I just got my system set up and wanted to see if anyone else at my school had one so I could compare builds and maybe learn something. The only person at my school with a system is an older teacher, and it’s a big school.I just got my system set up and wanted to see if anyone else at my school had one so I could compare builds and maybe learn something. The only person at my school with a system is an older teacher, and it’s a big school.
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Where I live in the southeast US, I think the kids with the lifted trucks will have a plan. But yes, things are not at all like they used to be. The main ones, in my opinion, are: 1. Most stock car systems are “fine,” and it costs a lot more to add them to new cars;
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#1 is my guess—the stock systems work fine…
I remember that they were bad and easy to improve “back in my day.”
As for your second point, it was very easy to take out a stock DIN unit and install an aftermarket unit with an RCA and remote out. Connect a few lines to the trunk or boot, set up the amp, and connect your speakers.
I just upgraded my Ford Transit, and it was a pain to connect to the original wiring, use the sound level inputs, and other things. I chose a DSP/amp all in one unit instead of breaking it up into several separate parts, which works well for my setup.
It makes sense that fewer people are trying to improve things since the starting point is better and it takes more work to do so.
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It works well with the Harman Kardon system in my 2020 Kia Soul. That’s why I bought a 01 car to drive and put a huge (for me) system in it. My wife got to drive the Kia.
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Less them being ok and more so the shit just being expensive.
I hear all the stories from my dad about how they would and could rig up sub systems and whole car systems for cheap back in the late 80’s and 90’s.
As a 2010’s teen, the best you could hope for is a friend having a hand me down sub if you wanted to go cheap bc otherwise, you’re easily forking over almost $500 for a low end professional installation.
Shit’s expensive for a young kid to do and most parents aren’t enthusiastic about forking over money to finance those sorts of projects.
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It’s less about them being okay and more about the stuff being pricey.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, my dad used to tell me stories about how they could cheaply set up subsystems and whole car systems.
As a kid in 2010, the cheapest subwoofer you could hope for is a used one from a friend. If you don’t find one, you’ll have to pay over $500 for a low-end professional installation.
Kids have to pay a lot of money to do that, and most parents don’t want to spend money on projects like that.
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Because the speakers in our old cars only went down to 200 Hz, which made them pretty useless for young people. The cars had an FM radio and a tape player. Now cars have Bluetooth or something better, and the sound is so much better. They have at least some bass and good highs and mids.
My Land Cruiser has a great system, but I haven’t even tried to improve the one in my daily driver Fiesta because it works well enough. It’s also likely to be stolen from where I live 
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These days, most cars that aren’t base models don’t have enough juice to justify the squeezing. The Bose units in all three of our Mazdas are pretty good. They even put a speaker in my Miata! You wouldn’t want to put in the work to make them better, so don’t.
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It’s likely because stock sound systems sound great these days. There’s also less ease now. A lot of current car stereos do more than just play music; they can even handle everything inside the car. You can’t just put in a new head unit and start building from there. You could lose a lot of important features of the car or have to pay a lot of money for parts that keep those features while dealing with tricky wires.
It’s also possible that people are lazy and don’t want to learn the skill. We spent a lot of time in our cars before computers and the internet. Car meets and “car culture” were big among young people who had just gotten their licenses. People in my area liked to have car meets in odd parking spots on Saturday nights. You were demoing your system or showing off your engine bay. People who didn’t like bass were gear heads who were building their cars to race on the street. That’s what we had. There are now more things for young people to do.
I made a teen’s car go “brrr” on the highway, and I rolled down my windows and did the same to my 41. It made him smile.
It doesn’t seem to be just a suburban youth thing anymore, as other people have said. Young people who like cars, especially Chargers and Challengers, and Latinos who drive trucks, are the only ones who seem to be playing with systems.
I love catching people off guard like this, I’m 26, and drive a Mercury Grand Marquis. Nobody ever expects the grandpa/grandma car to bump, worth the reaction most times.