Conference terri::cars_uk

If you can put up with a single CD player, the Sony one with RDS radio is good.

Dave

I've got an Alpine unit with 6CD Autochanger in the boot. It replaced the
standard Philips cassette radio that came with the Calibra as standard. If
you like, I can post more details here tomorrow.

Clive

    That would be great cheers, 
    
    Alpines are expensive aren't they?
    
    Also does it 'jump' when you go over any bumps?.., as I really want to
    find a jump free car cd palyer if thats possible, well, one that can
    afford ( I work for dec alas!!)
    
    Steve

Go for a head unit/autochanger combo from any of the top companys e.g. Alpine,
Kenwood, Sony, Panasonic and you can't go wrong.  Expect to pay around 500 excl 
fitting.

Your last unit was a in dash CD ? These do tend to be deeper than traditional 
cass/radio.  Stick to a cass head unit with CD autochanger and you have a choice
what format you can play (also cheaper and should fit).


..Craig

    Thanks for the info so far, Keep it coming..
    
    I am definatly going for a rad/cass head unit and a 6 or 10 disk
    autochanger.. I've read good reports about the Alpine systems, but I
    want a system that won't jump if I hit bumps..( I hate my music
    skipping :-)  )
                   
    Steve

I'm well pleased with the Alpine System. Solid as a rock. Providing nothing
hits the autochanger in the boot, it doesn't skip even on the roughest of 
surfaces.

Clive

Keep to the good makes and skipping won't be a problem. You get what you pay for!

I used to have my Panasonic 12 disc autochanger in a Astra GTE (hard suspension)
even then it would only skip over big bumps at speed etc. (Its also down to how 
and where the changer is installed)


..Craig

    Hi,
    
    I've got a Blaupunkt in dash player at the moment.
    
    I saw the Alpine in-dash 3 CD changer. Does anyone own one or has
    anyone heard anything about it (good or bad... :-) .
    
    Cheers, Mark

    Gareth Edwards @ SBP has one (I think)

    Dave,
         I've got a good (imo) setup in Renault 19.
    
    Its a Pioneer 8300 RDS head unit with a CDXM6 autochanger under the
    passenger seat. I did have an older autochanger (CDXM30) in the boot
    but i recently had a shunt up the rear (painfull) and it got destroyed
    so i aquired a new out the insurance company.
    The old unit used to jump a bit over large bumps but this new has'nt
    jumped since i've had it (about 6 weeks).
    The autochanger comes in at about #300 or a little less and it depends 
    on which head unit you want as to how much the whole package would cost
    but i can certainly reccomend the Pioneer.
    
    Nick.
    

    
    Hi,
    
       I went to the local car hifi centre and had a long chat with the
    guys there.. the general feeling is that Alpine have the edge on sound
    quality ( the car hifi mags say this too). Also Alpine had a new 6 CD
    autochanger out called the 5960, it's the smallest on the market , and
    it looks a sexy little number too!!
    
    But has anyone read any reviews or heard any stories about it as I'm
    really tempted!!..  It must be good as the guy's in this shop said  and
    I quote " if it jumps or you don't like it, bring it back and we'll
    exchange it or give you your wedge back!".
    
       Steve

    Basically you pay your money and take your choice. 
    The new Alpine probably is very good, but so are most other makes,
    and i very much doubt that while you are driving around in your car,
    which is a relatively noisey place to play music, you could tell the 
    difference between two manufacturers c.d. players, apart from one might
    jump and the other might not. A friend of mine has an Alpine setup and
    i have the Pioneer i mentioned earlier, and the opinions are that mine
    sounds better, i personally think it sounds the mutts nuts, but it is
    probably more down to the amps and speakers i've got rather than the 
    c.d. player.
    Whatever you get it wont be long before you want either, louder,
    bassier, more treble, or something else as you get used to the
    sound, basically, welcome to the money pit club.
    
    Nick.

Spot on note Nick.

Once there's a decent tape deck or a CD changer in there, it's all down to 
reasonable external amps and decent MDF speaker door rebuilds!

This is why reputable installer's systems knock the spots of quick 
installation places.

Rob.

    
    
    
    
     
    Well, I did it!!.. I emptied the piggy bank and bought an Alpine set
    up.. The 514 LS and the 5960 6 cd auto changer, which are just hitting
    the dealers.. The CD autochanger is really small compared with the
    majority, smaller that the 5952Z , which was small anyway.
    
    I installed the CD changer in the glove box, as I can lock it, which 
    still left room underneath for bits and pieces.. ( Golf MK3 Gti )
    
    It's brilliant.. I tried to make it jump by driving over sleeping
    policeman, pot holes, dirt tracks etc.. but not a skip  in sight!! 
    
    The CD changer is well designed, as it doesn't take the cd out of the
    cartridge, well not all the way, just half way out.. and they have
    saved space on the gaps around the mech making the whole unit a lot
    smaller.
    
    The only thing I'm not impressed with is the quality of the speakers in
    the golf.. They are crap with a capital C!!.. So once I've paid this
    off, I'm investing in some decent speakers.
    
    If anyone wants a demo, let me know..   :-)
    
    
          Steve

But does it drown out all those squeaks and rattles when 
you play a cd?

	Ian

re .17

In all likelihood, yes. The drawback is that it makes your ears
bleed as well :^)

Clive

    re .17
    
    Ian, 
    
        what squeaks?...   mind you I can't hear thr buzzing now..
    
    :-)

Sorry Steve. I must've been thinking of you knees again...

Congrats! I too have an Alpine 6 CD shuttle, 7514L head units, silly amps & speakers & gubbins, etc.

Firstly, can I reassure you - you can get rid of them tapes now, they won't get much use.

Secondly, yup - you shall not have any problems with jumping. I have a kit car with *very* hard suspension and
I can only remember it jumping once in its life when I crashed into a pot hole I hadn't seen, incidently
nearly wrecking my ****ing suspension in the process (..we pay our road tax and we get ...blah blah!..).

Thirdly, I did an installation in a friends Golf. While replacement speakers for the standard sited front speaker
are available, they are a complete pain in the backside to work with, and do not really support a decent size to
get good acoustic performance from... I take it you share the same speaker locations, in the top of the dash
in each corner?
So, I can just suggest what you might like to consider... it's not the daftest stereo around, but it's sensible,
not 'over-bassed' (if such a word exists!) and relatively speaking, inexpensive.
It simply consisted of a Pioneer 4x70w amp (any make will do ofcourse, preferably Alpine to match your system)
along with some 6.5" 2-way drivers in the door panels (mounted into a chipboard base, NOT the door) and some
monster 150w 3-ways simply located in the rear parcel shelf. No crossovers, no subs. The amp went under the
passenger seat.
Okay so it won't get far in a sound off, but then again if you are confident enough to do the work yourself (it
really isn't that hard) you'll end up spending around 500 pound all in all. And you can always slam in a bass box
and component speakers at a later date!
Were you thinking of spending this much dosh to overcome the squeeks and rattles?!

Welcome to the Alpine sonic excellence club, by the way!

Dan (forty2::howell)

    The Alpine kit is pretty good, but what is all this rubbish about
    "matching" amplifiers to head units!
    
    Sounds like the sort of tactics we would have liked to resort to when
    VAX was really popular!
    
    Mark.

            <<< TIMMII::DISK$USERS1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CARS_UK.NOTE;1 >>>
                                  -< Cars UK >-
================================================================================
Note 2240.21                 Cd players revisited..                     21 of 23
FORTY2::HOWELL                                       26 lines   6-JUL-1994 17:52
                           -< Bit late now but.... >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Congrats! I too have an Alpine 6 CD shuttle, 7514L head units, silly amps &
speakers & gubbins, etc.

Firstly, can I reassure you - you can get rid of them tapes now, they won't get
much use.

Secondly, yup - you shall not have any problems with jumping. I have a kit car
with *very* hard suspension and I can only remember it jumping once in its life
when I crashed into a pot hole I hadn't seen, incidently nearly wrecking my
****ing suspension in the process (..we pay our road tax and we get ...blah
blah!..).

Thirdly, I did an installation in a friends Golf. While replacement speakers
for the standard sited front speaker are available, they are a complete pain in
the backside to work with, and do not really support a decent size to get good
acoustic performance from... I take it you share the same speaker locations, in
the top of the dash in each corner?

So, I can just suggest what you might like to consider... it's not the daftest
stereo around, but it's sensible, not 'over-bassed' (if such a word exists!)
and relatively speaking, inexpensive. It simply consisted of a Pioneer 4x70w
amp (any make will do ofcourse, preferably Alpine to match your system) along
with some 6.5" 2-way drivers in the door panels (mounted into a chipboard base,
NOT the door) and some monster 150w 3-ways simply located in the rear parcel
shelf. No crossovers, no subs. The amp went under the passenger seat.

Okay so it won't get far in a sound off, but then again if you are confident
enough to do the work yourself (it really isn't that hard) you'll end up
spending around 500 pound all in all. And you can always slam in a bass box and
component speakers at a later date!

Were you thinking of spending this much dosh to overcome the squeeks and
rattles?!

Welcome to the Alpine sonic excellence club, by the way!

Dan (forty2::howell)
    

Anyone's cd players getting on a bit seen this?
I would appreciate any help on this annoying problem.



I have a Denon 707R first gen RDS radio/cassette, with it's partnering 
10-disc cd changer DCC-1570. 

It has had about 2x30mins usage 6 days a week over it 4 year life.  Since
installing it in my new car, the thing skips terribly.


Background:
Before, it was installed vertically in the rear side panel of a little
mk1 VW Golf GTI with hard riding gas suspension, it would skip say 3
times in a 20 minute journey.  It would also skip if you slammed the
door when stationary.  Not brilliant but tolerable considering.

I used the changer and radio cassette off a 12v supply in the house
for months, with the changer on it's side without a single skip.

Last night, after connecting the thing up in the new car, it skipped
(randonly around once every 15 seconds).  This was in a stationary
car!  It seems to skip worse on the upper and lower numbered disc
slots, it may be less when playing the middle slots.

It doesn't seem very related to vehicle speed or inclines; skips going
downhill at 20mph as it does going flat at 80mph.

It is installed flat under the drivers seat, which just clears the top
of the unit, it doesn't appear to be effected by someone sitting in
the seat or not.

Many thanks,
Robert.

    Robert
    
    Have you ever cleaned it. By "it" I mean the laser lens.
    
    You can buy one these fancy CD disks with a set of spiraling brushes
    on the disk surface. While it plays some naff muzac the lens gets
    a polish. The altenate is to strip in down and give the lens a gentle
    wipe with a soft piece of cloth, just damp with some sort of alcohol,
    Isopropryl, Vodka (Smirnoff Blue 50% Export's good) etc.
    
    What about the CD's themself, everyone you got or just a few? New/old
    ones? A clean from time to time is will do no harm if done gently and
    has resolved a few problems for me. 
    
    I wash mine in tepid water with a touch of good quality washing up liquid.
    Then rinse under the tap and dry off with a soft cloth. Then again a
    scratch on the surface is a killer if its deep enough.
    
    Dave
    
    
    

    
    Rob,
    
    Did you install it in the new car yourself? If you got a company to do
    it, just get 'em back and say they haven't done it properly!
    
    Greg

Yes Greg,

It's all my own work!  I will charge myself a good few beers inconvenience 
when I eventually get this hickup fixed.

Any more lateral thinking appreciated, it's always nice to hear a fresh 
view away from the problem.


Rob.

    My experience of my Sony CD player is that it plays better mounted
    horizontally (ooh,err,missus,etc...).
    
    Also, I have noticed that if a CD is prone to skipping it is generally
    not the first or second track but the tracks towards the end of the CD.
    This maybe because the CD plays from the centre outwards and there is
    more vibration on the outward edge due to a badly balanced CD player
    or CD itself. Not sure what you can do about it though.
    
    I'd go for the lens cleaner as the most economical way to start.
    
    Cheers,
    Barry.
    
    PS. My in-car CD refuses to play any of Eric Clapton's latest but the
        CD in the house will play it with no complaints. Perhaps in-car
        players have in-built "musical taste" chips....

Thanks Barry,

The local dealer said that the changer mechanism is of Sony origin, a few 
years ago they were the oem supplier for a great many brands; Kenwood, 
Denon and others.  If yours is of same vintage, we may be talking about the 
same box.

I followed Dave's advice again last night and was more bold in cleaning the 
laser optic with a cotton bud with a little Isopropryl, which ironically 
came with my Allsop3 magnetic tape head cleaner.  

I deliberately did not clean the rogue discs so I would know what fixed it 
if it did.  On replacing the changer and firing it up, I listened to at 
least one whole track on all ten discs.  I listened to at least a minute of 
every track on the rogue NewSoulRebels CD.  

Not a single skip and, as described, I celebrated with a few brews.

This morning, I get in and select the above in disc 2, track 1 and again 
get loads of skips!!!  Aaaargh.  All the other CD's seem to play fine (yes, 
I was that sad git in the car park from 8:50 to 9:00).

The symptoms don't appear to be related to engine running or not.  I can 
only think that the fault is related to heat, as the car interior was 
cooler last night???

I may try some contact cleaner on the multi-way connector at the back of 
the removable stereo, perhaps that is not allowing the changer to 
pull the constant current it needs to operate the disc tracking 
effectively?  But then, why would only a couple of discs be effected?

Time for Mr.Washing-Up tonight!

Lord help keep me sane!
Cheers,
Rob.

Thanks, that helped a lot.                                            8-)

I found the following in the usenet newsgroup rec.audio.car.  I would 
happily give someone the price of a pint if they have an Alsop CD Lens 
cleaner and would let me take excellent care of it overnight.  I'm in 
DECpark REO G5/1

I'll try the washing up on the CD's tonight failing any kind offers, I may 
get a cleaner disk at the weekend.  I've got a long journey up north next 
week and would like to have the prob nailed by then.



========
Newsgroups: rec.audio.car
Subject: ******CD JUMPING CURE********
From: MARK PILLOW <100605.2110@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 31 Jul 1995 22:50:21 GMT

For the last 4 months my multiplay has been jumping and would not 
read any cds

UNTIL i discovered the ALSOP CD LENS CLEANER one wizz with it and 
my multiplay seems like new.

I recomend it to any one.

Mark

Please can anyone advise me on a CD player - 

My Mum wants to get a small CD player that she can use in a caravan - - so one
that can be plugged into 12V or 240V.  

Are the ones for cars 'stand alone' or do you have to mount them as you would a
car radio?

Do they come with speakers - or do they rely on you having speakers for the
radio? - if they use radio ones, can you buy small free standing speakers which
could be mounted in a caravan?

ANy other advice? - or perhaps someone can tell me where in the Reading area I
can go to have a look for myself......

thanks
Elaine

    I used to have a Sony thing called the Car-discman which doubled as
    either a portable personal stereo cd player or could be attached to a
    mounting bracket and used in the car. The player was powered by a plug
    that went into the cigarette lighter of the car.
    
    The unit came with headphones (for when in personal stereo mode), the
    cigarette lighter power lead, plus an audio cassette like gizmo which
    you pushed into your (car) cassette player, which then made the
    connection between the cd player and the car speakers. (The mounting
    bracket had to be bought separately.
    
    To be honest it was more hassle than it was worth using it in the car,
    from the point of view of trailing wires, etc. and I tended to use it
    more as a personal stero with the headphones.
    
    If you want to speak to a dealer about the car-discman, then your local
    Sony shop should be able to help you out.
    
    An alternative might be to buy one o' them cd/radio/tape boogie boxes
    and some rechargable batteries (and a battery charger thingy).
    
    
    Reargards,
    
    Stephen
    

Thanks for the info - 

I don't think my Mum wants to use it in the car - but is talking about a
semi-permanent installation for the caravan - so perhaps a portable with active
speakers may be the way to go. I don't think she wants to get anything as big as
the radio/cassette/kitchen-sink units :-) - I don't think she's even interested
in it for using with earphones....

Elaine 

    Just out of interest... I have one of those convertor things for the
    car... and a discman which is well past its sell-by date. 
    
    Can you buy just a CD changer for an existing radio/cassete and use the
    convertor bit from the discman to play it using that dummy cassette
    thing?
    
    
    
    Xtine
    

My Mum has seen my personal CD player - (just a bit bigger than the size of the
CD, and less than 1" deep) and so what she thought she wanted was one of those -
until I pointed out that something had to be plugged into it to enable you to
hear anything!   

It should be able to run on 12V and 240V (the caravan is wired for both) 
and she doesn't really want radio or cassette facilities. Size - as mentioned
above.

Why did I ever get involved in this...... :-)

Elaine

    
    re .40
    
    Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as that. The CD autochanger
    also needs to be controlled eg play, search etc. 
    
    You may be lucky and find that your current Radio/Cassette that will 
    do this for you. In which case the lead from the autochanger will plug 
    into you car radio (at the back) and this will connect the controls
    and the sound feed at the same time.
    
    If not, you can buy autochangers with a small (flat) control panel
    (on a long lead) so that you can mount the autochanger in the boot
    and stick the control panel wherever you want in the front of the
    car. Sony or Pioneer make these, maybe others. 
    
    I think that the usual way of getting the sound feed to the 
    radio/cassette is via an FM modulator (sold separately). This 
    converts the CD out to an FM signal just as if it had been received 
    over your aerial. The real aerial and 'dummy' are both fed into 
    the aerial socket on the back of your car radio/cassette. 
    Once done, you can tune the radio to the FM frequency being used by 
    the CD just like you would tune into any station and hey presto, sound!
    
    These autochangers should also have a 'line out' that you could then
    feed in to your dummy cassette.
    
    Probably the best thing is to go to a good car audio dealer and find
    out what they recommend. Unless you particularly want an autochanger
    I suspect that you could buy a cd-tuner to replace your radio/cassette
    for about the same money as an autochanger.  
    
    You might also consider just buying a new personal cd player.
    
    Richard. 
    
    
    

Elaine,

Don't worry about a cd-changer, they wear out then skip a lot(!).

Why not look out for a low-end cd/radio for a car.  If your mother was to 
get a removable one, she would be able to buy a second mounting cage and 
just remove the cd/radio from her car when she wants it in the caravan.

Also it's secure, as it can be taken in the house when the caravan is in 
the back garden.  It will also have powered speaker leads comming out and 
be able to have speakers wired straight to it (via the mounting cage).

Cheers,
Rob.

p.s. No one got an Alsop3 CD Lens cleaner, I'll take superb care of it 
honest.

    
    re:.41
    
    Just get a reasonably good portable CD and a set of rechargeable
    batteries or a power supply for it.  Don't buy any of the active
    speakers available in the shops 'cos they all sound fairly crappy even
    the Sony ones at about 80 quid.  For about 20 quid you should be able
    to get some old active Goodmans speakers - look in the free-ads or
    some cheapo hifi/trading shop.
    
    Chris.

I picked up some speakers for a soundblaster card for only 12 quid.  They
seem to be of a reasonable sort of quality, and apparently work well enough
with CD players (although I haven't tried this)

Chris.

    
    All,
    
    Can anyone advise on a single disk player?  I see lots of rec's for
    multi play, several hundred pound systems, but does anyone have a
    single CD player that is good?
    
    
    \_spike_/

    
    Check out any Alpine stockist, they should be your best bet; they also
    do (did, a year ago) a 3-cd head-unit changer that fits into the same
    space as a normal single CD or tape unit - very impressive sound for a
    small box.
    
    Chris.

re .46, .48,

would you buy any audio equipment that's had to endure an onslaught
of goth music?  Only kidding!  :)

Chris.

    
    
    
    800 pounds for a 3 cd unit???
    
    it only costs 600 pounds for a Sony 10 disk changer..so why pay more
    for less...this isn't lingerie!! :)))
    
    
     - BTW same unit in Canada costs 600 dollars!! It hurts to see how much
    we have to pay here!!
    
    Chris
    :)