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MP3 audio systems replacing CDs in automobiles
Those silver discs in your dashboard seem to be going the way of the standard transmission.
The MP3 sound evolution has moved from the pocket to the home stereo to the car.
"We are on the brink of the end of the CD era," says Joe Hagan, owner of Quintex Cellular Sound and Security in Ross.
He is not alone in his outlook on the changing times in car audio, an automotive feature that 35 years ago was first delving into FM broadcasts and now is built around systems with quality and quantity that rival home equipment..
"For the past year, year-and-a-half now, the most important thing for car audio buyers has been finding a way to make the iPod work in the car," says Carl Mathews. He is senior director of marketing for mobile electronics at Crutchfield, the Virginia-based mail-order dealer.
Keith Chvala, owner of Bolts Auto Works in Lower Burrell, says 90 percent of new replacement radios he sells have some sort of MP3 connection.
Steve Brown, product promotion manager for Alpine Electronics in Torrance, Calif., says Alpine still is making CD players, but they all have an auxiliary connection to an MP3 player.
Greg Feorene, owner of Elite Custom, a stereo installer in Murrysville, says he doesn't believe compact discs ever will "fade away like cassettes," but he sees MP3 connectivity as the heart of the current car audio business.
"Until, of course, something else comes along," he says.
Chvala sees changing musical options as sometimes being a source of confusion.
"A lot of older drivers are just getting into CDs," he says, realizing many drivers might be puzzled upon facing another change.
The options are many:
• MP3 discs are compact discs, but they are loaded with what are known as data files through a computer. They can hold about six times what a normal CD holds, meaning many albums on one disc,
• MP3 players can be linked to a radio through "direct connection" or "frequency connection." A direct link is through an MP3 docking connection and generally allows song selection and volume control through the radio. Frequency connection sends an FM broadcast from the MP3 to an unused channel on the radio. Most control still is done through the MP3 player.
• A simple direct hookup can be run between an earphone jack into a auxiliary connection.
• The most-sophisticated forms are through car-mounted hard drives, which become individual MP3 players of their own with music being uploaded from discs or computer memory devices.
Some car owners encounter the world of MP3 music first through disc players that handle that format, says Shaun Schwartz, a technician at Quintex.
"They find out they can put more than one album on a disc and, if you have a CD changer with six discs, suddenly you find you have maybe 40 albums," he says.
One of the first MP3 hookups for cars was the frequency connection, but it has its problems. Quintex's Hagan says the sound is "mediocre at best" because of interference from any number of sources.
Heavy truck traffic can result in high amounts of citizens' band radio broadcasts. Radio stations on nearby frequencies can bleed into the unused area. Powerful signals from nearby airports can interrupt the sound,
Feorene also points out as a problem the amount of electronics that exists in cars. Audio radio equipment and driver's controls often are tied together through hookups that can interfere with frequency connections.
"Everything comes together under the dash," he says.
For that reason, Feorene says, most buyers are looking for some sort of direct connection, even those as simple as an earphone-to-input hookup.
Price, naturally, becomes an issue, but the jump from a frequency connection to some form of direct link is not huge.
Frequency connections can be bought for less than $100, while direct tie-ins can range from $100 to $150, with installation extra.
Pacific Accessory Corp in Santa Ana, Calif., started out 33 years ago as a company trying to eliminate interference for CB radios in trucks.
But four years ago it saw the market in direct connections for MP3 players and started work on such units, which it sells in the $130-to-$190 range, says Joe Riggs, a Pacific international sales and marketing official.
Hagan points to one popular radio with a earphone-to-input connection that sells for $225, while Chvala says he has four units under $200.
It is possible, but costly, to get into a more sophisticated, better-sounding hard-drive unit, which shows song selections and album titles on a screen.
"The hard-drive units are out there, but they aren't as popular," Chvala says. "It is easy to break a grand on one."
Schwartz points out some of those high-end units can cost $2,000 to $3,000, but sometimes offer more than sound. The screens on those units also serve for auto navigation systems and use storage space for both music and map information.
He says they often will have 30 gigabytes of room with 20 gigabytes of that being used for the navigation information.
Providing a hookup in the middle is Alpine's Ex10 unit, which provides a screen to show music information but is connected to the car's already-installed radio, The screen can be mounted somewhere near the radio, or on the dashboard, much as that of a navigation system.
That device has a suggested retail of $199 and provides some of the aspects of the hard-drive units, but is run by the MP3 unit, which in this case is iPod-related, Brown says.
He brings up another feature that plays a role in this whole case: whether the MP3 unit is an iPod or one of its competitors.
"IPod really drives the business," he says, pointing out that many of the units are designed for the Apple-made connection alone.
Bridge Ratings, a California-based media research firm, says iPods have a 72 percent penetration in the MP3 market.
The earphone-to-auxiliary hookup connection works with any MP3 device, but others are limited by those for which they have been designed.
"It gets pretty deep and technical," Riggs says.
Satellite radio has become the cable television of this century's first decade, says Joe Hagan from Quintex Cellular Sound and Security in Ross.
"If you remember back before cable, we had three channels and that was that," he says. "With satellite radio, it's another way of getting more and different."
He and other regional sound professionals say sales of satellite radio equipment equal, if not slightly exceed, business in the rapidly developing and changing MP3 connections.
The two major satellite radio providers, Sirius and XM, now in the process of merging, have shown steady growth, says Bridge Ratings, a California media-research firm.
It says Sirius has risen from 4.3 million daily listeners in 2005 to 9.12 million this year, while XM has moved from 2 million to 8.3 million.
Keith Chvala, owner of Bolts Auto Works in Lower Burrell, agrees the variety of stations on satellite radio is the key.
"If you want to wake up to reggae, you can do that," Chvala says. "You can't find that on commercial radio."
Satellite radio offers upward of 120 channels of commercial-limited sound in different genres for a monthly fee of $12.95 and up, like cable television. That allows a listener to pick narrowly defined areas such as "light classics," "music of the '80s," "mainstream jazz" and many more.
Sports events also can be heard all over the country, not just in areas where the teams are located, along with the programs of controversial talk-show hosts such as Howard Stern.
Satellite radio's better-quality sound, wide accessibility of shows and relative lack of commercials ultimately will lead to the downfall of commercial, broadcast radio, Hagan believes
"There are some weak spots for the signal," Chvala says, "but they are working on that."
Hagan says the cost of satellite radio also makes it attractive. Receivers can be bought for as little as $60, but can run more than $500 for installation in luxury cars, he says.
But perhaps the biggest advantage is the element of portability.
"You can get a unit that you can move from car to car, car to camp or even just walk around with it," he says.
Those silver discs in your dashboard seem to be going the way of the standard transmission.
The MP3 sound evolution has moved from the pocket to the home stereo to the car.
"We are on the brink of the end of the CD era," says Joe Hagan, owner of Quintex Cellular Sound and Security in Ross.
He is not alone in his outlook on the changing times in car audio, an automotive feature that 35 years ago was first delving into FM broadcasts and now is built around systems with quality and quantity that rival home equipment..
"For the past year, year-and-a-half now, the most important thing for car audio buyers has been finding a way to make the iPod work in the car," says Carl Mathews. He is senior director of marketing for mobile electronics at Crutchfield, the Virginia-based mail-order dealer.
Keith Chvala, owner of Bolts Auto Works in Lower Burrell, says 90 percent of new replacement radios he sells have some sort of MP3 connection.
Steve Brown, product promotion manager for Alpine Electronics in Torrance, Calif., says Alpine still is making CD players, but they all have an auxiliary connection to an MP3 player.
Greg Feorene, owner of Elite Custom, a stereo installer in Murrysville, says he doesn't believe compact discs ever will "fade away like cassettes," but he sees MP3 connectivity as the heart of the current car audio business.
"Until, of course, something else comes along," he says.
Chvala sees changing musical options as sometimes being a source of confusion.
"A lot of older drivers are just getting into CDs," he says, realizing many drivers might be puzzled upon facing another change.
The options are many:
• MP3 discs are compact discs, but they are loaded with what are known as data files through a computer. They can hold about six times what a normal CD holds, meaning many albums on one disc,
• MP3 players can be linked to a radio through "direct connection" or "frequency connection." A direct link is through an MP3 docking connection and generally allows song selection and volume control through the radio. Frequency connection sends an FM broadcast from the MP3 to an unused channel on the radio. Most control still is done through the MP3 player.
• A simple direct hookup can be run between an earphone jack into a auxiliary connection.
• The most-sophisticated forms are through car-mounted hard drives, which become individual MP3 players of their own with music being uploaded from discs or computer memory devices.
Some car owners encounter the world of MP3 music first through disc players that handle that format, says Shaun Schwartz, a technician at Quintex.
"They find out they can put more than one album on a disc and, if you have a CD changer with six discs, suddenly you find you have maybe 40 albums," he says.
One of the first MP3 hookups for cars was the frequency connection, but it has its problems. Quintex's Hagan says the sound is "mediocre at best" because of interference from any number of sources.
Heavy truck traffic can result in high amounts of citizens' band radio broadcasts. Radio stations on nearby frequencies can bleed into the unused area. Powerful signals from nearby airports can interrupt the sound,
Feorene also points out as a problem the amount of electronics that exists in cars. Audio radio equipment and driver's controls often are tied together through hookups that can interfere with frequency connections.
"Everything comes together under the dash," he says.
For that reason, Feorene says, most buyers are looking for some sort of direct connection, even those as simple as an earphone-to-input hookup.
Price, naturally, becomes an issue, but the jump from a frequency connection to some form of direct link is not huge.
Frequency connections can be bought for less than $100, while direct tie-ins can range from $100 to $150, with installation extra.
Pacific Accessory Corp in Santa Ana, Calif., started out 33 years ago as a company trying to eliminate interference for CB radios in trucks.
But four years ago it saw the market in direct connections for MP3 players and started work on such units, which it sells in the $130-to-$190 range, says Joe Riggs, a Pacific international sales and marketing official.
Hagan points to one popular radio with a earphone-to-input connection that sells for $225, while Chvala says he has four units under $200.
It is possible, but costly, to get into a more sophisticated, better-sounding hard-drive unit, which shows song selections and album titles on a screen.
"The hard-drive units are out there, but they aren't as popular," Chvala says. "It is easy to break a grand on one."
Schwartz points out some of those high-end units can cost $2,000 to $3,000, but sometimes offer more than sound. The screens on those units also serve for auto navigation systems and use storage space for both music and map information.
He says they often will have 30 gigabytes of room with 20 gigabytes of that being used for the navigation information.
Providing a hookup in the middle is Alpine's Ex10 unit, which provides a screen to show music information but is connected to the car's already-installed radio, The screen can be mounted somewhere near the radio, or on the dashboard, much as that of a navigation system.
That device has a suggested retail of $199 and provides some of the aspects of the hard-drive units, but is run by the MP3 unit, which in this case is iPod-related, Brown says.
He brings up another feature that plays a role in this whole case: whether the MP3 unit is an iPod or one of its competitors.
"IPod really drives the business," he says, pointing out that many of the units are designed for the Apple-made connection alone.
Bridge Ratings, a California-based media research firm, says iPods have a 72 percent penetration in the MP3 market.
The earphone-to-auxiliary hookup connection works with any MP3 device, but others are limited by those for which they have been designed.
"It gets pretty deep and technical," Riggs says.
Satellite radio has become the cable television of this century's first decade, says Joe Hagan from Quintex Cellular Sound and Security in Ross.
"If you remember back before cable, we had three channels and that was that," he says. "With satellite radio, it's another way of getting more and different."
He and other regional sound professionals say sales of satellite radio equipment equal, if not slightly exceed, business in the rapidly developing and changing MP3 connections.
The two major satellite radio providers, Sirius and XM, now in the process of merging, have shown steady growth, says Bridge Ratings, a California media-research firm.
It says Sirius has risen from 4.3 million daily listeners in 2005 to 9.12 million this year, while XM has moved from 2 million to 8.3 million.
Keith Chvala, owner of Bolts Auto Works in Lower Burrell, agrees the variety of stations on satellite radio is the key.
"If you want to wake up to reggae, you can do that," Chvala says. "You can't find that on commercial radio."
Satellite radio offers upward of 120 channels of commercial-limited sound in different genres for a monthly fee of $12.95 and up, like cable television. That allows a listener to pick narrowly defined areas such as "light classics," "music of the '80s," "mainstream jazz" and many more.
Sports events also can be heard all over the country, not just in areas where the teams are located, along with the programs of controversial talk-show hosts such as Howard Stern.
Satellite radio's better-quality sound, wide accessibility of shows and relative lack of commercials ultimately will lead to the downfall of commercial, broadcast radio, Hagan believes
"There are some weak spots for the signal," Chvala says, "but they are working on that."
Hagan says the cost of satellite radio also makes it attractive. Receivers can be bought for as little as $60, but can run more than $500 for installation in luxury cars, he says.
But perhaps the biggest advantage is the element of portability.
"You can get a unit that you can move from car to car, car to camp or even just walk around with it," he says.