[Note: I already wrote this once, but I lost it when I went to submit, some sort of hiccup between my computer and the server.] I got paid for my last teaching gig this week, so Mary and I are getting new car stereos with the money. Mary's car, a great Ford Taurus, doesn't have a CD player in it, which makes it difficult on long trips, so we need to get her something. My stereo suffers from "someone tried to steal it a couple years ago and messed it up royally trying to get it out of the dashboard, so it is has been flaky and skipping ever since"-itis, and I am tired of hearing Carl and Rory sound like Michael Palin. So, time to get new ones. As usual in my product searches, I'm listing out my requirements and nice-to-haves, so I can keep track. I'll also keep a list of the models that I look at and the places that I go.

Requirements:

• CD/CD-R/MP3/WMA support - I have almost all my music collection ripped onto my hard drive, which is very nice for home listening, and it doesn't make sense to take original CD's anywhere anymore. In the car, it is much easier and safer to have 10, or so, burned CD's that have my entire collection, rather than 100+ original CD's that could get lost or stolen.
• Satellite ready - I'm not intending to sign up for XM right now, but I could see it happening within the next couple years, so it only makes sense to get a radio that supports it now. Of course, most of the stereos that I've seen support this, so I don't think this is going to be a big deal.

Nice to haves:

• Removable/Exchangable faceplates - Okay, it is a superficial thing, but wouldn't it be cool?
• Customizable backgrounds - I think it would be neat be able to put a picture of my choosing on the LCD.
• Auxiliary Input - Very nice to have if someone in the car has an mp3 player, or something, and we want to listen to it. I also have my pocketpc, which I could use to hold music, as well.

As is my custom, I like to look around at stores, get a feel for what I'm dealing with, then go online and buy it. I figure that I can install a car stereo with little problem, so that's the plan. While driving, we stopped at the Radio Shack that my friend, Paul, works out, on the off chance that he might have some or at least know of a place. As usual, Paul came through for me, and directed me to a place around W110th and Lorain (Family Pagers, I think?) and Crutchfield.com. He said that crutchfield is the best place online to get car audio stuff, plus they ship extensive directions for how to install the radio into your specific car. Needless to say, that would be great to have.

So, we headed over to what I'm going to assume is called Family Pagers and took a look. The only one that met the requirements was a Clarion ProAudio DXZ545MP. They were selling it for $219.00. Well, a quick look on crutchfield has it for $199.00. That's already a plus for crutchfield. I haven't had a chance to look at other there, and I'm heading over to help/watch Mary's sister put in new windows in their new rental property. I'm going to need to replace a bunch of windows in the near future, so this is going to be good knowledge to have.

Watch this post for more updates on the great Car Stereo Search of 2004!