Replacing the radio

[roller95]

I live in Washington, D.C.and have a 78 spider I need to have the radio replaced and I want to up date with new speakers and USB connection. Does anyone know of a company in Washington, D.C. Where I can get a good buy on a sound system and where they know how to install the radio without wrecking the car. Appreciate the help

[opus10583]

Hi,

Did it myself. Bought a reasonable Sony media player receiver and a couple of open-box marine-grade Polk speakers from Crutchfield and Amazon, cut the console for the DIN tray and 'Bob's your uncle'. I also picked up a 6" Bazooka on eBay and a 100W clearance amp for proof of concept, which I replaced last weekend with an 8" Pyle compact sub I'm still dialing in.

You can go nuts on sound systems but it doesn't seem worth it to me in car that's so acoustically challenged.

Ciao,
Mark

[4uall]

Have no personal experience in Washington DC however, the crew @Best Buy did a great job on mine Their open box stuff is always a good deal and got an Alpine usb deck for less than $100 and speaker that fit without any mods

[SeldomSeen]

I installed a radio in my Alfa from these folks:

http://www.classiccarstereos.com/mm5/me ... medium=cpc

Their radios have working old style knobs and period look plus a front connector for MP3 etc.. My Fiat will get one in the near future as well.

[supplyguy]

Live in Ashburn VA and used the Best Buy at Dulles Town Center for several installs on my non-Fiats. That said, I just picked up the coolest Custom Auto Sound USA-230 vintage-looking AM/FM radio with MP3 Jack (declined to spend for the USB port but they have them) that I intend to install myself very soon. With the console out this looks easy. I also bought a dual cone stereo speaker to install in the center console, and have two nice speakers in the map pockets. Agree with previous post and my previous convertible experience - sound is never going to be all that good with the top down so I wouldn't spend too much.

[TX82FIAT]

About a year ago i updated the stereo with a metchless (no CD drive) unit. I think that is the way to go given the limited space. However, a lot of the big stores have not fully caught on to this yet making it hard to walk into a best Buy and get a metchless head unit. One of the issues with our cars is not really the install but the power source. I've found the head units volume is somewhat limited if your main power source is not a strong 12-14 volts.

If you are going to have somone else install the stereo make sure you tell them what wires to use for Main, Aux power and ground. Unfortunaltely, every Spider I have owned had a prior hack job done for a stereo install. This last time around I hooked up a rockford fosgate mini amp in the trunk to a basic marine metchless head unit so there was no temptation for someone to enter the car take the stereo.