Car-Fi Comes of Age

If you've just now come into the market for an audio rig that will turn your wheels into a concert hall, you're in luck; there's a cornucopia of really spectacular sound equipment waiting for you at your neighborhood highway-sound store in a range of prices from the modest budget to the price-is-no-object level.

What's happened to unleash this new generation of highway-sound equipment? For one thing, technological advances and lower prices on equipment that hadn't really changed much in the past decade. Also, spurred by the C.B.-radio boom, manufacturers here and abroad now have production lines that aren't making C.B.s because of the market glut, so they're making car stereos in huge quantities.

There's another trend that's partly responsible. New-car dealers, seeing a chance to be of extra service to their customers and to their own profits, have started to stock stereo equipment that does not come from Detroit. That way, you can order a new car without any kind of radio at all and buy the rig from the dealer. He'll install it for you with a neat, (continued on page 226) Car-Fi (continued from page 167) factory-installed look, and the odds are you'll end up with better sound for less money.

Then there are the electronics stores and the highway-sound specialists that have installers on the payroll. They'll sell you the latest equipment at whatever price level you choose and will install it for $40 or so. If you buy custom in-dash equipment, it will look factory installed and, again, will undoubtedly sound as good as or better than Detroit-installed gear that is much more costly.

A favorite general-purpose system is the in-dash combination AM/FM stereo radio with push-button tuning and a cassette tape player. As a general rule, it's a good idea to avoid eight-track cartridges in favor of the cassette format. Cartridges are finally on their way out. They're traditionally more troublesome than cassettes, they tend to jam or develop serious wow and are bulky as hell. The only reason for buying a cartridge stereo for your car is that you have a substantial investment in that format.

The biggest problem with installation is finding the room for the equipment. Basic in-dash units are superstreamlined today, taking up far less room behind the dash than their predecessors did only five years ago. As cars get smaller, you'll find that this shrinkage gets more important. Sure, you can still hang a unit under the dash, if you can find a place to put it and if you don't mind leaving an inviting target for rip-off artists.

The other size problem involves the speakers. Most American cars have cutouts in the metal chassis for 6? x 9? speakers in the rear window deck. Cutting through the fiberboard ledge inside the car is a simple matter. The air space in the trunk acts as a superenclosure for these speakers, adding oomph to the bass.

Up-front speakers generally have to be smaller--typically, five inches in diameter--and they won't have the trunk's big air space backing them up, so don't expect too much bass. If the car has stereo speaker grilles in the dash, that's where they should go. Failing that, be prepared to have the installer cut holes in your door panels.

Why front speakers? For one thing, they add another dimension to the stereo listening. An automobile is an almost ideal listening area, since it's a closed-in air space. But sound coming just from the rear seems unnatural; live music usually originates in front of you. Adding the front speakers puts you in a cocoon of sound. Also, by cutting off the rear speakers, you can listen to the stereo while the rear-seat passengers remain relatively sound-free.

As powerful as the new stereo systems are, the output power often isn't quite enough. This is especially true if you're listening to a favorite FM station that's low-powered or if you have to crank the balance control drastically in one direction because of a weakly recorded left or right channel on the tape. That is when a power-booster amplifier comes in handy.

This outboard unit can be neatly hidden under the dashboard and connects between the stereo and the speakers. Typically, a booster will take the five watts per channel coming out of the stereo and provide 20 watts per channel instead. There are more potent boosters available, but the choice of loud-speakers begins to get critical; it's possible to overpower a speaker and blow it out, so the speakers' power-handling capacity is an important factor.

There's one other reason for using a power booster: If you're a fresh-air fiend or drive a convertible with the top down, your stereo has tons of extra highway and wind noise to overcome.

Modular add-ons or systems for car stereo are getting powerful play from some companies. A preamplifier/equalizer can do wonders for tapes and broadcasts that need some help. Your home stereo amplifier has much of this circuitry; now your car stereo can have it, too. It just takes up some more room.

In the modular camp, new components à la home hi-fi are appearing regularly, and if you don't mind stacking up three or four units on your center hump, you can get a versatile system that can be upgraded easily. Trouble with such a system is that it invites theft, since it's not mounted in the dash. Of course, there's always a car burglar alarm.

If you still want your C.B. radio with the stereo, you can have that, too, with any of the new modular or remote systems that take up virtually no room in the car. Many car-stereo makers have an add-on option so the remote C.B.--with all the operating controls on the microphone--works through the system, using its speakers. A combination stand-by/ squelch circuit will let you listen blissfully to your favorite music until a very strong C.B. signal breaks through. Or you can just switch off the C.B.

Generally, it's a mistake to consider a car stereo without tape. Tape adds only a few bucks to the over-all price of the system, and if you don't have a big tape collection, you can soon build one to suit your taste. Tape is the cure-all for dead spots on the highway when you're too far from a good stereo station to listen to your favorites. But whatever your taste--in music and in transportation--today's highway-sound systems offer fabulous value and listening pleasure.