Aftermarket surround sound in car?

I have a car (Scion xD) that takes a double-DIN head unit. I currently have the stock sound system, which has 4 speakers (2 front, 2 back) but only does stereo (MP3/WMA CD, iPod control).

Cars have had four speakers for years. There seem to now be a lot of in-dash DVD head units, that one would think could play back an AC-3 or dts audio stream. So I thought that may be an avenue to experience surround sound in a car!

But then I read it's illegal to have video playing within the driver's field of view. DVD head units have a parking brake interlock that precludes DVD playback unless the car is stopped and the parking brake set. Which is good for safety, but may not accommodate surround sound on the road! Now if the interlock just shuts off the display but keeps the sound going, that's perfectly fine with me as a home-brew conversion DVD would be audio-only anyway.

So some questions about these DVD head units:
1) Do they have built-in amps to control 4 independent speakers, for surround playback on DVD discs?
2) Does audio continue playing even if the display is shut off when the parking brake is released? Or does it completely stop the disc?
3) Do any head units support digital sound files with more than two channels?

Yes.
Yes. The dash display is shut off but the disc continues and so does video send to the back. These are made for back seat passengers to watch.
Yes. There's a thread, something like Roll Call, Who Has Car Surround, here on QQ somewhere. There is a setting to spread the center channel (if any) to the fronts and the sub (if any) to all (or maybe just the back, I can't tell).

I have a JVC a few years old, these are available still new on ebay, not sure of the model offhand. My Toyota had a double din cass/cd, there is a trim kit for most cars to mount a single DIN and you get a nice disc storage spot in the second DIN. Around $15
There are adapters for most car stereo harnesses that you splice onto the adapter with the new unit, which makes it plug-and-play, and you can plug the old unit back in if you want to sell the car. Around $35.

A bit of money, research, and installation, but well worth it to me. I'm in the car nearly two hours a day.
-john.

Units are getting hard to find. The Sony MEX DV-2000 has been discontinued and supplies seem to have dried up completely. There's a JVC unit (KD AVX2) with a teeny little screen that seems to really be the only thing available. It does have the added bonus of playing DVD-A but not SACD whereas the Sony unit did SACD but not DVD-A. The Sony was 52 watts x4 where the JVC is only 20x4.

Someone wake me up when they put out a unit that plays 5.1 FLAC files!

I've got a Sony MEX 2000 that I haven't installed yet. Plan was to wire 6 channel auto switch for Panasonic DVD PA65 portable for DVD-A.

Thinking about that JVC AVx2 now. Have far more DVD-A and much simpler install.

timbre: if you ever consider selling the Sony, I'd be glad to give it a new home

So I just started thinking about a surround system for the car, man you mean no head unit will play burnt DVD+ SACD and DVD-A?

Cyber 1 said:

So I just started thinking about a surround system for the car, man you mean no head unit will play burnt DVD+ SACD and DVD-A?

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AFAIK - No car head unit will do both....

Luckily I can create DVD-As of my SACDs....

Some high dollar OEM (Cadillac etc) will read just about anything, but aftermarket nope.

timbre4 said:

Some high dollar OEM (Cadillac etc) will read just about anything, but aftermarket nope.

Click to expand...

ooh. cool. car disc player that plays just about anything? If I could only buy one without the Caddy.

LizardKing said:

Luckily I can create DVD-As of my SACDs....

Click to expand...

Just curious, are you able to do this without inserting an analog (D/A - A/D) generation? Or are you just playing the SACDs on a consumer player and then recapturing and redigitizing the 5.1 analog outputs?

I preferred the Sony line of head units. The one in my Tiburon; the MEX-DV 2000, is a good little unit. But it is only single DIN.
52 watts per channel (x4), plays DTS-CD, DVD-V (DTS/Dolby) and SACD (2.0 and 5.1) so, pretty much anything you can throw at it except dedicated DVD-A's.
You can also turn on the on-board Dolby Pro-Logic II decoder on playback of stereo sources, so you can synthesize a surround environment - and it's not too bad at that, either!

Sadly, they are virtually non-existent on today's market. The DV2000, along with it's big brother; the DV2200 are no longer available from Sony. Sony had a Double-DIN unit, the model # escapes me at the moment, but they've also been discontinued as well.

There's a single-DIN JVC unit, again, can't recall the model # but I have it in my Daytona. It's pretty short on features, 20 watts per channel and has a small, virtually useless screen. (3" iirc). It'll play DTS-CD, DVD-V and DVD-A in lossless, but it won't recognize an SACD. I'm not particularly fond of this unit as it's interface is clumsy and the amplifier is wimpy. Trying to play loud music ends up in a ton of distortion. An outboard amplifier is an absolute must with this player.

Other than that, I don't know of anything else. Mobile surround seems to have been abandoned by all the major players. Which is very disappointing considering the deluge of multichannel titles that have been coming out recently.


*Edit*

Here's one of the JVC units. Again, not bad a bad little player, but definitely in need of an amplifier.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JVC-KD-AVX2...9c486a1&pid=100009&rk=1&rkt=1&sd=262126512403

There's also the new Sony RSX-GS9 which plays Stereo and Multichannel DSD and FLAC files.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...y-s-Multichannel-DSD-Media-Player-for-the-Car

Q-Eight said:

Units are getting hard to find. The Sony MEX DV-2000 has been discontinued and supplies seem to have dried up completely. There's a JVC unit (KD AVX2) with a teeny little screen that seems to really be the only thing available. It does have the added bonus of playing DVD-A but not SACD whereas the Sony unit did SACD but not DVD-A. The Sony was 52 watts x4 where the JVC is only 20x4.

Click to expand...

After reading this post a month or two ago I checked eBay and found a unit (Sony MEX DV-2000) for $200 from a UK seller, a couple of other sellers also had the JVC unit for $300. I snapped up the Sony unit. Today I powered it up connecting it to my home system as a test and it seems to work great. I tested it on Multi-channel SACD, dts from DVD and from dts CD. The lack of DVD-Audio playback is not too big of a deal as most of those discs are DTS as well. Forgot to try the decoder, will save that for another day. I now just have to wait to get a decent vehicle to put it in!

I've had my MEXDV-2000 in my Tiburon for years and love it. It's got great power, good range and plays virtually anything I throw at it (yeah, I'm not going to lose sleep over the lack of DVD-A compatibility either).

The JVC unit I recall being cheaper.... I can't recall exactly what I paid for mine but I thought it was cheaper than the Sony. It's interface is clunky and power output is low when you think that it's a more modern unit. That's in my Daytona and will be sold with the Daytona and I can already say I won't miss the stereo. So, I think you made the right choice. :banana:

True car surround would be a dream come true for me. I'm assuming I could use my four existing speakers, but not sure what I'd do about an extra for the center. I assume I'd be installing a sub too, for x.1 recordings.
And maybe x.0 recording would use the sub too, like my HTSs?

I have had the Sony MEX DV2000 in my Avalon for almost 5 years and it's still going strong. I used the existing factory speaker setup and added an infinite baffle sub powered by a Kenwood amp. A very modest system that sounds awesome! The install can be a little tricky depending on the car make but if I can do it...These units show up on EBay every now and then.

elmer said:

I have had the Sony MEX DV2000 in my Avalon for almost 5 years and it's still going strong. I used the existing factory speaker setup and added an infinite baffle sub powered by a Kenwood amp. A very modest system that sounds awesome! The install can be a little tricky depending on the car make but if I can do it...These units show up on EBay every now and then.

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The Avalon already had a center?

Yes - but to access the center channel you need to power it separate from the unit. You have the option of using the units' "virtual" center channel (not good). Rather than installing another amp and some laborious wiring which is more than my arthritic hands can handle, I just let the FL & FR channels send a blended signal to the center - not optimal but in a moving vehicle it's less than noticeable.

Kenwood - xxv-05v , kvt-915dvd
Pioneer - avh-p7600, avh-p7800

Any one of these 4 head units will SMOKE anything made past or present...period. simply by virtue of their dedicated burr - brown dac's, they play 5.1 dvda and are all single din flip out screens. And yes the kenwood models use pioneer's burr - brown chips. They are all very hard to find nowadays but do show up on ebay from time to time. Back in the day I competed with the pioneer 7600, and the xxv and won several times. The sony unit was a half assed late attempt by sony to enter the market with second rate audio processors. People with those sony heads would fall out of competition very early, now sony amps are a different story, particularly their class D monoblocks - outstanding. Jvc 12volt products were never even considered. I did purchase that jvc kd ax2 head unit a couple of years ago just to check it out as it was like $75 on ebay, it plays dvda and dts flawlessly but sonics are poor and quality amps did not help. So of the 2 sony is indeed the better choice but still not a quality one.