I am looking inside my car now, and I want some good tunes. anyone know of a good place to take my baby to get a new stereo and get it done right? I live in Rockville, but will travel in the general area.

 

http://www.audioconnection.com/

You should have a lot of place in Rockville.

I've used the place above to add XM Radio in two cars, GPS installation in the MINI. They do lots of stuff.

 

How much work done? More bang for your buck if you do it yourself... It's more time consuming than difficult, but it's great fun and a good learning experience opening your mini's interior bits.

Crutchfield & NewMiniStuff.com both sell adapter harnesses so you don't have to cut your wiring. You said J likes audio stuff too, so it could be a fun together project.

 

As for the amont of work to be done, i really don't know. I guess it could be a work in progress of sorts. The ultimate Jay would want of course would be a dvd with screen that would do nav as well (kind of like yours I think Will) seperates all the way around, sub in the boot, amps where the back seats would be since we want to take them out anyway, making a semi false floor. Not like anyone else but two people get in that car. I would never put a baby seat in there, etc...That is what the Element is for!
But to begin with, how bout just changing the speakers for better sound, then maybe starting to slowly work our way up in the world since this is not cheap work.

 

I suggest starting with speakers. The stock speakers have icky paper cones. WagnBat has good pics of his speaker upgrade in his gallery. (props Will).

Replacing the head unit should be fairly simple, and buying an adapter for the wiring harness will make things simple for wiring too. I am curious though how much better the stock unit would sound if it had some nicer speakers to push!

 

Would be easy and cheap to change the HU and speakers yourself to start. As for subs and woofers, lots of ideas in the audio forums... May have to dig a bit tho.

And in terms of head units, mine doesn't do Nav... Mine was also only $500, and DVD w/Nav you're looking at well over $1000. My unit has 2 aux inputs though, so if I bought a piggy-back nav system, I could just plug it in.

Also, make sure you do plenty of research on the products and/or installers you'll be using.

 

Well, I think that is probably where we will start, since I can't afford to do everything at once. I am going to have to do some research about the kind of speakers I want to use. I jsut want some good sound. Of course Jay wants us to do everything, but it can't be at once. I still want to live under a roof! So I gess I will have to do some web searching. I am clueless when it comes to this. Since this was always a 'guy' thing when I was growning up, I just got to listen to it, never to experience the 'under the hood'. (and i thought i was a tomboy growing up) But don't get me wrong, I am having fun. I would love to do this as a project with Jay, but I just don't know what I am doing. I sure do hope he does!!
anyway...To research I go. It keeps me from cleaning my house

 

Since you can't do both at once, it's been suggested that for your first step either you keep the head unit and replace the speakers, or keep the speakers and replace the head unit.

More expensive, better quality speakers require more power for them to operate at their full potential than the 15 watts per channel the oem head unit puts out. So you will be limited as to choice.

Replacing just the head unit is the route I would take. I heard MINIs original, non-hk speakers being driven by an Alpine CDA 9851, which is rated at 18 watts per channel, and the difference was astounding.

If you replace the head unit and you're still not satisfied, then you can start thinking in terms of better speakers and an amplifier. Most audiophiles who add an amplifier also replace the oem head unit anyway, so you'd already be one step ahead.

 

thanks, that sounds like a good idea. of course this is going to have to wait till after the dragon. I think my husband is going to take away all my credit cards for this even, cuz i will probably be like other women in a shoe store!!
But Now all I have to do is to research what I want. Jay used to compete back in the day, but that was YEARS ago (no offense baby) so we are all out of what is good these days. Bang for the buck is what I really want. Always looking for a good deal, but of course I want good quality as well. I don't want to put 25K into this stereo, but I imagine a decent hu would be about 1K? Or is that too little, too much? I am not sure, the ones I have seen, of course I only see the gimicks that they want the chicks to see.....the cool features and crapola. I guess I will have to hit the books.

 

Since I have never had steering wheel controls, won't changing the head unit also deem the steering wheel controls inoperable? If so, is there an adaptor around for that?

 

$1000 for just a head unit? No wonder your husband wants to take your credit cards away

On second thought, if he does, I'll give you mine...you couldn't possibly spend as much as my wife and kids do so I'll still be ahead of the game.

But seriously, for $1000 in modifications, you'd have a system that would be the envy of anyone. The top of the line Alpine head unit last year, CDA 9855, was available for about $349.

Start you research at www.crutchfield.com. Check out some of the topics here on NAM and MINI 2. There's a head unit sticky at the top of their in car entertainment (ICE) forum. Alpine, JVC, and Pioneer seem to be among the preferred brands for MINI owners.

Good luckl and please keep us posted.

 

see I told you I didn't know anything about it. But it will just have to wait, or else I will have to take out a loan to pay for it, since LIFE gets in the way just a bit toooooooo often
Oh well. But I will still do the research and plan and plan and plan and then maybe I will be able to save up some cashola for the lot!

 

By 1k for the head unit, she means one that will do DVD and NAV too.

 

My opinion on speakers would be that better quality speakers don't necessarily require more power, they might even require less. A paper cone flexes and warps and a paper surround doesn't allow for much cone travel, so the stock speakers just aren't very efficient. So, they may actually require more power to produce sound - of which isn't great quality.

Now, take a set of good quality speakers with rigid cones especially that have seperate tweeters, (so at least 2-way if not 3-way). The factory head unit might surprise you with these!

WagnBat, what was your experience when you did your speaker upgrade? Did you get any improvement with the stock HU?

 

Does anyone know if that is RMS/Peak output?

 

I would suspect that's RMS. What are factory HU's usually running these days?

 

We are going the speaker upgrade route. I am checking Crutchfield.com now.