And now..

for something completely different.

I've been living in self-imposed abject poverty - meaning I haven't bought any new toys in a long time. I stopped at the Infiniti dealer the other day to get my car serviced (had to make an appointment to come back) and I walked into the show room to look at the '05 G35's. Naturally a salesman sensed prey and swooped down on me within seconds.

I bought my car a year too early. The '05's have MP3 players and mine doesn't. They also have 300hp compared to the 287 in my car, as well as some other minor updates. I let the guy talk me into driving one. The 13 extra horsepower is essentially meaningless, but I really wish mine could play MP3 CD's. Unfortunately, with the way everything is integrated, from controls to navigation system sound inputs, I can't realistically change out the head unit in my car.

So.. I thought.. why not just trade mine in for an '05? My employer has a deal with Infiniti to price cars at $400 over invoice. That's pretty cool. So I crunched the numbers on invoice price, what my car is worth, taxes, and all that good stuff. It came out to $7400. Gah. Not gonna happen.

Now I'm back to thinking about a new sound system in my car. I have this really bad habit of not doing electronics related things half-assed. So how do I accomplish my goals? I might buy an ipod (ugh). Maybe Terry could just send me one from the pile of them he has in his apartment. :)

If I do it, I'll replace everything after the headunit. New amps, new speakers, custom sub, the whole thing. Unfortunately, the way the car is made, they have to pretty much dismantle the entire interior to install it. It's going to be very expensive. But - what they could do is somehow jack into the input of the head unit and run a little wire to the center console where I could just plug the ipod in. I'm not really sure how they will be able to do that because the navigation system uses the auxiliary input, and I don't want to lose that. I've seen some where you can plug into the tape deck, but that can't sound as good as a direct input into the head unit.

Anyway, that's just something that's on my mind. I found an online retailer that has super good prices on the gear. I like the JL Audio amps and sub, and Boston Acoustics speakers. They'll be able to wire a remote sub control knob to the center console. I'll have them dynamat everything also. It'll be really slick when it's done. If a buy most of the stuff online, the install is going to cost more. If I buy it at the audio shop, the parts will be more, but the install less.. Hmmm..

That's assuming I do it at all...