probably hungry people and small rations there as well.
The misadventures of car audio.
So I intentionally got my new car without a stereo of any fancitude, in order that I might get an MP3 player for it. I’d done some research (of course) and found a number of different models that I liked, and didn’t find any indication that installing one into the Prius would be any kind of problem. The day I bought the car, I stopped by a car audio shop to get one installed, only to find that I was too late — all of their installers had gone home for the day. So I went home too.
Yesterday morning, I got up early and went back down there. After every employee in the shop got to go look around my car, they came to the conclusion that no stereo can possibly be installed in such a car, and I would have to get this FM Transceiver thing that would transmit the music to my internal car stereo over FM. This sounded kind of stupid, but I agreed and we set up an appointment. When I got home, I did some more research at found, for sure, at least one stereo exists that could be installed in my car, and they carried it at Best Buy. So I went out there. They told me that not only do they have the Jensen that would fit in my car, *any* of the stereos they had in stock would fit in my car. Now I’m confused. I picked out the model I wanted, a nice Sony, only to be told that they didn’t have it in stock. Bah.
So now I have to go find some other car audio shop (or at least another Best Buy) that has the unit I want, is willing to install it and I trust not to tear holes in my car. I’ve been doing so much research now about
this installation stuff that I almost think I could do it myself. Did I say “bah” yet?
Ahhh…sounds like when I got my car stereo installed, I went to A&B Sound, to have the guy tell me that every single stereo they had (that I wanted) was out of stock. This was bullshit considering that they had JUST opened and that it was coincidently every single one I wanted (about 10 diff. models). We then went to Future Shop (which is owned by Best Buy), and managed to get the first model I picked out, and some nice speakers, and all of it installed for free. The moral of this story…don’t go to predatory electronic stores, because they purposely try to fuck you over.
You’re totally right. It’s weird because it so goes against my usual feeling for these things: avoid the big business and give as much business as possible to the smaller, independent shops. But the small electronics shops really seem to cater to those who are stupid and have too much money, and they really don’t try to be good to their customers.
Hmm. Reminds me. I want some decent sounds for M^3 when I get her tomorrow. I too would like an MP3 player, but, tbh, I think I’ll stick with the devil I know, and buy a JVC system identical to the one I have in the Misery machine…single CD player, capable of playing CD/Rs. Of course, this may give the impression that I’d consider downloading tracks from the likes of Kazaa, but that would be illegal and unethical, so I will
I’m still damned jealous of your Prius tho…we have virtually *nothing* like that over here
An excellent opportunity for my uncle to go off on the importance of properly eyeballing the salesweasels…oh dear. I ran into about the same thing when I tried to buy a car stereo at Circuit City a few years ago, only they had the model about $100 more expensive in stock. Really, does the person driving the ancient Jetta (by choice or not) seem like the one most susceptible to this tactic?
we installed our car stereo ourselves last year. It took us about an hour and we didn’t manage to damage the dashboard *or* kille ach other. we got ours from Crutchfield Electronics online who kindly throw in an installation kit for free if you tell them what car you have. This was especially useful as the Geo radio that came out was not a standard size or shape, so the kit included a plastic thing that fit in the hole and the new stereo slotted into.