I never thought it would happen but I guess I sort of grew out of the high-end heavy bass loud car audio scene. I had more problems with my system in the last year than I ever had with any system before. For the last few months it has seemed like I was always having to fix one thing or another - my old Kicker amp broke so I had to spend more money on another amp, had to add a new equalizer to add better tone control, etc etc..The last straw was when my Ipod went nuts a few weeks ago. It plays but sounds real garbled and distorted. I read online the main chip or mother board in it is probably toasted. My daughter calls it "Apple's planned obsolescence". She says Apple does not want your Ipod to last a long time, so you can spend even more money on a new one.

I was fed up with car audio problems so I removed everything but the Alpine tweeters from my doors. I bought and installed 4 new Pioneer 6 1/2" TSG1644 speakers from Advance. Regular price was $49.99 per pair, so I used a $40.00 off a $100.00 online purchase discount code and added in a wire harness for the radio to make the speakers cost me only $30.00 per pair. I connected them to the speaker outputs of my Kenwood deck and it sounded just OK, kind of thin and flat without much mid or bass response. Even though I really don't need a sub now, the system sounded weak. I bought a new Pioneer DEH-2500UI deck from Advance, used another $40.00 discount code on it and installed it this past Tuesday night. It was not very good, the low end was a lot better but it just did not have the tone controls I was looking for.

Today I returned the Pioneer and bought a new Sony CDXGT57UP at Best Buy. It only cost $89.99 but it sounds great and has a built-in 7 band equalizer that actually does allow you to set it up so it has good highs, mids and the bass is very good too. It has loudness and a compressed music enhancer that makes MP3's sound much better, adds back a lot of the missing high frequencies. The only thing I need to get adjusted to is the buttons are only one color, which is red. It's not too bad, the red color is not too bright and it blends fairly well with the dash lights. The other thing is the volume **** is silver. I think it would look better in black and have emailed Sony to see if I can order one. They have another couple decks in their line with black volume *****.

It is good to actually have my back seat again and be able to carry stuff (like groceries) inside the cab without having a big sub enclosure and amp rack taking up most of the room in the back:

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Here is my new Sony deck. Rather than spend $250.00 on a new Ipod I just bought a 32GB micro flash drive off of Amazon for $22.00. It should hold plenty of tunes and is much cheaper and less invasive than an Ipod with its cord hanging out of the dash.

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The volume **** looks black in the pic but it is just reflecting off the dark gray interior. The Pioneer 6 1/2's sound great. Very smooth highs, not harsh or too loud, and they do have good bass response just hooked up to deck power:

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All in all the system does sound very good. The sound is very natural and normal without all the headaches and hassles of an amp, eq, sub box, constantly tweaking or fixing this, that or the other problem and it is great to have storage space and room to carry stuff in my truck again. I used to carry my laptop bag in the right rear passenger seat and I sometimes had a real hard time getting it out from there when I got to work or back home.

For $150.00 this new system does just fine. The Sony has plenty of power and great sound adjustments and tone controls. It has better album and folder search functions than the Pioneer did. It only cost $90.00 but it has the same power output, equalizer/tone settings and USB search features as the more expensive Sony decks. The difference is the more expensive ones have Blue Tooth, Pandora and App control stuff that I will never use and have no need for.

I will be selling some of the stuff I had in my system on Ebay. My Autotek amp and equalizer still work fine, so does my Kenwood deck and Alpine sub. I don't think I could honestly sell the Kicker KS60's with a clear conscience. I think all 4 tweeters might be blown, that was another problem I had with my old system. After a week of not having all that stuff in my truck, I really don't miss any of it. I need a better deck than the factory one, it was just an AM-FM cassette deck, but I do like the simpler system I have now. It sounds great and will play good and loud if I want it. This was not a bad deal at all if anyone is looking for recommendations on a budget stereo for their Dakota...

Jimmy

 

I run a Sony CDX-GT620U in my quad cab just deck power to the stock Affinity sounds system and will throw in my 61/4 Pioneer TRX series in to the front doors as my drivers side is blown. sounds great cranked for an old guy like me.

 

A USB connection won't actually allow you to control your device through the head unit will it? You need an actual interface for that? I have all my music on my phone now and would like to be able to control it through the deck like I could w/ the head unit you sold me Jimmy. Although now, I don't have an iPod anymore. Mine crapped out on me, so I only use my phone. Plus my phone has 32gb of storage where my iPod had 4 or 8, I forget now. I just wasn't sure if they made an interface for phones.

 

My new deck will control an Ipod through the deck itself. The Best Buy site says my Sony GT57 is
"Apple iPod-/iPhone-ready

USB 1-wire input allows you to connect and charge your 1st through 6th-generation iPod nano, 1st through 4th-generation iPod touch, iPod classic and iPod with video and iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4 and 4S."

It also says you can use the USB port with Androids or Blackberry phones or Ipods with mass storage. I think though you would have to use whatever phone it is to control the music functions on the Iphone etc. To be honest I know very little about Iphones and smart phones, other than they are way too complicated for me to use. One day a few years ago I tried finding a song on my daughter's Iphone while she was driving and was about ready to fling the phone out the window.

This one at Best Buy cost $129.99 but it has a lot of app features and works with blue tooth and smart phones:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+C...&skuId=7345064

I remember seeing some decks on the Crutchfield site that say you can connect your smart phone to the deck and use an app that makes the smart phone the display for the deck and integrates the blue tooth, music storage and call features through the deck. I don't understand how all that works and I don't use my cell phone near enough to need features like that. But the higher end decks all work with phones and blue tooth without any added modules or interfaces.

You could probably call Crutchfield and Sonic Electronix and they can tell you how the decks would work with your phone. That is one aspect of car audio that I don't know anything about.

 

I can't stand how everything is strictly for iPod or iPhones. The apple products are so far over rated its not even funny. I have a Nokia Lumia 928 w/ Windows 8 and it blows the iPhone out of the water in every aspect its not even close. The flexibility and how well it works w/ windows based PC's and laptops.

I think less and less people have iPod's now-a-days since so many people have smart phones which can store and play music no different than any iPod or other MP3 player.

I've seen people use their flash drives in head units w/ USB ports and wondered how they work. I figured you had to be able to control the music through the head unit. Just wasn't sure how exactly it worked since most the time there is more than just music on the flash drives and what not.

 

I still use Itunes to manage my music collection. I use it because I am familiar with it but I will not buy another Ipod. 320 kbps MP3's sound the same to me as a CD or Itunes file. I have looked at other programs like Media Monkey and Songbird but Itunes is easier for me. I think I have about 38GB of music in my library so I will have to pick and select what albums and songs go on my thumb drive. I think Apple is too big for its britches now.

The thumb drive works like an Ipod anyway, with a playlist/album/song hierarchy arrangement and I can not tell any difference between MP3's ripped at 320 kbps and the actual CD. The deck also controls the thumb drive much like it does with an Ipod. With the thumb drive, instead of a playlist like in Itunes I just first create a folder with the name of the band or singer then put their individual songs and/or albums in the folder. The deck lets me search by album name, which is really the name of the band or singer, then open each one like an Itunes playlist, then I can select whatever album I want to hear and once in an album I can even scroll right to a particular song or scroll back to hear it again or a previous song in that album. It is all pretty easy to do, even while driving.

I found a very good and free convertor program online to change my Itunes m4a songs to MP3. It was on www.ManiacTools.com and is simply called Free M4A to MP3 converter. It works great and is super easy to use. It even has different bit rates that you can pick and you can also convert Itunes files to other formats. My new Sony deck will only play MP3, WMV and AAC files from the thumb drive. Personally I don't see a need for an Ipod or phone that stores music. Thumb drives are a lot cheaper plus the song info is pure digital, not run through a digital to analog convertor like on an Ipod.

Jimmy

 

Thanks for the info. I think it makes sense to just get an 8gb thumb drive and use that. Sounds like it works pretty well, similar to how an iPod interface works. I only have 600 something songs right now, and don't really download much anymore. I use Pandora all day at work and usually only listen to my music on longer road trips. Downloading music is too much work for me now-a-days. It's not as easy as it used to be.

 

I usually listen to satellite radio but whenever I'm not, I use a USB stick. I've never owned an iPod or any other Apple product so I can't compare directly, but the USB stick works beautifully and holds just as much music. I think I can even make playlists, but I've never tried.

 

Tried the whole music on my phone deal and that was very short lived. I have 13gb of music and me not seeing the point in spending another 100.00 for the next size up iphone. I bought a ipod touch 32gb. Been almost 3 years and still working great. Plus I never need to unhook it if I need to make a phone call or anything. I need some more bass in my truck, speakers are good to a certain point but the deep bass isnt great on them.

 

I'm so glad to hear about someone actually having a normal system. I'm buying an 02 Quad Cab tomorrow and it has the Infinity system with something blown out, probably the speakers.

Thinking of doing the same kind of system. Just a good head unit and decent speakers. Seems like getting speakers that handle a similar RMS wattage work well together.

Any advice?