Bla bla black sheep squadron.

open thread_43.jpg

Since I've decided to keep my old truck (1986 Mazda B2000) instead of buying a new Ford electric, and I can't wait any longer on the Tesla Cybertruck, I'm shopping for a new radio for it.
Haven't had any tunes for a few years as I was anticipating getting a new truck anytime soon. Ha.
The Ford is here and ready for me to order, but they raised the price $6000. Their way of hijacking most of my $7500 Federal Tax Credit.
Anyway, I decided to turn my beater into an Entertainment Center, complete with sub woofers and enough power to serenade the crops while I work the garden. All I want is a simple AM/FM/CD player with a USB port for a thumb drive. And a detachable faceplate.
And maybe 15 watts per channel. I'm getting a little hard o' hearing.
Of the dozens of units out there only three match my criteria. And they will have to be ordered.
It may seem a little overkill, but if the Air Force can send two F35s to poke a hole in a balloon, I can guess I spend a little on some quality tunes.
And the radio will probably last longer than those F35s.
Thread is open.

PS. Xfinity informs me I may experience some outages in my WIFI on Tuesday due to maintenance work, so I will be hosting through my smarty phone via Verizon.

Share
up
11 users have voted.

Comments

Your sound system sounds dynamite.
Did something similar with my '71 Vega hatchback
Two large cabinet speakers in the back driven by
an 8 track/AM/FM stereo (long time ago). Music machine.

Thanks for your post!

up
8 users have voted.

@QMS

known as SOTU starring dementia joe. Sponsored by Raytheon, Pfizer, Lockheed and
Exxon-Mobile. I imagine congress will be lectured on the huge improvements in
international relations, the booming economy other ovation worthy orations.
Democracy in action!

[video:https://youtu.be/O3bCtx7SNAE]

edited to add vid

up
7 users have voted.
Socialprogressive's picture

@QMS
I've got a sock drawer to organize.

up
8 users have voted.

When I offer to wash your back in the shower, all you have to say is yes or no.
Not all this "who are you, and how did you get in here?" nonsense.

@Socialprogressive

sound like politicians and analysts.
sock 1: what is your take on bla bla?
sock 2: let's take a commercial break

up
5 users have voted.
earthling1's picture

@QMS
Watching O'Joe is so cringeworthy it aggravates my crowsfeet.
This is going to be embarrassing for America.
Thanks for that Beatle tune.

up
4 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

In 74 I was driving around Syracuse, New York and saw "the 1,000,000 Vega" - It had a special plate commemorating its milestone, which somehow hung on thanks to a tenacious piece of rust on what was left of the left quarter panel. I almost laughed, but realized that my 70 Buick was cut in half horizontally - top half medium blue, bottom half unpainted sheet metal patching. Onondaga county used magnesium rather than salt on their roads at wintertime. We didn't laugh at people who bought a new car every year, we laughed at people who bought rustproofing.

up
8 users have voted.

On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304

Found a 63 Dodge D-100 pick-up out in a field in Arizona.
Worn out - but solid - no rust. Rebuilt the slant six, clutch,
wheels and brakes, etc. Drove that monster for years.
Kinda hated to bring it back east.

up
6 users have voted.
earthling1's picture

@doh1304
Great looking car and hauled ass. But there were no floorboards. Completely rusted out.
Seats were bolted to 2x4s and angle clips.
Kinda like riding one of those three-wheeled ATVs, don't put your foot down!

up
3 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

A couple of years ago in one of my anti-boredom projects I updated the audio system in my '95 Mustang convertible. Here are a few paragraphs from the writeup of what I encountered.

I bought the car with the Mach460 audio system in Feb 1995. It was quite an audio system at that time but then we need to bear in mind that it was 1994 technology. The Mach460 consisted of a single DIN head unit that contained the standard AM/FM radio of that time, a cassette player and the audio control adjustments. Underneath the head unit was a single DIN CD player. There were 3 amplifiers in the system, a stereo amp and 2 mono amps. The stereo amp drove 4 tweeters, one mono drove 2 midrange speakers, and the third drove 2 woofers. The tweeter amp was located out of sight under the CD player and the other 2 amps were located under/behind the backseat.

There were 8 speakers in the system. 2 tweeters were located in each front corner of the door windows and 2 tweeters were located in the top of an acoustical box on the side panels of the backseats. 2 midrange speakers were located in the lower front part of each door and there were 2 woofer speakers located in the lower part of the side panel backseat acoustical box. The head unit functioned as the crossovers and separated the frequencies for the single function speakers.

In the early 2000s the media limitations started to become an issue. I had boxes of vinyls that I could enjoy only on my home system. I also had quite a collection of CDs and of course cassettes. Facing downsizing requirements I decided to convert to digital.

By around 2008 I had finished converting all my audio files to digital. At that point the only system I had which could not handle the digital files was the Mustang. The Mach460 did only CDs and cassettes. Unfortunately it started choking on the cassettes around that time also. So in 2010 I decided to install a new head unit that could do USBs and just use an output wiring harness to fake the amps. It did well but I didn't realize at the time that it wasn't a one-for-one replacement. The Mach460 head unit was a specialized system that handled the speakers by driving the amps separately and the off-the-shelf unit didn't have that ability. Fortunately (or unfortunately as the case might be) the Mustang doesn't put much distance between anyone inside the car and the speakers so it wasn't a major issue. A couple went mute but it wasn't that noticeable. Meh, convertibles aren't known for their acoustics.

All was well for a few years but age started creeping up on the pony. A vampire power drain would run the battery down and according to some forums the culprit was most likely deterioration of the insulation in the wiring. They mentioned the rear powered amps specifically because of their location and suggested the amps be rewired and replaced. Of course that would apply to the speaker wiring also because it was just as old and since the speakers were very old paper technology and if I'd be in there anyway….

As luck would have it, as it usually does when procrastinating, the old 2010 Kenwood just quit making sounds around 2019. Thanks to the virus situation I had lots of time on my hands to do research so hello Crutchfield and more in depth study on the forums. What I found is that the technology had progressed enough so that using an amp to enhance the systems doesn't really gain that much. The internal amps in the head unit will do quite well… especially in a Mustang convertible. Pair that with good equalizer capability and you get a lot of bang for the buck. The other things that are much better these days are the speakers. That old paper thing from the Mach460 just doesn't even come close to doing the job these days.

What all this boils down to is that I decided to replace the head unit with a system that had gobs of power and an awesome equalizer. I would eliminate the amps and drive speakers directly from the head unit. I also decided to replace the 8 single function speakers with 4 2-way speakers and let the crossover in the speaker deal with the frequencies instead of the head unit.

There were prewired harnesses available but they made assumptions that didn't apply to my plans to eliminate the external amps and besides the new speaker configuration would be difficult
to prewire. So I didn’t see much available other than "it's technical so contact your local professional". BTW, it's not rocket science. Everything is pretty standardized these day so I just checked the head unit docs (RTFI) and went with the colors.

During the installation I removed all the Mach460 components and ran wires from the head unit to the new speakers. There were many videos available online that cover removing panels, popping covers, etc. Probably half of them are accurate. I just ignored the original wires. They wouldn't be
connected to anything anyway.

This new system blew the doors off the Mach460. Lots more power, much better audio.

Sold the car last year. There's probably some grammatical issues so please bear with me.

up
5 users have voted.

@exindy

think I popped in a cassette unit in one of my rides, but don't remember which one.
Still have a few left Wink

up
2 users have voted.

@QMS if my changes fixed it. I had been keeping the prima donna in the garage a lot, only had 85k miles on it after 26 years, so I had installed a cutoff switch on the battery. It was a pain but in those days killing the power wasn't an issue. Not like these new "smart" cars designed to gadgetize instead of qualitize.

I know for sure that it held the charge for 3-4 days with no problems. If I wasn't planning on using it for more than that I used the cutoff.

Sure was a fun car, tasted both oceans and crossed both borders. Once when my wife was describing our trip west she said we were travelling at aroud 95mph coming out of SLC. Nope honey, it was 115 and nowhere near the red line.

Last year for the traditional 5.0 but like all good things... Sigh.

up
3 users have voted.
earthling1's picture

@exindy
on my '90 T-Bird that turned out to be the starter solenoid which was worn out just enough to "bleed" against the housing.
Just stumbled across the issue after days of ripping wiring apart.
Whew!

up
3 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

enhydra lutris's picture

an electric pick-em-up and even, specifically, a Tesla pick up truck. Witness Truckla.

This is one of two vids, I don't know if there are two such trucks or two vids of this one.

be well and have a good one

up
3 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

earthling1's picture

@enhydra lutris
And finished product looked really awesome.
Truckla.... available nowhere.
Ha ha ha.
Thanks El.

up
4 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

enhydra lutris's picture

@earthling1

can probably rent some of them.

be well and have a good one

up
4 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

if you can't find what you need
scarf it up from available parts
and cob it together (with a little help)
and then film a truck spoof commercial
just to rub it in their faces
the charger cord lasso is golden

up
5 users have voted.