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Looking for the latest in car audio? A GPS navigation system? How about a pager ? like they wore back in the day? The Car Stereo Company carries everything you might need to pimp your ride.
According to Meyer, the car audio business has kept up with lifestyle needs and popular trends. “Navigation and satellite are becoming big sellers along with DVD, audio and video,?he explains. “[Just] as we changed from listening to radio in the house, to [watching] the TV ?now that is happening in vehicles, too.?/span>
The Car Stereo Company offers the top names in car audio, such as Alpine, Pioneer, Panasonic, and Clarion. For those looking to add some bump, they carry, among others, JL and Kicker amps and speakers. Feel the need to show off your subwoofer? Meyer and his team build custom boxes for car audio, complete with lights and mirrors. “We do it mostly for sound, but we dress them up pretty nice,?says Meyer. And don’t worry about having to take your new equipment to some random repair shop if something goes wrong; repairs and installation are done on-site.
In keeping with the times, Meyer’s company sells portable and in-car XM and Sirius satellite radios, as well as iPod solutions ?devices that allow you to play an iPod through a car stereo. “There is always a way, without having to change your deck, that you can use your iPod in your car,?says Meyers. The Car Stereo Company also sells cell phones, accessories and service through most every carrier available.
Since the 1960s, when it was called the Tape Deck, the store has kept customers coming back for more. With all that The Car Stereo Company has to offer, you may want to consider investing in a new car alarm to protect your pricey goodies. And, yes, they sell those, too.
CAR AUDIO: Sony MEX-BT5000 - Bluetooth car kit and streaming enabled car radio Posted by Arne Hess - at Tuesday, 21.03.06 - 00:15:01 CET under 1 - General News - Viewed 2427x Is this the answer to my desperate search for an integrated Bluetooth car kit and audio-solution? The recently announced Sony MEX-BT5000 car audio head unit is designed for the truly mobile lifestyle. The first Sony head unit with Bluetooth wireless technology, it automatically links to any Bluetooth mobile phone and provides handsfree calls with crystal clear sound. Phone book data from the handset also appears on the BT5000's high-visibility screen, so you can make and receive calls during a journey without even taking your phone out of your pocket. Support for the Bluetooth OPP (Object Push Protocol) also allows the wireless transfer of up to fifty phone book contacts to the head unit itself. An integrated microphone in the unit picks up the user's voice and removes the need for any further wiring within the car, greatly simplifying installation. Stylishly minimal design and a full motion fluorescent (FL) display give the BT5000 a highly distinctive look very different to previous Sony head units. "The BT5000 is all about making the mobile life simpler," says Patrick Naltet, Marketing Director Sony e-Vehicle Europe. "No more third-party car phone kits, no more fiddling about when you get in and out of the vehicle. Just seamless, smart connectivity whenever you drive. This is how it's going to be from now on." Smart handsfree isn't all the BT5000 can do. Show it a mobile phone or music player that supports Bluetooth audio streaming and it will retrieve and play music too. The head unit offers essential playback control (Play/Pause, Skip, fast forward/back) over the remote source, placing your music collection right at your fingertips. Next-generation music phones like the Sony Ericsson W950 Walkman phone already offer audio streaming via Bluetooth wireless technology, and are compatible with the BT5000. "Once you've used smart handsfree, you are going to want the same automatic connection to your music, be it on your phone or audio player," adds Tetsuya Ando, Vice President, Sony e-Vehicle Europe. "The BT5000 is already in place to provide this so long as you have something like the Sony Ericsson W950 Walkman phone. Again, this is the way things are going to go, and Sony is right there, one step ahead." Features
For handsfree telephony, the BT5000
supports Bluetooth HSP (Head Set Profile), HFP (Handsfree Profile)
and OPP (Object Push Profile), providing information such as caller
ID and phonebook contents in addition to voice data. Neither a price nor a release date was given yet but I will keep it on my watch-list! TWICE LOUISVILLE, KY. ?Car audio industry members gathered here this month at the MERA (Mobile Enhancement Retailers Association) KnowledgeFest in a relatively upbeat mood, claiming the car audio industry is finally poised to compete in a new volatile marketplace. The $2.2 billion industry has faced declines for several years, due to slowing sales of CD players and newer cars that are “unfriendly?to after-market products. Last year, retailer attendance was down at the annual KnowledgeFest, only to rebound this year, up by 30 percent to about 700 car stereo specialists, setting a record high, said executive director Rick Mathies. Retailers, who seemed angry in the past at losing business to Internet sellers and to “unfriendly cars,? this year, seemed ready to do battle. Mathies declared, “The mood is awesome ?I haven't heard any 'Woe is me,' or 'We're dying.' The industry is making a turn ?Manufacturers are stepping up with OEM integration solutions.?/span> These integration solutions are expected to help boost sales for the sluggish aftermarket. One supplier said it was telling that the Alpine show car on the exhibit floor did not include a head unit. Instead, it featured a new OEM integration device to serve as the hub of an A/V system. MERA, which is the trade association for 12-volt specialty retailers, also announced two initiatives to help promote OEM integration. It recently began selling new MERA Integration Excellence software, which updates, in real time, when any new OEM integration device becomes available. The data base includes the hundreds of third-party OEM integration devices that come on the market to accommodate each new vehicle (a new MP3 adapter for a 2006 Escalade or a new iPod adapter for 2006 Honda Civic). Retailers have trouble keeping track of which adapters are available for which cars, so the software, now offers a unified, real-time database. MERA also released the first of what will be quarterly research reports, outlining industry trends and suggested strategies for 12-volt specialists. The first report, issued here, stated that the biggest challenge facing 12-volt retailers is “learning to deal with OEM integration,?and it encouraged retailers to take steps to reduce salesmen turnover and train salesmen to “professionalize the industry.?/span> This new call to professionalism was evident throughout KnowledgeFest as suppliers asked retailers to become knowledgeable car integrators if they hope to survive. One seminar said retailers must become “automotive technology stores,? where every dealer knows the top 20 cars in his market and is able to sell all the accessories for those vehicles. JL Audio marketing VP Manville Smith said those who don't become experts in vehicle integration won't survive. Conversely, those who do will prosper as the market changes. “I foresee a retail shakeout for those who cling to the old head unit model. The industry is becoming more of a profession.?He called on every shop owner to provide installers with an RTA (real time analyzer) and an oscilloscope. On the plus side, the new name-brand integration devices are more profitable than the typical $150 head unit, with the newer devices offering 45- or 50-point margins compared to 15 points on a CD receiver, he said. Chris Cook strategic business director for Peripheral Electronics explained if a Ford 150 truck is popular in your area, “You should be able to tell [the customer] everything that can be done with that car. We can add USB, MP3, iPod, Bluetooth kit [and] a CAN interface,?among other options. Cook claimed that the first question retailers should ask a customer when they walk in the door is “What kind of car do you drive??Then you tell him what fits. “If you sell the product first and then find out what car it goes into, you are setting yourself up for a problem and each year, it will become more of a problem. It's like selling products that are out of stock,?he said. He recommends buying data from Wards or other sources to determine the top 20 cars in a retailer's market. Peripheral VP/COO Ron Freeman said at MERA that his company is launching an initiative to help make MP3 players available as sale items for car audio specialists. He said store owners who set up displays are finding that customers want to buy the MP3 player on display, as well as the integration kit. Freeman said one retailer is buying MP3 players regularly off the Internet to stock the store. Freeman said Peripheral is also buying OEM radios to offer to retailers for their integration displays. Further, the company is offering new promotional displays to get OEM integration devices out of the back room. It launched a display at MERA with charts that tell consumers what products can work in what car. MERA's Mathies noted, “Sometimes it takes a two-by-four upside the head to get [retailers] to understand.?He said the new MERA quarterly report “is the first two-by-four.? iPod takes over from the humble car radioThere aren't many products around so popular that car manufacturers are willing to build around them to allow drivers to use them in their vehicles. Such is the dominance of Apple's iPod. The digital music player has a massive 75 per cent share of the worldwide market so it's no wonder every effort is being made to accommodate it in the latest model cars. It wasn't so long ago that a 10-stacker CD was considered the ultimate in car audio. Today that looks rather puny when you consider having an iPod on board that can hold the equivalent of 1500 albums. The first in-car iPod products, which are still popular, were transmitters which connected to the iPod and sent a signal that could be picked up on the designated FM frequency. The downside of these was the cable clutter and the fact you still had to use the iPod to control the music. Other audio visual systems and headunits offered iPod connectivity with access to the music through the touch screen. While these systems looked impressive they were often not compatible with the car's steering wheel audio controls, which are designed so that drivers need not take their eyes off the road. But as the popularity of the music device grew, so did the desire for car manufacturers to provide full iPod integration. Mercedes-Benz has introduced an integration kit which seamlessly merges the iPod to the vehicle's audio system. It is available for late 2005 models and most of the 2006 range including the C-Class, SLK, CLK, CLS, E-Class, M-Class and R-Class. Other manufacturers with iPod integration kits available now or coming soon are BMW, Audi, Nissan, Jeep, Honda, Volkswagon, Mini, Volvo, Suzuki and Ferrari. The Mercedes-Benz iPod integration kit can be included as an option when ordering a new vehicle or retrofitted into compatible models. After installation, the only evidence of the kit is a cable protruding from the side wall of the glove box. At the end of the cable is the familiar dock connector which clicks into place any compatible iPod including the latest iPod Nano and iPod Video. Once the iPod is connected, the driver can leave the device in the glovebox and take full control through the steering wheel controls. A bonus is that as long as the iPod is connected it is also being charged so when you take it out it will be full of juice. Users can access the iPod through the auxiliary input of the audio system. The COMAND system has a dedicated AUX key but for review purposes we tried the integration kit in a C-Class model fitted with a regular audio system. Here the CDC button is depressed for a few seconds and the words "AUX INPUT ACTIVE" appears on the audio's display. From there it's simply a matter of scrolling through to the iPod menu using the buttons on the wheel. The digital display between the speedometer and the RPM indicator is now your iPod screen. The arrow up and down buttons on the left-hand side of the wheel lets you scroll through the selections just like you would if you were holding the device in your hand. Your choices here are songs, artists, albums, playlists and shuffle. It's not unusual to have thousands of songs on an iPod and one problem other iPod car systems had was scrolling through an endless list of artists, albums or song titles would often divert attention from the road. On the Mercedes-Benz integration kit this problem is addressed in quite a simple manner. Pressing and holding the arrow up or down key gives you the first song, album or artists of that particular letter so you can get all the way down to Z in a few seconds. When you reach the desired letter, simply take your finger off the arrow key and refine the search with single pushes of the arrow key until you arrive at the desired selection. The beauty of this is that the display is just below the level of the windscreen rather than down in the central console of the vehicle so a driver's eyes can be on the road and their hands firmly on the wheel. Even fast forwarding and rewinding within a song is possible by pressing and holding either the arrow up or down keys. The screen displays a percentage figure to indicate how far into the song you have navigated. The shuffle option, which plays the songs in the iPod at random, is a popular choice for drivers. It's like listening to a radio station that only plays your favourite music. The steering wheel's volume controls, which adjust the sound level of the audio system, also control the iPod. Sound quality of the music is equal to anything the on-board CD player can produce. The audio controls such as bass and treble that are applied to the audio system's settings also carry through when the system is playing back an iPod. The display on the C-Class only has room for nine characters of the title of artist, album or song to appear on the screen. Other Mercedes-Benz models have larger display screens and therefore room for more information. The Mercedes-Benz iPod integration kit is priced at $520 plus installation. Who's got it BMW: 3 Series, X3, X5 and Z4. Other BMW models, including some 3 Series models, 5 Series, current 6 Series, X3, X5 and Z4, also have auxiliary connections that require drivers to use the device itself to control it AUDI: Coming soon to A3, A4 and allroad models in the US and later this year in Australia
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