a picture somewhere..... In '68, New Yorker had only two engine options: the "little" 440 V8 with 350 hp and single exhaust (that's what mine had) or the "big" 440 TNT V8 with 375 hp and twice pipes.

Jay Leno has in his collection, a '68 Imperial with dual air conditioners (one front, one rear). I joked that my New Yorker was the Canadian equivalent! I had dual heaters!! There was about 23 feet of pipe under the car and 11 feet of hoses under the hood to route the hot coolant to a second heater matrix in the back of the car. All vacuum controlled, you could make it blow hot air at the back window or warm air out from under the back seat to keep peoples' feet warm.

Here, you can see where I'd removed the thumbwheel for stereo operation. Oddly, I still have the thumbwheel.

 

[Quad Linda]

...a few more '70's recollections...
I made a mix Q-8 every month or two, depending on how many new Quad LP's I bought in that time period. Columbia converta-Quad blank 8 tracks.

My first 70's system was a Realspastic (RS) Q8 and a Medallion auto-reverse cassette. Speakers were Audiovox in front and Heppner 6x9's in the rear. Later, the tape units were a Pioneer Q8 (QP-444 ?) and a Pioneer cassette w/bass & treble controls.

next stop - 80's recollections later...

 

[Philip Spinner]

View attachment 33416
My first 8-track car player, a Sony tc-84. Impressed many of my friends playing Dark Side of the Moon in quad.

I had one of those as well. Put on close to a quarter million miles on my Firebird while listening to quad on this baby. Really liked the individual volume controls for each channel as opposed to slider controls.

 

[cutter]

Please keep these stories coming . I was laughing so hard last night about the 6x9 speakers loose in the rear window, I almost hurt myself. I had a 6 volt '65 VW for my first car and had to make do with a boombox. I had friends that I would cruise with that had the loose speakers in the windows. I will have to work on more car stereo memories. Scott

 

[Green]

Sometimes you just have to remember how it all started.

 

[The56Kid]

I've owned 14 cars. The first two had AM only. After that, I had BOTH Q8 and cassette mounted to a slide mount. If I knew I was going to the record store, I'd bring Q8. If I had dubbed my new stereo LP's to cassette, or had made a new mix tape, the cassette would come along. Each week, I'd makes a 90 minute mix cassette of the best tracks from the 20-30 albums I gought that week.

More later...

Wow, QLinda, that’s great stuff there. 20-30 albums per week!

 

[MrSmithers]

It is indeed quite humbling to think about never buying albums on the road and then playing them straight away. I'd never thought about that either?! Whilst I didn't come across any multichannel media there are a couple of memories I have of taking trips in hire cars - one in America, where we bought a compilation CD that began with Dido - White Flag. If I ever hear that song on the radio it reminds me of that trip! Another time was in New Zealand and the hire car had a cassette player. The only tape I could find at the petrol station was The Best Of Rod Stewart. Must have played it over 10 times the whole way through and I distinctly remember seeing a beautiful mountain in the distance singing "wake up Maggie I think I've got something to say the you...." at the top of my voice! Fun times...

Whilst I am nostalgic about those times it is super handy to have all the technical improvements that we can get these days. I was thinking that it could be cool to maybe cut an 8track case and build a USB stick into it... When you plug the USB stick into the port it would look like there's an 8 track playing in there... If that doesn't work you could still use the old 8track cases as portable USB holders. Put some foam inside and on first glance it looks like an album but you actually open it up to get the USB stick!

 

[key_wiz]

Not being able to pull into Best Buy and purchase a new CD and play it in the car on the way home?

True. But I did hear a song I liked on the satellite radio the other day, so I streamed the entire album from Amazon Prime from my phone and played it via Blutooth.

The more things change, the more they remain the same it seems?