Do you put as much effort into your Car Audio?

Not as much effor, but a LOT of effort nonetheless. That effort comes in the way of paying for a nice car with a nice OEM system. In making my purchasing decision, I put a lot of weight on how the system sounded and the noise level of the cabin when the car is operating.

That's terrible, Stereo5. What a loss. And I thought I was upset when my in-dash stereo was stolen 6 times (the same car).

For my Z06, I pulled out the crappy Bose audio system and added :

Dynaudio 7" component tweeter/midranges with upgraded crossovers in the doors.
Kenwood 8120 Stereo/DVD/GPS head unit with IPOD direct connection to all 5000 music files in Apple Lossless AIFF.
Alpine D600 digital amp
JLAudio sub in the rear
Dynomat sound deadening on the entire door panels.

Pinpoint imaging, tight bass, and great resolution - not a ghetto blaster system.
Did the entire install myself and only took about a week.
Probably the best stereo sound I have heard in any car!

I was heavily into car audio in the mid 80's. Although you cannot match the purtiy of home audio you cannot imagine the bass impact that can be had in a car. Just want to be clear there is no way you can match a quality home system but you can have many exhilarating moments as I'm sure Stereo 5 can attest to. Now I just have a stock car unit as I mostly listen to ESPN sports and 1 jazz station. Thanks for the thread you brought back many memories.

Needfreestuff.....You are right. The bass impact is addicting. Some of the notes felt like I was punched in the stomach. To be honest, that system had nice sound staging, pinpoint imaging and accuracy and it made me want to drive for hours on end. One more song always turned into playing the entire disc and so on.

It wasn't a boom and sizzle sound. It sounded like an excellent high end system. The premium sound system in my 09 Civic SI is supposed to be Hondas best for the car. It's a joke. a 6 inch midbass driver is not a subwoofer but I guess Honda thinks it is. If it weren't for the built in navigation, I would have ditched the system and had a shop install something decent.

Lowrider57.....Yes, it was terrible at the time. To this day, if I get up during the night, I always look out the window to make sure the cars are in the driveway. It really has scarred me for life. Worst part was I only had liability insurance on the car so I got nothing from insurance. I sold the car for 300 to a 17 year old that went to the Voc/Tech school. His class was going to rebuild it as their project. I was very happy to help him out.

I also wanted to mention that the Soundstream amps were considered to be one of the top high end brands at that time, and the amps certainly weren't a class D design.