Clearly there is something very wrong with you, yes... very very wrong....

Please pick up the "There is something wrong with me" membership card at the "hardcore lunatic" table off to your right...

Instructions regarding the in the field secret handshake regimen will be forthcomming once the club has actually determind that there is actually "something wrong" with you.

You will find the handshake quite useful in the field. How to make the accompanying "barking sounds" which are a part of the secret handshake will come to you via an Mp3 file in your e-mail inbox..

We grant that the file is a bit compressed, but the meaning and nuance will be intact. At least for general club purposes.

 

Your lucky, half the cars I buy don't even come with such distractions to fill the ugly hole....I usually just stare at the jumble of wires visible through the gaping hole left by some miscreants futile attempt at converting the old shaftaroo to a DIN chassis with an xacto and a boning saw, which was forthwith stolen, for the next few years......

 

Was this a joke? 2 .wav files...where was the mp3?

Both files listed were identical .wav files, down to the number of bits in the file...5.04 mb.....both listed as 1411kbps, 16 bit 44.1khz...wav forms identical....both files of poor quality...no 'life' left in them what-so-ever....probably 2nd or 3rd generation conversions / copies.

If you take a poor file and play it in a poor system, it's gonna' sound worse than a great file in a poor system, this ain't rocket science....but if you're listening to music that sux anyway, WGAF?

 

One file is an original untouched wav off a fairly well recorded CD... the other was converted directly to 320 kbps MP3 and then converted back to wav, matched in file size and meta data so you couldn't cheat like it sounds like you tried to.

That's true, but the diffference is extremely marginal. So marginal in fact that it will be imperceptable to the huge majority of the population while in a ZR1. You know what is perceptable? The awesome convenience of having tens of thousand of your favorite songs on a 6 ounce device with intelligent cataloging.

Aside from that, as I already stated, personal media players can play lossless files, so the whole MP3 discussion is out the door anyway... now we're back to discussing the lack of inclusion of a simple auxiliary jack when the nav option is purchased.

It's obvious you aren't interested in talking facts here... you just want to bitch and moan, so you're avoiding taking on any of the facts I've presented here and just want to continue with your rhetoric, rants and old sayings.

 

Doug is reminding me of the old uncle everyone has. The guy who who hates seat belts because they "hold you in after a crash", never uses the auto headlight option in their car, and won't buy a straight 6 from GM because they blew head gaskets in the 70's or somthing.

I dunno..maybe it is because I am younger, but technology is one of the things with cars that interests me the most.

The MyGig system in the Charger is great. It is not just a "nav" system...you can load CD's to it's HD, it has bluetooth, all kinds of stuff. To me it is depresssing GM has such a crappy unit in an expensive car..when they have better in the parts bin and this is the only car using the unit.

 

Maybe because the newer, better unit won't fit in the Corvette? I'm just guessing

 

I didn't even have to cheat, you moron...I've only done this sh*t since 1969, so FO. Your little game was flawed from the moment you dreamed it up. You started with what I consider a poor recording, used your amatuer software to compress it to an MP3 and reconverted it to a wav. Want a cookie? Polishing t.u.r.d.s again....

Exactly what "facts" are you refering to? You haven't presented any.... Just your grade school understanding of music compression. Laughable at best.

You kids run along now, you bore me......

Personally, if I bought a 600+hp, $100k car I'd only order the options that made it perform better....not silly gadgets.

 

I give up. I've presented plenty of facts here. Portable files can be lossless, most people can't hear the difference in an environment like that, portable players offer huge advantages in convenience. All I'm asking for is an aux jack and you can't shut up about your massive e-****/resume. Try explaining that to the average person as your give them your elitist lecture on their lossy MP3 and how real sports car enthusiasts only listen to the exhaust... when they're just trying to jam out while driving down the road in their ZR1 and can't hear any difference even if they tried, much less enough difference to actually care. They'd just like to be able to plug in their ipod and play their aac or mp3 files and not have to fumble around with CDs or listen to FM radio.


Regarding the 'laughable' test I posted, I did not create those files. I simply rehosted them and renamed them to make googling for the answer impossible. I got the files about a year ago from a well respected test from a well respected poster on www.hydrogenaudio.org ... a website/forum basically dedicated to the discussion of audio compression techniques and comparisons. Nobody in that thread was complaining about it being a botched comparison, either, and these are people that care enough about music and compression standards to actually discuss it on a dedicated forum like this one is dedicated to cars.

If you can't hear the difference then I'm sorry but you lack the golden ear you claim to have.

 

I wanna put an 8-track in my car.



But seriously, I feel the Monsoon in my T/A sounds AWESOME. It's one of the best car stereos I've ever heard. The Monsoon in my Solstice ranks second.
Now maybe I haven't heard too many systems, but the 2 Monsoons are MORE than fine for me.

 

I simply do not understand the stupid obsession with nav units, nor the fact that people are willing to pay $1500-$3k for the damn things.

Use a map / atlas. Go to google maps before your trip. That said, GPS is handy, for sure, though I don't have one. My brother and my folks have portable GPS units. For $200-$300 I'll take a portable unit that works just fine without forcing a damn flat panel TV to dominate the dash. Not to mention, people are going to love it when these LCD "head units" start failing...

From a marketing standpoint, sure, the ZR1 ought to have something good in this regard. But from a sanity standpoint, this nav unit obsession is absurd.

JMHO, of course.

 

This is the main reason why I have yet to buy or lease a car with one... I can't justify the cost.

If it were cheaper, I probably would have opted for one in the SRX... but the high price, and the amount of use I would get out of it had me pass on it.

 

I personally wouldn't pay $1500-2000 for just navigation, but these days the so called "nav" units are becoming far more functional than just for nav... they're like the central information center for everything about the car and everything else around you... like media centers. Play around with the one in the CTS... there's a ton more nice stuff to do with it than just find your way around town.

If it was just for nav then I'd just stick with one of the $200-250 garmin units. In fact we have yet to own a car with nav despite having had quite a few late model vehicles in our driveway that had nav as an option. But we do have one of those garmin units and love it... especially for road trips.

 

This got me thinking... I will be amazed if in 10 years or less LCD "nav" screens aren't standard equipment on almost all cars. There's going to come a breaking point where it just costs too much for a manufacturer to design, supply, and build two different center stacks, one for nav and one without.

In fact I almost wonder if that point has already occurred to an extent but not quite because people are still willing to pay an excessive premium, thus it's a money maker?

It's possible that when these screens become standard all features won't necessarily be included for free... almost like how you pay for different hardware or software when you buy a computer from Dell.

I know that the Lexus GS since the 2006 model year, for example, has had a standard "nav screen" but you get all functions EXCEPT nav itself with the base car... you have to pay the extra grand or whatever to get nav functionality built in which is craziness since you know it couldn't cost them but maybe $50 in hardware at the most to add/enable it.

Interestingly enough the Lexus LS460 that came out two model years later does not have an lcd screen standard on the base model... you only get it if you spring for nav. So for now the 3rd gen GS is the only car I know where you're getting a full size color LCD touch screen no matter what... but I expect more in the future.

 

Threxx hit on what I was going to say, which is that they're MUCH more simply a map on a screen. It can show weather, traffic, location of the nearest hospital, your nearest bank, gas station (of your specific company), wal-mart, taco bell, hotels, fine dining, a route to get around the toll booth, etc. Not to mention the touch screens are just plain cool.

 

I have to admit, I purchased my first portable NAV unit a few weeks ago, and I found it quit useful for a day trip up to Napa with my wife on our anniversary. I does do a lot more than show a simple map on a screen. My favorite feature was the current speed and speed limit displays. While I could have googled maps in advance and printed them out and had my wife bark out turn by turn directions to the various wineries we planned to visit, it was far more pleasant listening to a computerized female on the NUVI.