my aveo came with just an AM/FM radio. boy that sure sucked. i ripped it out and installed a carputer.

I have the factory one with the cassette no eq ---all stock and keeping it that way :-)

No cassette players in any of our 5 fieros...

Which reminds me, I have a ton of commercial cassettes for sale or trade all types, even childrens story books... PM me for a list...

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My last hold outs was #011 and the work car (at the time I bought two of the same). My work car's deck finally played out on me, so I took the cassette deck from #011 and replaced the work car's non-working deck. Most likely, I'll replace #011 with a newer system. I still have plenty of cassettes from the 70s and 80s that I continue to play. I also have a couple of old cassette decks in the closet.


Found a old recorded Jame Brown cassette; Get on the Good foot, hehe.

[This message has been edited by madcurl (edited 03-09-2011).]

quote Originally posted by Jim_Martin29: Cassette adaptor, about $5, available just about anywhere. I've seen them at Target, Walmart, CVS, Radio Shack (of course), Best Buy. Just slip it in the deck and plug the mini audio phono plug into your mp3 player headphone jack.

Sounds good.......I plan to pick one up. Thanks

quote Originally posted by jscott1: The problem with the cassette adapter is that if your cassette deck is dead then the adapter won't work.

Already covered that.

quote Originally posted by Patrick: I bought one of those devices (cassette adapter) thinking I could then listen to whatever was plugged into it. However, I soon discovered that if the stupid little belt that drives a tape in the tape deck is no good, then the cassette adapter won't work either (even though no tape needs to be driven). (And it looks like a helluva job changing that stupid belt.)

quote Originally posted by L67: By a show of hands... who has less than a 1 terabyte hard drive in their Fiero. Everyone?

Guess I have to show my hand.... I only have a 500Gig internal to the CarPC (Prob will toss in another 2.5" 500Gig for Movies... and then I will put my hand back down)

My CarPC has my media covered: AM/FM / HD Radio, Sirius Sat Radio, 42,500 MP3's, 100+ Internet radio station presets, Pandora, Slacker Radio... OH, and even an outdated CD Player LOL

(All of this and the CarPC is only 1 inch tall, so does not take up too much room in the limited Fiero cabin space )

[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 03-10-2011).]

quote Originally posted by JohnWPB: Guess I have to show my hand.... I only have a 500Gig internal to the CarPC (Prob will toss in another 2.5" 500Gig for Movies... and then I will put my hand back down My CarPC has my media covered AM/FM / HD Radio, Sirius Sat Radio, 42,500 MP3's, 100+ Internet radio station presets, Pandora, Slacker Radio... OH, and even an outdated CD Player LOL

You should convert to lossless audio if your sound system is powerful enough. Then you'll need the terabyte.

You can TECHNICALLY... get a tape deck in the Crown Victoria. You could still get one in the Grand Marquis, but the last Mercury Grand Marquis rolled off the showroom floor about a month ago (no more Mercury).

But, they still make the Crown Victoria, and will probably push well into the early 2012 year (even though they've cancelled the car), you can STILL order one with a tape deck if you are a fleet buyer.


EDIT: No! The article is right! This website: https://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/2011fleetshowroom/2011-CrVicPoliceInt.asp
... just two months ago showed a Tape Deck, but they must have run out of stock on that radio... so it looks like that's it. Damn... about time!!!


For what it's worth, I have a very "rare" GM Delco AM radio that came out of a 1984 Pontiac Fiero when it was brand new. I bought it on eBay. Dead seriously... it ONLY does AM... there's no FM on it. I keep it just because it's so unique. The original owner of the 84 Fiero pulled it almost immediately after buying it, and kept it in the garage. I bought it off eBay for like $8 bucks because I thought it was cool.


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Todd,
2008 Jeep Patriot Limited 4x2
2002 Ford Explorer Sport 2dr 4x2
2002 Ford Crown Victoria LX
1987 Pontiac Fiero SE / V6
1973 Volkswagen Type-2 Transporter

[This message has been edited by 82-T/A [At Work] (edited 03-10-2011).]

quote Originally posted by L67: You should convert to lossless audio if your sound system is powerful enough. Then you'll need the terabyte.

except the fact that flac quality is lost on most people's ears.

quote Originally posted by Hockaday: except the fact that flac quality is lost on most people's ears.

I'm not most people.

I dont even have a CD player, those old outdated things.

http://www.crutchfield.com/...vpair=FFBrand|Alpine

Plays from a usb stick and a 120 gig laptop hard drive in a usb case and a car 5v power supply to power the drive perfectly. Audio quality is perfect. You cant hear the difference between a FLAC or a 128kbps badly encoded mp3 in a fiero going down the road. In a Mercedes, bmw or caddilac with a super quiet cabin? yes. the noise amplifier that is the fiero (and mine has dynamat all over the place) not a chance.

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Get your copy of the Fiero 25th Anniv book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/349809

Best RV, Camper, and Trailer dealer in West Michigan. http://www.cliffstrailersales.com and he's a fiero owner too!

[This message has been edited by timgray (edited 03-10-2011).]

quote Originally posted by timgray: Audio quality is perfect. You cant hear the difference between a FLAC or a 128kbps badly encoded mp3 in a fiero going down the road.

How can it be perfect if a highly distorted 128kbps song is the best audio quality you're getting out of it? Do you own a convertible?

That headunit only puts out 2v 18watt preamp signals so which amplifiers and drivers are you using in conjunction with the 24-bit DAC? What opamps are used in the DAC?

[This message has been edited by L67 (edited 03-10-2011).]

Hell yes, factory Delco AM/FM Cassette radio.

I like to record some late nite radio programs like Coast to Coast off my radio/ cassette recorder. Then I can listen to them at my convenience in the car. I could get it only for a charge of $30 for 6 months, but have to download it, save it on cmptr, burn at least 3 or 4 blank disks per program. With a recorded cassette all I have to do is stick it in the player. Sometimes new tech is not better tech. Its not like you have to have absolutely perfect sound reproduction for a talk show.

quote Originally posted by rogergarrison: I like to record some late nite radio programs like Coast to Coast off my radio/ cassette recorder. Then I can listen to them at my convenience in the car. I could get it only for a charge of $30 for 6 months, but have to download it, save it on cmptr, burn at least 3 or 4 blank disks per program. With a recorded cassette all I have to do is stick it in the player. Sometimes new tech is not better tech. Its not like you have to have absolutely perfect sound reproduction for a talk show.

Wow! Never heard of such a device.

quote Originally posted by L67: How can it be perfect if a highly distorted 128kbps song is the best audio quality you're getting out of it? Do you own a convertible? That headunit only puts out 2v 18watt preamp signals so which amplifiers and drivers are you using in conjunction with the 24-bit DAC? What opamps are used in the DAC?

Close, I own a fiero, the fiero has a 80db noise floor, a 76rpm record sounds hi fi in a fiero. Until you drop the noise floor you CAN NOT hear high fidelity. I have $3800.00 in only 2 speakers and $9000 in audio gear in my listening room, I know what perfect audio sounds like, you will never get it in a fiero unless it's parked in a audio chamber with the engine off. That's why I said, unlike a BMW or Caddilac that has a incredibly low noise floor.

Watts means absolutely nothing in audio quality. if you think the opamp type or brand is important in car audio, you reallly need to stop reading audiophile websites. the car is the worst place in the world to get audio quality. and yes I know about this stuff, I have a degree in electronics engineering and a degree in audio engineering.

quote Originally posted by timgray: ..the fiero has a 80db noise floor .Until you drop the noise floor you CAN NOT hear high fidelity.

Or raise your power output. What speakers are in your car....? What are you driving with 18 measly watts? 16ohm GM factory paper speakers...?

oh stop arguing you two...we all know that if you can hear your radio you're not going fast enough / have a wimpy engine =)

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"Grammar is important. Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse & helping your uncle %@&$ off a horse."

quote Originally posted by Cliff Pennock: Reading this thread made me drool and forget my name.

quote Originally posted by L67: Or raise your power output. What speakers are in your car....? What are you driving with 18 measly watts? 16ohm GM factory paper speakers...?

Well you assume I said, "all I have is this, nothing else." where in reality I said what I had as a head unit. and no you DONT raise the power output. the human ear has diminishing returns. you CAN NOT hear "quality" over a loud noise. It's just not possible. I'd gladly talk about doing this in a quiet vehicle that has even reasonable speaker placement and a mildly OK listening environment. but the Fiero is a utter train wreck in cabin design, speaker placement, and noise control when it comes to acoustics. None of the speakers can have proper enclosures or even a rear baffle. That said, I wanted a sound that had smoother response, so I went way overboard.

If you must know, I have changed over to all custom plates using scanspeak for my midbass/midrange and I believe Vifa silk dome tweeters. the 5.5 " TangBand large excursion driver in the stock subwoofer that I have custom straps on to stiffen the box and restuffed and tuned for the new driver does a great job filling it out. All of the drivers are better quality than the best car audio speakers you could every buy. Car audio drivers are garbage, yes even infinity and boston acoustics are garbage compared to mid level home audio drivers. Mostly because car audio environments are garbage so why put in high end audio where you will never EVER hear the difference. I do have the Alpine Audessey sound DSP module plugged into the head unit and did the cabin audio tuning at 6 locations, it did a passable job at fixing the mess that is the fiero audio environment. I have less than 400 real watts in the car total, and that is RMS at 0.03%thd, the only real measurement of power, peak watts is to entice 16 year olds into buying junk by the marketing company. JL Audio HD600 4 channel is my amp for the car, but I am running 8 ohms as I use all 8 ohm components, so cut the "watts rating" in 1/2 for a very close real watts. THD goes down as well a small amount but not enough to matter. I was going to bi-amp with two of them ,but again why bother, you cant hear the difference in the car. I cheaped out and bought a junk JL Audio JX250 single channel amp for the subwoofer, again watts are cut in 1/2 because I am driving a 4 ohm driver instead of a car audio 2 ohm. THD on subwoofers do not matter very much unless the amp is clipping hard. I always go 2X more amp power than speaker are rated, clipping and distortion destroy speakers not power. I get to cut the THD numbers in 1/2 because I never ever go above 50% on the amplifiers.

I prefer the softer roll off of the silk dome tweeters, and the scanspeaks can not be beat for clairity of the midrange and all the way down to 250hz. I have an acoustic hole at 250-160 but the roll off between the subwoofer and the midbass do well in there and that is a frequncy range that is decimated by low frequency noise from the engine bay and the road so it does not matter.


That is my low end car stereo no more than $1500 spent in it total, but a lot of time figuring things out. I had to send back several drivers because they were mismatched or simply did not have the Thiele/Small parameters that were correct for the location placement. I do not trust the parameters published in the speaker manual, I always test with a VOM+scope+signal generator into a sealed volume. If I had a car that was quiet and had a good soundstage and setup I'd go for midlevel and buy far better components. It's probably overkill and not needed as I am sure I cant hear the differences in the car, In fact I bet you can mix up brands all over the place and not hear the difference in a fiero that is moving.

I am guessing you spent a lot of time matching your speakers and getting very low distortion amps. what audio DSP do you use to correct for the horrible soundstage in the fiero?

[This message has been edited by timgray (edited 03-12-2011).]

Looks like my Pioneer duel deck cassette is on it's last leg and I might have to give it the "last rights." I surely like switching between XM/Sirus, CD, and the cassette player, but I guess if I won't pay for repairs-it's out of here. I might have to check Ebay for details on a new cassette deck.

I had the original AM/FM/cassette in my 87 GT rebuilt. Wanted to keep it stock. I found my case of old cassette tapes and have a web link where I can buy more.

Wasn't there a thread on how to hack a cassette deck to create a "line in" that could pipe in an Mp3 player, iPhone, Android, etc.

Mine could go back to a cassette player at any time. Right now I'm rocking with a $10 garage sale Pioneer Supertuner CD player with the mix CD that was in it when I got it. I had to replace a spring inside of the case to get it to work but that's probably why I got it so cheap.

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quote Originally posted by Austrian Import: Wasn't there a thread on how to hack a cassette deck to create a "line in" that could pipe in an Mp3 player, iPhone, Android, etc.

There have been many threads on this. here is one that links to how to add aux in to either a cassette deck or the early cd radios.
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/125659.html

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--Jeff aka mrfred8 aka (Hat tip to Mr. J. Jones!)
http://jalopnik.com/5901950...or-her-sweet-sixteen
- 88 Yellow GT
- 86 Silver SE

I still have mine, I like my car to be "Period" I even have a few classic rock tapes to play... It helps the feel of the car

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86 Fiero GTX project soon to tear up the street, My build thread! 3800sc, interior, wheels and more! https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/089483.html

In reality there is only a few formats worth using .tif .wav and .avi and and what ever the fastest hard drive is.
As cd is old hat but is better than mp3 16-32 bit vs 8 bit and being less than half the quality there is a possibility we need to go backwards in order to go forwards..
It will all be about media players reading that 32 bit as the newer cd's do which they do just nobody is storing the original format. Nobody really wants mp3 at 8 bit but at present they are settling for an inferior format. This will fade back to CD quality once the storage devices are cheaper.
Tape would sound no worse than Mp3 so it seems people are happy with the crap they have. CD is twice or more times the quality.

quote Originally posted by IanT720: I still have mine, I like my car to be "Period" I even have a few classic rock tapes to play... It helps the feel of the car

LOL I thought I was the only one rockin' to 80's hair bands! I still have my stock radio but its rubbish and its getting replaced ASAP.

I got an old factory cassette player in my Fiero. I pick up cassettes that I like from garage sales for basically for nothing. Also have a cassette to 3.5mm jack I plug my phone into to listen to Pandora or IHeart Radio.

I had to search high and low to find one that works and is the old 3 plug style radio. All the ones in the Junk yard were 1 plug units. I got the one thats in the car now from the Pontiac Nationals swap meet for 10$ and it works perfect.

CD's are dead already, no one truly uses them. They will be completely gone soon, much faster than cassettes.

We are in the digital era, we no longer transfer music over a portable drive or mechanism. Its all done over the air. Cars have software to receive music from your computer like you would a radio station.

I have and always will use the cassette player in my 84!!!!!!! I want the whole experience. Im constantly picking up cassettes. My 2012 Malibu has all the latest in it. So I love going back to those days.

I am old enough to have had a car with a 8 track player.
I put a unit in my 84 v8 car that plays wmf ? is that right? from a DVD. One DVD last longer than the fill up. Plus it will do line in, usb, sd card, and radio.But i like the dvd part. Needs NO input from me. I drive, it plays. No other junk kicking around in the car. no wires, no CD.

I still have tape decks in all but one Fiero...all stock! I use the same cassette with a plug (shown earlier) to play cds and Ipods.

I stopped by my audio shop I frequent and this is the last one.

Sorry, I got my whole music collection on my computer. I swapped my tape deck out for a head unit that will play mp3's.