One of the most important things about a new vehicle is its stereo – its audio system, to use the more current term. It is important because there’s not much else to hear. More finely, there’s not much else you want to hear – such as the sounds of the world outside. Of the traffic outside.
Most driving today is done windows up and stereo – audio system – on.
There are, however, times when it’s worth turning the audio system off. There are some cars that make their own kind of music. I consider my old muscle car to be a car like that. Years ago – decades ago – I installed a then-very-good stereo, with a cassette deck. This was back in the early ’90s, before CDs and bluetooth. I almost never played it, because I was busy playing with the Trans-Am instead. Why listen to songs when you can hear the secondaries of a Quadrajet open – and the vacuum hiss of the V8 drawing in air through the shaker scoop? Nothing that has been built lately makes that kind of music. There is also the sound of the Super T10 four speed. It is a wonderfully menacing kind of sound; of gears winding up (and down). Modern manuals may have overdrives and other virtues, but they do not make a sound like that.
It occurred to me that there was no good reason to keep a ’90s stereo in a ’70s car – so I removed the Kenwood deck and re-installed the original AM/FM stereo that came with the car. I was foresighted enough to have saved it. Re-installing it was a kind of penance. A ’70s car is not like a modern car, with its universal plugs that easily accept an aftermarket stereo without having to mutilate the wiring harness. I installed an aftermarket stereo in my ’02 Nissan pickup in about 15 minutes, with basic hands tools. It is so easy a caveman could do it (to borrow a line from those hilarious Geico insurance mafia commercials that are never played anymore). This is wonderful because it’s an easy and inexpensive way to bring an older (but still modern) vehicle’s audio system up to par with the present, without the need to buy a new vehicle. My truck’s stereo has bluetooth and it can play Sirius/XM as well as any new car’s factory audio system. I like having the upgraded audio system in my truck because it is a truck and when I drive it, I am driving it for practical reasons. And while it is an admirable truck, it doesn’t make the kind of music that makes you want to turn the audio system off.
The Trans-Am is different. And the reinstallation of the factory AM/FM radio was, too. After 30 years, I’d forgotten how I’d spliced the Kenwood deck into the ’70s wiring harness, so I had to figure that out – after figuring out how to get the old AM/FM stereo back into the dash. If you have never messed with a car from the ’70s (or older) you may not know how huge those old stereos were. Not the visible part you see when they are installed. That part looks (and is) about the same size as the more modern decks that were routinely installed as an upgrade in these cars back in the ’80s and ’90s and early 2000s. It’s the rest of the thing that’s huge. In my car’s case, it took removing the glovebox and some of the AC/heater ductwork to make enough room to shove the original unit back there (and then some finagling to push it forward, such that the part you see – the dials and buttons – protrude through the opening in the dash).
Now it’s back in place – and working, too. The little red light comes on when the signal is – intermittently – in stereo. It is intermittent because many GM cars of the ’70s had their radio antennas embedded in the windshield. This eliminated the ugly antenna mast – at the cost of not receiving much in the way of signal, let alone stereo. The buttons work, too. It is sometimes fun to push them and watch the dial needle – not digital or virtual – move from station to station. If you push the AM button, the dial shifts over to the AM scale. If you push FM, it reverts back. This is a neat trick because it’s not virtual. It’s mechanical.
My car also came with an 8-Track player that was the very height of ’70s audiophilia. It is a separate unit that sits below the AM/FM tuner in a cubby in the center console. The problem – for the moment – is that I do not have a center console. When I converted my car to manual – it was originally equipped with an automatic – I assumed it would be easy to find a manual center console (the hole is different, to accommodate the Hurst shifter). It has not been easy. I am still searching for an original (manual) console and until I find one, the 8-track deck will have to sit forlornly on my bench – with a KISS Destroyer 8-track inserted but silent.
That’s ok. I have other things to listen to in the meanwhile.
. . .
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My 71 Charger has an old school antenna sticking up from the passenger side fender. The original AM/FM stereo still works but only through the very low quality stock front dash speaker. Keeping the radio tuned to a station requires constant fine adjustment of the tuner knob.
This car came with (and still retains) the very rare optional console mounted tape deck recorder with microphone. Sadly, when I popped a tape in there to test it, it did not work. Dodge thought it would be somehow useful to dictate into a microphone while driving?
When I bought the car 10 years ago, the microphone was missing, but I was able to find a NOS in the box microphone that I bring out and plug in at car shows.
A stock, unmodified 440’s exhaust system makes surprisingly little sound. A nice low rumble, but nothing like you heard watching the Dukes of Hazzard.
I did recently get ahold of the production breakdown numbers for 1971 Dodge Chargers and found out that my Special Edition is 1 of only about 600 produced that year with a 440. 70,000 total 1971 Chargers sold. The 440s mostly went into R/Ts and Superbees. If mine had been a 4-speed, it would have been 1 of 30.
Once Rush Limbaugh passed, AM radio became meaningless again. Most FM, even the “classic rock” stations, are corporate whores without imagination. One can use one’s “sail fawn” or simply plug a memory stick into a USB port and play digital recordings…things like CD players, tape decks, etc were all fine in their day, and if what your ride came with, or that Blaupunkt or even KRACO deck still works, fine, enjoy it, but frankly, most of what’s broadcast, even on Sirius XM, is SHIT.
Me, I download Nick DiPaolo or Tucker Carlson from Rumble and have at it. Or, if streaming live, get some “Stoner Rock” channel going. Failing that, there’s always Danzig, Primus, Rammstein, and Tool.
Ditto, Douglas!
I do sometimes listen to “conservative” talk radio – in between the endless peddlering for Rough Greens and Relief Factor – because I like to get a sense of the talking points, so as to have a sense of what the agenda is.
OT: sort of a neat review of why the Ford Lightning failed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIrCdRiwXzI
Here in WA a premium car audio system is unusable due to the piss poor road conditions. The interstates were worn out 20 plus years ago, so much road noise you’ll give up and turn it off. Premium tires are a help but overwhelmed by the rough surface, great tires can only do so much.
you get the strongest bass
inside a car with all the windows closed
in a midsized car or SUV, you can get a
cabin pressurization bass boost
of 12 dB per octave below about 50 Hz.
subwoofers that sounds great inside a car will not
work well inside a home without that cabin pressurization
I have designed and built many subwoofers
for my home & car audio system since the 1980s
But even with the windows closed, if the car
makes a lot of exhaust noise, or road noise,
the bass will be hard to hear
This is exactly why I have been really lazy about fixing the cassette deck on my 1986 harley. I’m perfectly content listening to the old blockhead on long road trips and never felt the need for music
There’s something about the undersquared “put-put” of a vintage Harley panhead or shovelhead engine upon takeoff.
I remember getting catalogs in the mail from Crutchfield advertising all the latest aftermarket stereo equipment. I miss those days.
And we have an old Subaru with the antenna in the rear side window. By far the worst radio reception I’ve ever experienced.
It looks like Ferrari has come up with a scheme to sell the Luce. Buy a 550K euro POS so you can later maybe be allowed to buy a “good” Ferrari. Boycott time? I know after hearing this I promise not to buy one. 🙂
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/ferrari-reportedly-tells-buyers-buy-unpopular-luce-move-wait-list
Auto manufacturers are stuck trying to comply with ever changing govt. mandates making the outcomes as best they can with the time they have. I wonder what a car could be like if designers and engineers actually made a car that was free of govt. interference. Some vehicles don’t need a radio, the machine is the entertainment.
As long as they fuck with me with their paywalls and spying on me to GovCorp and the Chosenites, I’ll never buy a new ride again. Fuck ’em.
“Clarkson’s Farm” is the only original programming on Amazon Prime worth watching.
The last two episodes of the season … and possibly the series … ? … dropped this week.
Best wishes to Jeremy Clarkson for a speedy recovery.
Hammond!
Ford dealers used to give out Ford/Learjet Stereo demo 8 track tapes to customers.
I had one featuring Redd Fox which was way beyond politically incorrect and profane by today’s standards.
Gary Shandling ers “Sanford and Son” network-safe TV material it wasn’t
Gary Shandling *era* “Sanford and Son” …
No more editing on my phone. Where was the autocorrect intrusion that time?
You gots to wash yo a$$… Redd was definitely not modern.
Buddy Hackett could cause you to laugh so hard you’d shit your pants also.
‘This was back in the early ’90s, before CDs and Bluetooth.’ — eric
I remember the first time I heard about CDs. It was on the 41st floor of a building in Rockefeller Center where I worked. A Japanese lady in our office was extolling the merits of CDs: ‘the sound is clear as crystal,’ she enthused. The year was 1985.
Nearly everyone agreed. But audiophiles ultimately concluded that analog sources such as vinyl records, and analog amplifiers such as vacuum tubes, produce a warmth and timbre that digital sources cannot match.
Here’s an account of listening to favorite vinyl record tracks through a vacuum tube amplifier and horn-loaded Klipsch speakers — not something you’re gonna accomplish in a car!
‘It’s the late ‘80s. Roy Delgado’s in the middle of designing a new speaker. One of his sales guys gives him Bonnie Raitt’s seminal album Nick of Time, saying—like you’d say to a speaker guy—It’s a great demo CD. Later that year, Roy’s in New York for some audio convention, and hears Bonnie Raitt in concert. He realizes: She sounds nasal. Which isn’t how she sounds on Nick of Time, through Roy’s new speaker. “I began to think about: What’s the goal?” he tells me. “So I went back and said, This is wrong.” He re-engineered the speaker—not to make sure that Bonnie Raitt sounded perfect, but to make sure the speaker was transmitting, perfectly, the sound of Bonnie Raitt.’
https://archive.ph/yL8Mr
I first heard a CD in Kauffman’s department store in downtown Pittsburgh. Rush Moving Pictures (yea, with Red Barchetta). I was about 2 feet from the speakers and blown away by the sound. Later on I realized that most of the music on CD was still being mastered like it was going on the LP (which was the case for a lot of years), meaning a lot of the equalization was set up for vinyl, not digital. And digital recorders like the Sony PCM 3324S didn’t help because it encouraged musicians to push the dynamic range to the extremes, with disastrous results. Then Bob Ludwig would master the dynamic range down to whatever would fit on an LP (old dogs don’t learn new tricks) and EQ like it was going to be on AM radio… and the sound wasn’t ever going to live up to the potential. I listen to a lot of remastered “lossless” music today that sounds much better than the original CDs, if only because we have 40 years of trial and error to know what works and what doesn’t. But the engineers, producers and A&R boys still need to want it to sound good, or we’re right back to the loudness wars again.
Sorry for bringing up an audiophile response…
I’m not really an audiophile but I do play one. I have a mix of technology to reproduce music. It took a long time for audio engineers to understand how to record and master for digital. Also the available chips and DAC designs have progressed greatly.
There’s some music that never made it to CD while there’s modern music that was only recorded digitally and in many cases never showed up on vinyl. Sometimes convenience is more important, such as picking up music at festivals or shows. It’s not easy to carry around a stack of vinyl records all day.
Bottom line for me is the content. The reason I don’t consider myself an audiophile is I have no problem listening to subpar recordings if the material is good.
I spent some time apprenticing in a small recording studio/video production house in the late 80s. The engineers played 1/2 inch analog two track masters recorded at 30 inches per second. By far the best sound I ever heard. But not the most efficient or portable way to listen to music.
I’m really pleased the modern computer age has given us old music redone into new issues sounding better than I ever remember as a kid.
Sinatra ‘Just The Way You Are’ is amazingly fun to listen to now, I was ‘meh’ back in the day but however they tweaked the modern remix sure brings out his vocal talent. It literally sounds like it was recorded this year not 1964. How they get 62 yer old master recordings sounding better than new? Wow.
See Sinatra ‘The Way You Look Tonight’
you are an audiophile if you enjoy recorded music
some people are more interested in audio equipment
and sound quality than the music they are listening to.
They have the hopeless goal of making music sound
like its live in an ordinary home listening room
with just two speakers
i call them stereo equipmentphiles.
I’d rather listen to a good song on a $50 boom box
than a mediocre song on $20,000 speakers
“audiophiles ultimately concluded that analog sources such as vinyl records, and analog amplifiers such as vacuum tubes, produce a warmth and timbre that digital sources cannot match.”
not this audiophile
based on a 1990’s double blind test with a michigan audio club
a cd made from an analog master tape done at a recording studio
sounded more like the master tape
than a vinyl record made from the same master tape
Digital masters are now the norm for new vinyl recordings,
and even for reissues, many labels digitize the original
analog masters at high resolution (e.g., 24‑bit/192kHz or DSD)
before mastering and cutting
Analog master tapes are still used for some reissues,
especially of older recordings, and can be labeled
“mastered from original analog tapes.”
Detroit Rock City! Until that 8-track gets reinstalled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jquWv9txxGI&list=RDjquWv9txxGI&start_radio=1
Since there’s nothing good on TV for the most part, we’ve been putting on Mecum auctions.
They don’t tend to fire up the cars, but looking at them and mentally comparing antiques and classics to the bore of today leaves me feeling like we lost out on creativity.
Sure, some modern cars look good, but there is no style. If 50 or more years ago, auto makers could design and create cars without computer drafting that had so much visual variety, why can’t it be done today? Maybe it’s the lack of competing manufacturers, maybe too many chemicals in the food. Whatever the reason, cars are boring to look at.
It strikes me as a bit of a commentary on America in general. For as much as individuality and diversity is touted, the reality is that everyone is the same. If you color your hair blue, so will I. Your opinions are my opinions. Thou shalt not deviate from the few respectable talking points.
We’ve lost something of our personalities along the way. Everybody is a cog, and it shows in the lack of real design.
Amen, Dan –
And there is a reason for this. The various regs that must be complied with serve to effectively homogenize the shape and so the appearance of new vehicles. There is much less leeway to design something that looks different because it probably won’t be compliant. Now, why must this be so? Why is it that the federal government is in the business of setting “standards” for cars? It is none of the government’s legitimate business to interfere in private, voluntary transactions. If I want to drive a Lotus 7 with no air bags and almost no body, that’s my business. Americans have tolerated interference with their personal choices for much too long.
Eric, there is one other thing missing from today’s autos. That is a variety of colors. It seems the majority of paint colors today are white, black, gray and silver and that’s about it.
Hi Allen!
Other cars are available – but they often cost extra. A lot extra. Like $800 extra. That’s why most cars are refrigerator white or silver or gray.
Back when I could drive, I liked silver because it doesn’t show dirt, which meant I could spend more time driving and less time washing.
As far as stereos go, I rarely turned one on, since I liked the sound of an engine running, any engine.
And near zero color options for the interior! My gold ‘70 Firebird had “oyster” color interior. Off white seats and tan dash accents, a great looking car.
Old Yeller, the pale yellow ‘79 Gran Prix had “camel” interior, a mid tan color. The ‘91 Silverado is two tone (wow try ordering that today!) white/maroon outside with a multi tone maroon interior.
Also in before times, you could order a custom color not listed for that year’s production. The Commanders ‘71 Nova we got used from a gal that ordered it new with ‘68 Camaro Hugger Orange paint, her brother worked at the Chevy dealer & got that done for her. The firewall data plate had – – instead of a paint code indicating special order paint.
A “Lotto wish” would be to build a replica of Cugnot’s steam-powered car, go chuf-chuffing down Main Street, and crash that fucker into some “Feminist Women’s Health Clinic”. Or at least fulfill Denis Leary’s desire to drive about in a 1973 Cadillac Eldorado with that 500 cube V8, a veritable King TIger Tank with leather seats, chrome, and fancy hubcaps.
Morning, Douglas!
I have always wanted to own a ’70s land whale such as the Eldorado – the name has a sound, doesn’t it? – or a boat-tail Riviera. But since I am not rich, I must be content with my Trans-Am. I consider myself lucky to have it – and also to have at least driven some of those land whales.