New Car Stereo

So, a couple of weeks ago, I finally decided to break down and get an after-market CD player. I had been going about 6 months without the ability to play a CD. I was forced to listen to the crappy radio. Nothing I did seemed to fix it. I tried one of those CDs with the brushes on it and I think it made it worse. The worst part about it was the stock Bose stereo my P-Finder was upgraded with is really nice. Anyways, I have always been a fan of Pioneer and decided to go with the DEHP6800MP model:

I was able to save about $100 by ordering it from Crutchfield and installing it myself. I was a little reluctant because of the shitty nature of my back, but I decided to anyways. I also had to get a special piece because of the built in amplifier the speakers in the car have. For the most part, the installation went smooth and I was able to do a majority of the wiring sitting on the recliner. After finally hooking the player into the factory harness, the unit powered up but there was absolutely no noise and my telescoping antenna did not go up. After a quick call with Crutchfield's technical support, which by the way are super helpful and free, the problem was the built in amplifier for the Bose system has to get a signal from the deck to turn on in order to power the speakers. The same goes for the antennae. So, after hooking up the signal wire from the deck to the appropriate wires to trigger the amp and the antenna, my garage was transformed into a sound studio.

I haven't had a CD player in a while and love all the new stuff that is available. Albeit the only color with my stereo is the organic blue, the animation is really cool. I have it set right now to the animation so that it pulses with the music that is playing. The player will pick up the meta-data from the songs and display the authors and songs on the LCD. The round knob allows me to quickly traverse through all the songs, not just the numbers, but the names of the songs. You can also configure just about every sound setting imaginable with helpful little graphics that visually depict what you are changing. The absolute best feature for me is the fact that it can play MP3 CDs. All I have to do is load a CD with about 200 MP3 and presto! I have more than 10 albums on one CD. You can create individual folders in the CD and navigate through them via the Pioneer deck.

I have yet to read the user's manual and expect to find more cool features. Who knows, maybe I'll now find a use for my two 12" subwoofers I have laying around. That's another project though. All in all, I am having a much better experience driving the P-Finder.