Thread: Wanted: Options and Opinions

Hehehe...

I'm not all that educated in the audio area

Thats okay budy, atleast you are honest unlike a certain person posting everywhere around here. Just make sure you search old posts before you start new ones.

How loaded are you?? Yeah you can get a laptop going in your car no problem. But those things arent exactly cheap. So I would assume you would go with an old one. Thus, you will probably have to fork out some extra cash for a better soundcard and a bigger hard drive (not cheap).

I think the consensus (can never spell that word) around here is to build a desktop from scratch saving you tons of money first of all...and it will be much faster and more powerful than a laptop. Then again, I have all pioneer in my car (see sig) runing nav, dvd, tv etc. All depends on how much you spend or what kind of connections you have to get stuff cheap.

My advice is to hang around here for a couple of days and you will pick up everything you need to know about getting a LCD in your dash, building a sweet powerful desktop, and installing it in your car. Check out peoples websites. You will be amazed at thing things these guys have done. Dont resort to blowing a big wad of cash just because it is easier. You will have much more fun and pride in your car when you start doing things yourself.

^- what he said

But I'll have to say though, it is a lot of work. Make sure you take your time in planning. Especially if you want it to look and good perform well. But, if you do finally end up going the laptop route, I figure you can get a decent laptop for $2k

To answer your question about getting computer audio to come out of you car speakers, there are a few different ways.

Method one:
(if you have a tape deck) is to use a tape adapter. I personally wouldn't go this way because of the sound quality isn't 100% of what it could be.

Method two:
Buy a new deck with aux-in inputs. This way you just plug and play , basically. Using a stereo 1/8" audio cable plug one end into yout computers "line-out", or even speaker line if you have to, and presto!

Method three:
Check and see if your exsisting deck has aux-in or cd changer control. If it has aux-in, just plug in the sound-out line from your computer to your deck.

If it has cd changer controls, check and see if the manufacture makes a aux-in adapter for it. What this does (usually) is fool the deck into thinking there is a cd-changer connected and you can use it as a "line-in".

Another thing you can do is if
your current deck supports a cd-changer and is not connected to one, you can try to hack it. Do a search on here or on the net in general for your factory (or whatever you may have) deck and check for the "pin-outs" and then you can from there see if it is possible to just tap in from there. There are some people on here who have done that.

This is what I did: I bought a Blaukpunt Houston deck off ebay ($99 on ebay $300 from my local car stereo shop) Then I bought a aux-in adapter from www.crutchfield.com ($12) To be honest with you, I have yet to try it but I don't see why it wouldn't work just fine.

Also, if you decide to get a deck and use it's aux-in adapters, make sure you chcek the price of the adapters before you buy your deck. Some of them can get very pricey, like the Sony. Sony changes $100+

Good luck! Hope I helped!

nullMethod one:nullMethod three:if

Well, here is what I'm seeing. The cheapest Alpine setup is about $1,000, as advertized on the alpine website. I can get a brand new Dell laptop for the same price. They do not have an option to upgrade the soundcard though. And I think the standard 10 gigs would be plenty, if not I could use mp3's burned to cd. I also get all of the advantages mentioned before included in that price. And then I could possibly get something cheaper off of ebay or ubid. And from what Carlos said, it shouldnt be too hard to hook up. I know some of the monsoon systems come with cd changers, but mine doesnt have one.
Another big plus is that I like my current deck because it has an eq and steering wheel controls.

If you're willing to spend that much, you could buy a VGA lcd screen with controller, and build a dekstop computer. You could get a ~500 mhz computer with and a nice soundcard and big hard drive.

this laptop works fine in my ride!!!!
AUX on the stereo .
BTW it was only $400!




[ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: radioman193 ]

Well it seems to me money is not a problem for you and also that u want something more than what that damn alpine company is offering. I might suggest you study my setup and come back with questions. Lets just say it does everything u can possibly think off. What ever it doesn't have i am sure i can add it or what not.

Charles,

Might I just suggest that you construct a webpage. Rather than just a ftp with jpegs. It is a bit difficult to navigate. You suggest people to study your system but..it's like, where do I start? Please don't take this offensively. I know there are circumstances that may hinder you; time, work, this, that- whatever it may be...Just something to keep in mind.

If you know me by now you will know that i am constantly coding. Quite a few ppl have promised to create a page for me. Pictures are worth a thousands words if u take ur time to look at it. I have atleast renamed all the files to atleast help out....would u have prefered the good old Sony Mavica way of naming pics Anyway i am not mad or anything...I guess when i finally do a video showing CobraIII in action and the Box, that will help out alot. For now i might not get to the page ANY time soon.