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The new car models that have been coming out recently are real things of beauty. They’re finely engineered machines that are a marvel to look at and drive. But for car enthusiasts there’s one thing about new car models that is getting a bit of a bother.

New car models now carry custom head units that are practically molded into the dashboard of the car. What this means is that for car owners, it is not easy to replace the head unit with a third party unit that they like. They’d be lucky if they can find head units that fit perfectly where the original unit is located. So this means modifying the dashboard as well to conform to the new head unit. It’s a big issue especially for avid enthusiasts who love to mod their cars.

As far as where your speakers are located, remember that their installation should be aimed at balancing the sounds each time you open your head unit. The standards setup is having 2 at the back and 2 at front but some even put in tweeters to enhance the sounds even more.

Clarity is one thing but balancing is another. You simply have to distribute the sound evenly so that the music will properly be heard inside the car properly. Some people may want everything at the back but do remember, if that happens you will have to turn up the volume and people sitting at the back may be deafened by the loud noise of it.

As far as car audio is concerned, there is more towards getting the quality sounds than just turning the knob and putting the bass and the treble to their maximum capability. There are certain controls you have to address and most of the time, it will depend on which frequency you have chosen to make sure you get the right sound quality in your car.

Normally, car audio enthusiasts know how to mix the proper sounds and get the quality they are looking for. Not all people want a full bass sound setup. The best sounds today are made from clarity and only the gifted know how to tinker around with them today.

As far as installation of car audio equipment is concerned, brand will always play a vital role in the decision to what brand to endorse. We are all aware of the known brands today in the car audio industry. Among them:

1. Pioneer
2. Alpine
3. Blaupunkt
4. Fujitsu
5. Sony

There are other low end main units since most of them are mainly used as controllers to produce clarity and quality sounds. For most car fanatics, easy and quality listening to their favorite music is important. So do not be surprised at great setups you may see when they showoff their car audio system.

Loudness is one thing but clarity of sound is another. Installing subwoofers in cars is normally limited towards the teenagers who want to show off their sound setup to their friends and the people whom they drive by. But even the adults have their share of maintaining subwoofers just to make sure they retain the level of satisfaction as far as audio listening is concerned.

But today, subwoofers have slowly been disappearing. One reason for this is the number of outstanding quality speakers no longer need the support of the bass usually required from subwoofers in the olden day. But just to be sure, some people still use them but eventually give them up to make room for storage space and practicality.

One dilemma that most car audio freaks would have to decide on is whether to bank on features or price. The answer here would depend on how adept people would be when it comes to having car audio for their cars. Some are particular since they want clarity and of course brand reliability.

There are people who could care less. As long as there are tunes to hear, it does not matter to them. As long as they can be able to listen to their CDs that can be played, why go for an expensive one if you can enjoy music at a cheaper price?

You will notice today that most car stereos are designed to accommodate CDs. Gone are the age of cassette tapes and enhancing them with the usual disc changers for more song options. Today, aside from the disc changers, you also have the main in-dash CD unit to consider for easier listening.

Expect further enhancements to come along the way. With DVDs fast coming up, you may soon be hearing better sounding audio and video as well. This is the new age of in-car entertainment. They simply come up with something new every year and people are biting and getting them once they can.

One thing that caught my eye yesterday was the option of most car head units, particularly Pioneer that now has a USB interface allowing iPods and other MP3 players to be played with a simple hookup to the head unit.

At first I had my apprehensions since most car audio units today are equipped to read in-dash CD that stores MP3 and WMA. But now an independent storage device that can be hooked up to a car audio head unit is certainly something that I haven’t really heard of lately. What will these car audio companies think of next!

Disc changers installed in cars are typical these days. Actually if you look at them, it all boils down to how many CDs you would want your changer to have to be able to store the music you want to play each time you get into your car.

Much of this will depend on the compatibility it has on the head unit installed in your car. There are brands with specific number of CDs in their changer which is normally 6. But there are other brands which can store up to 12 discs. In which case, the choice would depend on how fond of music you really are.

With all the known brands of car audio head units are concerned, brand preference will normally be whittled down to two leading brands, Pioneer and Alpine. These are two of the well-known brands and while others are checking out the rest of the field that include brands like Sony or Fujitsu, rest assured that most people know their stuff when it comes to car head unit brand recall.

Normally when you buy a car, one of these two head units will be installed. But being the owner, if you are a brand loyalist, chances are you will be replacing it with the car head unit you have long been satisfied with, Pioneer or Alpine.