My Car Sounds Better Than Yours
By DAVID F. GALLAGHER
OME car owners can spend hours getting their fingers dirty under the hood. Robert Bean is more likely to be in the trunk, tweaking the PC that powers the custom-designed MP3 audio system in his 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse. Mr. Bean, a junior at Texas A&M University, has a giant control screen built into his dashboard and enough music on the computer's hard drive for nine days of nonstop driving.
Hardware fanatics like Mr. Bean, dissatisfied with the features or the prices of commercial MP3 products, have made a hobby out of patching together digital audio systems from used or mail-order parts. Many of these enthusiasts show off their creations and share technical tips on the Web, fostering an online subculture that is both collaborative and competitive.
Typical members of the subculture are not gearheads — they seem more interested in how fast their PC boots up than in their engine's performance. Besides, customizing computers rather than cars is cheaper. "I would like to add a turbo to mine," Mr. Bean said, "but that starts at about $2,000, which is twice as much as the computer cost."
Ryan Veety, a 22-year-old computer programmer in Middletown, N.Y., said he spent hundreds of hours on the MP3 system in his 1993 Eagle Vision, which is described in minute detail on his Web site, www.ryanspc .com. When he started working on the system four years ago, there were no MP3 products available for cars. "I started out simple — it was just the guts of a standard PC laid out in the front seat," he said. "Everything was originally built from spare parts I had around the house."
Mr. Veety has upgraded his system, accumulating a small heap of audio and power equipment in the spare-tire well of his trunk. Last spring he added what is now a necessary feature for car MP3 fans. A wireless link allows the PC in his house to talk to the PC in his car, making it easy to transmit music files to the car's hard drive. "As I buy CD's, I convert them to MP3 at home, then download them to the car in the morning before I leave for work," he said. Transmitting one CD takes about five minutes.
Mr. Bean has a similar wireless link in his Eclipse, but it is the control panel on his system that has won him admirers online. He built a 10-inch laptop screen into his dashboard, just above the gearshift, and took weeks carefully molding and sanding the fiberglass around it to make it look factory-installed. The effect, as seen in his photos on www.arbytech.com, is as if a car from the future were teleported into the present. Mr. Bean is working on getting the screen to display album covers and even driving directions, in addition to the touch-screen music controls it has now.
There are links to more than 400 descriptions of similar projects on a site called MP3Car.com, a hub for car-audio hackers. On the site's message board people wrestle with issues like how to supply power to electronic parts that were not meant for cars. Mr. Veety said that although interest in custom setups had waned recently as commercial options have increased, the underground would live on. "All the nongeeks have been buying manufactured units, but the die-hard tinkerers will always think they can build a better one," he said.
Geoff Hurley, a programmer in Arlington, Va., said there were other, less tangible reasons to do it yourself. His 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited, which he has dubbed the LinuxJeep, has a PC inside that runs the Linux operating system to power his MP3 player. On his Web site, www.throb bingbrain.com/linuxjeep, he responds to people who wonder why he does not just go out and buy a commercial product.
"It's not about specifications," he wrote on the Web site. "It's not necessarily about appearance, cost or convenience. It's about creativity and pride in your own work. . . . The beauty of the LinuxJeep is that there is no other in the world quite like it."Copyright The New York Times Company
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