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Remembering the 90's. I was in HS and seemed most everyone had a pounding system you could hear for blocks. Now all I hear is trunk rattles if that.
I suppose the problem is that newer cars these days are paper thin alloys and more people seem to be happy enough with factory audio systems. Admittedly a few stock systems do sound punchy.

Personally, these days I don't want others to hear my system, nor even know about it so I only turn it up when on the open road. I lost interest in it during the late 90's and only in recent years got back into it...kinda hit and miss but man car audio certain has changed a lot since then. At least the amps are smaller and more efficient and decent subs don't bottom out as easily and do wonders in small boxes. I guess it never changed in a bad way. Usually when I think of small boxes I always thought of Kicker's Solobaric. A friend back in the 90's had 2 of them in .88 ft3 sealed with a California 300w x 2 amp. With heavy metal music it didn't put out crap but put in some Rap or similar and that thing got loud for what it was. Now the Solobaric's are crap (imo).
Got an L7 a couple years ago after not being into car audio in so long and was like wtf? Sold that junk for $200 to some sucker. It did have a unique "growly" kind of sound but maybe my memory of a single 12" sub is just off or I should have used a huge ported box rather than sealed. Later I went through a few different amps and subs until I got a JLA W6v2 reading it's glowing reviews but overpriced and it's ok but honestly I wasn't too impressed compared to other typical subs other than it never bottomed out and did well at high volume, probably had better SQ but you know, in a Honda with road noise it didn't matter and damping the doors did little in that regard. I'm about to try out three 8" subs (sundown) once I get my box built. Hopefully it will be the last system I ever purchase cause I get really guilty feeling when buying car audio knowing how much I have spent over the years and never being very happy with it. No one wants to give me anything for them these days.

Anyone here have fond car audio memories or do you think systems are better now? My experiences are pretty limited but I know it's easier to get a ton more power nowadays for those that get HO alternators but that seems overly excessive imo. I have never got to experience anything like they show on Youtube but looks expensive and not something I'd want in a daily.

Soundwave wrote:Remembering the 90's. I was in HS and seemed most everyone had a pounding system you could hear for blocks. Now all I hear is trunk rattles if that.
I suppose the problem is that newer cars these days are paper thin alloys and more people seem to be happy enough with factory audio systems. Admittedly a few stock systems do sound punchy.

Personally, these days I don't want others to hear my system, nor even know about it so I only turn it up when on the open road. I lost interest in it during the late 90's and only in recent years got back into it...kinda hit and miss but man car audio certain has changed a lot since then. At least the amps are smaller and more efficient and decent subs don't bottom out as easily and do wonders in small boxes. I guess it never changed in a bad way. Usually when I think of small boxes I always thought of Kicker's Solobaric. A friend back in the 90's had 2 of them in .88 ft3 sealed with a California 300w x 2 amp. With heavy metal music it didn't put out crap but put in some Rap or similar and that thing got loud for what it was. Now the Solobaric's are crap (imo).
Got an L7 a couple years ago after not being into car audio in so long and was like wtf? Sold that junk for $200 to some sucker. It did have a unique "growly" kind of sound but maybe my memory of a single 12" sub is just off or I should have used a huge ported box rather than sealed. Later I went through a few different amps and subs until I got a JLA W6v2 reading it's glowing reviews but overpriced and it's ok but honestly I wasn't too impressed compared to other typical subs other than it never bottomed out and did well at high volume, probably had better SQ but you know, in a Honda with road noise it didn't matter and damping the doors did little in that regard. I'm about to try out three 8" subs (sundown) once I get my box built. Hopefully it will be the last system I ever purchase cause I get really guilty feeling when buying car audio knowing how much I have spent over the years and never being very happy with it. No one wants to give me anything for them these days.

Anyone here have fond car audio memories or do you think systems are better now? My experiences are pretty limited but I know it's easier to get a ton more power nowadays for those that get HO alternators but that seems overly excessive imo. I have never got to experience anything like they show on Youtube but looks expensive and not something I'd want in a daily.

funny, I was thinking back to when I was in HS and listening to bass CDs the other day.
I totally remember how amps were HUGE back then, and were power hungry too.

I do like how newer mono class D amps are so efficient. My mmats 1400.1, doesn't seem to effect my electrical system at all.
But I remember back in the day, having several amps in the 400-500W range that any time there was any bass by lights would dim, and voltmeter would drop.
I think my current IDQs blow any previous sub I have out of the water, they have been great subs and I'm a second owner on them.

But there is just something about that 90's that really made car audio fun. I do wish this hobby would get more popular again.

I remember early CarAudio magazine showing ads of mmats ads, going down to like 1/4 ohm stable I think. Don't see much of that anymore. I was impressed with the idea of Class D amps. They finally got it down pat I think. But the RF punch ix amps were pretty small for the output. still got my punch 60ix. Loved how over rated they were and it's amazing it survived my ignorance, used to load it down to 1 ohm at times and do stupid bridging stuff it wasn't designed for, was only 4 ohm stable

Not sure how I ever liked Bass CD's, I had a cassette called illegal bass I think it was called. Found it online once and had a listen...terrible lol but does give the subs a work out. I have a lot of fun memories of those days but I was ignorant as heck about audio as were my friends. Seemed sealed boxes were the only thing anyone I knew got right and was likely a guess at that. lol

I used to blast Moby and Eminem from the Matrix Soundtack in my '92 Legend. Good times.