Mark R Penn wrote:

I've got a Peugeot 407SW with the JBL system (with subwoofer in the
boot wall), but I'm a little disappointed with it. There is loads of
base and power, but the sound overall sounds a bit flat and harsh to
me - certainly not a rich, high quality sound.

Even "premium" brand vehicles normally have a fairly average sound
system. My Audi A4's factory head unit sounded OK, but that was it...
just... OK. And this is a 2003 top of the line car. Factory head unit
was Audi Chorus (made by Blaupunkt) radio/cassette with offboard
changer, previous A4 had the Concert radio/CD.

The optional Bose upgrade does improve things a little, but it still
sounds a bit tizzy at the top end. If anything having the premium sound
option shows up the shortcomings in the head unit.

My first instinct would be to rip out the factory head unit and replace
it with something decent, personally I like Sony kit, but a lot of
people on here rate Alpine very highly. All I'll say is in my previous
car (2001 A4), changing the factory unit for a Sony MDX-CA580 (sadly no
longer available) gave a quantum leap in sound quality on FM even before
adding any off-board amplification. Similarly in the current car
changing it for the Sony MEX-1HD gave a dramatic improvement. Adding an
offboard amp (Sony XM-4060) for the front speakers (rears are amplified
on Audi as standard) gave another improvement, and finally adding a pair
of 10" JBL bass bins into the boot was just the icing on the cake. ;-)
It actually sounds a lot better than the Bose system.

Anyway, have a look at something from Sony at around the £150 mark, this
should give you front/rear line outs and the ability to use a remote,
probably MP3 playback as well.

Hope that's of some help.

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

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