Overwritten.net
Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: WindAndConfusion on Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 10:12:22 PM
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I'm on the brink of ordering one, but it's hard to find a unit that's not a piece of crap AND that won't stick at least an inch out of my dash.
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No.
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Also no. My stock stereo is quite nice.
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Too late now, it's ordered.
My stock stereo is quite nice.
Does your stock stereo play up to ~65000 MP3-, AAC-, or WMA-encoded files off of any attached USB mass storage device, including thumb drives, portable hard drives, and MP3 players?
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Does your stock stereo play up to ~65000 MP3-, AAC-, or WMA-encoded files off of any attached USB mass storage device, including thumb drives, portable hard drives, and MP3 players?
Yes. Plus mine wipes my ass for me. Beat that.
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My stereo does everything Ghandi's does, plus it ISN'T a convicted rapist with an anus fetish.
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As opposed to the convicted rapists without the anus fetishes?
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Too late now, it's ordered. Does your stock stereo play up to ~65000 MP3-, AAC-, or WMA-encoded files off of any attached USB mass storage device, including thumb drives, portable hard drives, and MP3 players?
Do I need it to?
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In fact, you don't actually need a car stereo at all, but if you're going to have one, it might as well carry your entire music collection on it.
Or are you going to give me one of those "MP3 players are newfangled gadgets and everyone should use their 1979 Sony Walkman like me" speeches?
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In my estimation, all one needs is good driving music, regardless of the form it comes in. I would say an entire music collection would be largely superfluous given that a lot of it, depending on the owner, wouldn't be good driving music. And if you don't believe there's such a thing as good driving music, you're doing it wrong.
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In fact, you don't actually need a car stereo at all, but if you're going to have one, it might as well carry your entire music collection on it.
Or are you going to give me one of those "MP3 players are newfangled gadgets and everyone should use their 1979 Sony Walkman like me" speeches?
XM radio does fine for me. I also don't see the need to screw up the look of my entire dashboard by installing a fugly aftermarket stereo.
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One thing that stinks is car companies are seemingly purposely complicating their designs to prevent the easy installation of an aftermarket stereo.
Jennie has a new '08 Escape, and I don't even know how it could be done. There are so many controls combined into one unit.
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My car is the same way. Window controls, door locks, heat/ac controls and stereo are all part of one huge unit in the center of the dash. The stereo is of high quality so I've got no complaints, but if I wanted to install something aftermarket It would either be impossible or insanely expensive.
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Car electrical systems are shockingly primitive. Window controls, for instance, are usually just eight circuits (two for each window). Close one circuit, the window goes up; close the other, it goes down.
Anyone with basic electrical skills could figure out how to make a set of controls for a system like that, and any gay man with basic carpentry skills could put those controls into an attractive, functional unit. (The remaining 99% of the population are screwed, though.)
There's actually an international standard that defines the form factor and interconnects for a car stereo head unit. Under WTO rules, it is probably illegal for car manufacturers to make highly incompatible units because it's an obvious trade barrier that serves no useful purpose, but factually the WTO is useless and corrupt even by the relaxed standards of an international organization.
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What exactly does that mean for people who have overly large strangely shaped monstrosities in the middle of our dashboards? Like I was saying, if I were so inclined to replace my stock stereo, It would be a sufficiently complicated job to necessitate someone with some skill to do it custom for my vehicle. and that = $.
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Crutchfield sometimes supplies adapters for these situations. But they are usually really ugly and crappy.