However strange it might sound, finally I felt the need to get a stereo in my car. Till now, my morning and evening commute was short and used to have someone to drive for me. Recently all that changed...I drive about 18km one way everyday and the situation has become a logistical challenge and thus the driver had to be shown his way out. And driving in Mumbai for long distances can be really challenging I guess, or maybe I feel it that way.
So, as soon as I could, I went into the market looking for a car stereo. The thought was to look for an indash combination changer (used to have one of those earlier in the US) and an amp. Most audio dealers could not figure how one could have an indash changer and a head unit in one piece. People showed me head units, and then separate CD changer which sit in the boot. Saw lots of Pioneer, Sony, Alpine, Blaupunkt etc etc. Honestly speaking, didn’t really like any of them because of the engineering or even for the sound that they produced. Of course dealers will jack up the volume and get you to listen. Most of these units sound fairly okay when played loud in controlled environments.
Then, I landed up at a place where I got to see some Nakamichi equipment, though the dealer sort of hinted that I shouldn’t buy Nakamichi because of almost extinct after sales service and also he categorically mentioned that Nakamichi did not have any such combination changer as I looked for. Well, I looked on the web and found something that Nakamichi sold, the MB 75 which was one unit, and took in 6 CDs in a stack. All the Nakamichi thingies that I tried out sounded fab. Anyways, though the MB 75 was priced high (>40K), I ordered for one. Nakamichi India supplied a used piece in two days. That cheesed me off Nakamichi once and for all, at least here in our country.
head unit
Then I was back in the market. From all types of product comparisons and the fact that I was looking to get to play at least 6 CDs at a time, I finally ended up with the Sony CDX MP50. This is a MP3 Playing Head Unit. Slightly modern looking console, has blue backlight. Does your usual CD Changer or MP3 Changer auxilliary. Has an inbuilt pre set equlizer control and a custom control with three bands. It is your usual 52Wx4. One interesting thing that it offers is a Dynamic Soundstage Organizer, which sort of enables distortion of sound from the front speakers so that it seems that the speakers are placed slightly higher than they are. So, you dont have to sort of listen to sound coming from near your feet level and you can get all your four speakers to sound out from about the same height. Bought this at grey market rates.
Wanted to buy an MP3 Changer as well, since that would have taken care of most of my CDs, just that I would have spent a lot of time trying to convert my music CDs to MP3s and burning more CDRs. But well, since it was not available, I stuck to the basics. Maybe sometime later, when I have the inclination, I shall pick up the MP3 Player as well.
speakers
Since I was getting a new head unit, thought it might be prudent to get a new set of speakers as well. So, I bought myself 2 Sony XS-GTS6930 speakers. They run 200W PMP and range a 28Hz-26Khz. Fair enough I thought especially since they are three way as well. I replaced the rear speakers and let the front 2, two way factory fitted speakers remain. Sometime later, I shall have these two changed as well. Not really writing home on these two speakers that I bought. you might want to go for the XS-GTS6936X ones instead. They do sound a little better and the price differential is not that much. This was a regular buy with warranty etc.
amplifier
For less than the money that I saved, I bought an amp instead. Its a Sony XM 222MK2 which supports two channels. I put the Sony speakers through the amp since the amp supports only two channels. So when I get the front speakers replaced by Sony round speakers hopefully they will match up a bit and would not need an enhanced 4 channel amp.This was a regular buy with warranty etc.
overall cost
For all this, I ended up shelling out a little above Rs 15K. OVerall it seemed more of a value for money buy than anything else. I miss the fact that I am not playing a Nakamichi which sounded infinitely better. But then if the sales cycle of Nakamichi is so rotten, I don’t even want to know what the post sales is going to be like. Sony seems like quite a decent run off the mill buy. They have come out with a few fairly competitive pricing schemes wherein they are throwing in combination of products together which you might want to look at.