matt69olds

No doubt many of you have lost sleep since me “Why do I do this to myself” thread of last week. It’s my turn to lose sleep from my blood pressure. 😡

I received my replacement CustomAutosound stereo on Tuesday. Plugged everything in BEFORE installing it just to verify everything worked. This one turns on, seems to play well, sounds good, and looks good. I wanted to verify the Bluetooth works, and I could program everything before crawling under the dash. Which brings me to source of my frustration.

I could not set the radio to manual tuning. Regardless of the settings, anytime you turn the tuning **** it autoseeks to the next station. After many phone calls, and many attempts to change the configuration, I finally had to get shitty and forcefully tell them I understand the instructions, I am following them, you keep telling me what it should do, but you aren’t listening to me explain what it’s actually doing!

It turns out it’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do. You can temporarily change the tuner to manual control, it’s default settings is to auto seek. It seems to me once you change a function, it should stay that way until you change it again.


I DESPISE auto seeking radios! I much prefer the SCAN function. For some ridiculous idiotic reason, you CAN NOT permanently disable the autoseek, you can select manual tuning, but after 20 seconds it defaults back to autoseek. And given the choice of seek,or manual tuning, I’ll take manual only every time. Maybe it’s the stubborn old school mentality?





My son, who couldn’t care less if he ever listens to a radio fails to see the problem. I prefer the SCAN function, when I’m in an unfamiliar area where I don’t know the stations, it’s much easier to let the radio scan until I hear something I like. Who wants to constantly turn the **** until I find something I like?

To program the presets, you must first school thru the menu to temporarily disable the autoseek, manually tune to the station, then program that preset button. FOR. EACH. OF. THE. PRESET BUTTONS!

So, before I box this up and return it, for those in readerland who have these stereos, how hard was it to get use to the autoseek function?

I did a lot of reading and comparing before making this purchase. I could have bought 2 single DIN radios for what the new “old school” looking radios cost. I guess I’m looking for reassurance that it’s worth it.

I would like to emphasize everyone I talked to at Custom Autosound was very helpful and polite. I have no doubt they we’re getting frustrated with me. The product itself seems well made and does sound great, at least on par with the Alpine head unit I had before.

Olds64

That's a bummer that the features of the radio weren't what you were expecting. Are you at least going to get your money back?

Vintage Chief

I rather like auto seek, in particular if you're traveling, it's far easier to push the button on auto seek & find radio stations w/ enough signal which most often comes in loud & clear. Manual seek will always be hit or miss. Yet, if someone insists in dialing in a specific radio station, not having the ability to do so is definitely a PITA.

no1oldsfan

I know that thousands of people have their stereos. That will never happen for me. I prefer quality. Their units are as cheap as they can possibly make them. Always have been. I am so on your side with scan only 🤬

matt69olds

Trying to manually tune to the station to program the presets is how I discovered this flaw.

The classic rock station I prefer is about 40 miles away. With the car in the garage, the signal isn’t the greatest, the auto seek kept skipping past the frequency.

matt69olds

Up until recently I still owned the first new stereo I bought, a Pioneer 6969. At the time, that was top of the line. I remember mowing lots of lawns to save the money for that one!

I later replaced that radio with a Kenwood with CD changer capability. The idea of a cd changer sounded great at the time, except I never thought to change the discs until I was on the road. I remember cruising all summer with the same 10 discs in the trunk.

All that equipment came out when I ejected a cassette and shoved the radio out the back of the dash. I don’t remember if the radio bezel broke, or if the screws that held the bezel to the dash stripped, but shortly after that resulted in my first dash removal in these cars. I bet I still have scars on my back from the seat mounting studs. I had a buddy machine a radio bezel from a chunk of aluminum to fit the dash, then machine an opening for a single din radio.

I agree, the radios today are made cheap. I’m guessing the radio was 150-200 bucks back then, adjusted for inflation that’s $450-$500 in todays dollars. I do remember how much heavier the old radio was compared to the modern stereo equipment of today.

Koda

Car stereo and hi fi overlap.

In hi fi, you have basically three options. The first is the separates stack, where the amplifier or amplifiers, the preamp (which contains the source selector, volume, and tone board), and the tuner (which is a "radio"). The second is an integrated amplifier, which is a preamp and amp, and then a tuner. The third is a receiver, which is an amp, preamp, and tuner. The advantage of the separates is more features and better sound. The advantage of the receiver is less components, space, and money.

Several features are present on tuners that don't make it to receivers. Of relevant interest is the concept of FM muting. This has a variable setting, and a pushbutton switch to engage and disengage, and it is basically a squelch. One can set it to their lowest usual station, and pan through the band with their tuning dial and not get all the static. This, combined with multipath, and a directional antenna, kind of makes FM fun on a cold clear night again.

I think all radios still need a tuning function. Seek just sucks. There SHOULD be a way to do it in Matt's radio.