[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Rambo4 wrote:

I think most people that were into the car stereo scene like I was for a while, have grown up. I think the audio quality a lot of people have come to expect, since the MP3 generation has resulted a bit in "lowered expectations" and quite a few people are very happy with their car sound system as is. And see no need to upgrade their system to anything other than factory. ...Save your money and invest it into something greater... like home theater...

I would think the ones growing up would be replaced by the ones coming up behind them, but I think you nailed it with the “MP3 generation.” Aside from the “lowered expectations” issue, most of them have few CDs to begin with, so why buy a head unit when it isn’t terribly compatible with their Zune or iPod? Indeed, I expect a good many of them are perfectly happy using their ear buds in the car, another disincentive to spring for a car stereo.

I expect that car stereos are also competing for the youth dollar with fancy cell phones, video game consoles, computers and software, etc. There is only so much money to go around... I expect that if there is a hope for car stereos, it’s going to lie in head units with hard drives that you can download MP3’s directly into them, with easy-to-navigate controls like the iPod.

Regards,
Wayne