Was:
Sony XR-C5120R RDS/Autoreverse cass headunit, 4x40w.
FM/MW/LW lots of presets, nice tape quality and fantastic tape adaptor fidelity, good EQ setup etc, 3-level megabass. Only gripe is the digital volume/balance/EQ didnt have enough levels, typical Sony, could have done with being 64 and 20 steps respectively, rather than 32 and 10 (the "too loud/too quiet" syndrome where the jump between two digital levels takes you right past the sweet spot). Apart from that, a pretty nice unit. Worth about £180 new.
Front speakers, 2xJBL 8cm jobbies (cant remember the code no.), "full" range twin drivers. Surprising amount and depth of bass, strong midrange and treble up as far as I could hear and as loud as you'd really want it bouncing off a mk3's screen. Bought for £45 and worth every penny.
Rear speakers, custom bodged stealth shelf. Not really worth shouting about now (falling apart) though i was proud of it at the time, and the wiring is still godlike (fully removable in seconds!).
The impedence is all wrong and it would have very much benefitted from an amp... two pairs of 10 inch (?) woofer and 2 inch tweeter, very good quality units scarfed from an old stereo (itself costing about £400 when bought in 1990) and mounted using the remains of their original enclosures with sneaky holes drilled in the shelf to let sound out, whilst the woofers reverbed using the boot. Too bad they were 8 ohm to the JBLs 4 ohm, and so less than half the volume for the same watts input. Fader had to be almost fully back for balanced sound. Sounded niiiice though when getting just the right amount of pumpage through them, even if it made the display go dim.
Always meant to connect up the underused and neglected "home cinema" lounge subwoofer (Lidl, about £25) in the boot for both that purpose and for some funk-in-the-trunk bass.... for one so cheap it's got range and power, plus the built in ability to amp up to five other channels with a fair bit of juice and quality - and best of all it takes in 12V DC for it's power supply.
Currently:
Nothing except that stealth shelf and some bare wires
Was once wayback and will be again:
Original Blaupunkt Boston CC10 headunit - all of 2x10w if not less. Non-reverse, non-RDS, but at least digital PLL tuned and presettable FM/MW/LW radio/cassette. Oddly good for using tape adaptor with and sound quality alright for the useless power output (and only 2 channels..). Fully removable nature supposedly a bonus?
Plus horrid VW OEM 3 ohm paper cone...... noise making things. They don't deserve to be called speakers. Only the thought of salvaging the good stereo when selling the car prevented me from ritually burning them upon removal. Couldn't put any bass into them, they just crackled and threatened to self destruct (whereas the JBLs just lap it up) plus the treble is almost non existant. At least if you cut the low frequencies out though they made a good job of sending the lyric through with some power (3 ohm, see), but even so they barely made an impression on the motorway and two-person entertainment usually consisted of shouting stupid stuff to each other.
In the... other car:
I'm not entirely sure ... but it says "Car 200" on it. Looks like it might be a Blaupunkt, and the thing's 7 years newer but it STILL doesn't have auto reverse. At least it has RDS now, but the tuning/presetting system is so incredibly arcane and crazy that I've given up learning it even with the instructions... i've got six decent presets and a way to enable fully manual tuning, that'll do. Haven't a clue on the speakers, but I'll say that another improvement is the power and sound quality, even if it can't quite handle the same amount of thrash that the Sony / JBLs could. Alright as built in units go but could really, really benefit from autoreverse and the ability to control an autochanger (would love one, but i'm not giving up my aux connection capabilities thru the tape slot unless a line-in socket presents itself).
I'm thinking a sub would be a nice addition, too...
But a proper one as the little lidl thing would get lost in there now.
Int' Bedroom Cupboards:
At least two different CD changers, of cloudy origin and unknown functionality, with heavily proprietary connection standards that have proved impossible to fathom. Best that I could work out, they were "gifts" from one or other uncle at some point, neither realising that without the particular headunit it was separated from (or one similar), they're as good as breeze blocks. Needless to say neither is a Sony or Blaupunkt, or has any kind of bus adaptor or instructions. Anyone find use for these? I think one is a Panasonic and the other a Kenwood or a Pioneer...
Bedroom proper: (lol)
Amstrad Micro 1000 - circa 1992. It's teh uber stereo in a tiny unassuming case, with a couple of fairly beefy 3-way speakers robbed off a deceased antecedant Grundig thing (like a fool, i thought i needed to replace the original and best)... the specs say 10w, but the sound says Aw Hell Naw! (well, ok, in this room at least, its far more than too much)... hooked into the PC, the MP3 player, or it's own radio/cassette/increasingly ropey CD deck. Rock on.
Pocket:
Novatech N-pod 20gb 1.8" HD based MP3... if these ever come back on sale, particularly at the original or lower price, grab 'em before they're gone. Cheap but not very much worse than an iPod (lose some of the search-by-tag functionality, etc... big whoop), plus it's only the size of an ipod mini, battery life is supposedly better (and should be easier/less daunting to replace - easily unscrewed), has an FM radio and voice recorder, and can load mp3s or any other files directly off a pendrive plugged into its usb (2.0 - VERY fast) socket without a pc - or indeed, bloody iTunes - needing to be involved. Magic. Sound quality is, in a word, awesome.
And it comes with a stitched real leather/suede magnetic flip-top carry pouch for nada and gratis. What's not to like?
/ends essay
/gawps at dave's boot build photo....... wheeew nice one there
fantastic headunit tho