[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by Autophile

They don't have an option of sparewheel...Do they? If that worries the customer so much then he should look at Mercedes or Audi. BMW does not even have sparewheel wells.

Even the Mercedes SLK's, SL350/500's, 55AMG comes with space saver spare wheels. So the people who are buying these cars are not hellbent on having sparewheels because they are buying the car for different use and application than a normal family car.

They do, in India, because the GoI kicked their arse about it.

Abroad, the BMW 3 series and 5 series are considered normal family cars, if a little expensive. If you're driving on some vast expanse of American highway and your tyre bursts, what are you going to do?

[low_bass_makker]

Originally Posted by Autophile

They don't have an option of sparewheel...Do they? If that worries the customer so much then he should look at Mercedes or Audi. BMW does not even have sparewheel wells.

They don`t have a spare wheel option. which means the manufacturers is imposing some thing on the customer. It is a feature of not having a spare wheel, but what happens if..

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/345129-post18.html

Originally Posted by ajmat

My concern is on long distance driving. A run flat is good for around 160 km. Distance between two BMW dealers will be 1000 km +. Tyre cannot be repaired after being run flat. Hope BMW have stocked spares. Other aspect is that the 3 series does not have a spare wheel well in the boot.

It means a BMW owner cannot go more than 160 kms if his cars tyre goes FLAT.

Also BMW in India is considering to put a spare wheel option because it is the rule of ARAI to have a spare wheel in a car.

BMW faces spare-wheel trouble-Intl Business-Business-The Times of India

[Autophile]

Though it is off topic but i would like to clarify that BMW is not giving any option of sparewheel for 3 / 5 series. 7 Series does have a spare wheel as it runs on tubeless tyres.

The 3 / 5 Series runs on RFT's. In case of puncture the car can be driven to a distance of 80-100Kms. After that the flat tyre needs to be changed. The repair of RFT tyre is not recommended, for that matter manufacturers does not recommend repair on tubeless tyres also as it can be dangerous with high speed cars.

The only option BMW is giving is in the case of 5 Series in which a customer can opt for a space saver (donut) wheel. Which can be used as spare multiple times for speeds upto 80Kmph.

[navin]

Originally Posted by Autophile

Same way a person buying Mark Levinson or any other high end player does not care whether it plays MP3 or not because his preferences and requirements are different from the one who is buying Rs 6000 DVD/CD/MP3/Divx/WMA player.

You wanna bet. I know alteast 2 owners of high end CD players (one Wadia one ML) that also keep a Philips "play everything but a roti" player around.

While they have never pined about having mid-fi features (such as MP3 compatibility) in home audio then next time we meet I would raise this question "Would you like it if your Wadia/ML could play MP3 as long as the CD playback did not suffer". The thought like you said has never occured to them so far.

My only suggestion is that given that in a car we are limited to only one HU why not include these admitedly mid-features. If they did affect the sound of CD playback I can see an argument. If they do not why not include these features, is it just plain myopia or is it snobishness (the audiophile community can be very snobbish).

[Autophile]

Originally Posted by navin

You wanna bet. I know alteast 2 owners of high end CD players (one Wadia one ML) that also keep a Philips "play everything but a roti" player around.

While they have never pined about having mid-fi features (such as MP3 compatibility) in home audio then next time we meet I would raise this question "Would you like it if your Wadia/ML could play MP3 as long as the CD playback did not suffer". The thought like you said has never occured to them so far.

My only suggestion is that given that in a car we are limited to only one HU why not include these admitedly mid-features. If they did affect the sound of CD playback I can see an argument. If they do not why not include these features, is it just plain myopia or is it snobishness (the audiophile community can be very snobbish).

The manufacturers might not be interested offering MP3 playback in the reference units for whatever reasons but each one have given Aux input for user to connect anything he wants to.

Hence one can connect Digital Music Player to the High End SQ units via Aux input for MP3/Compressed music convenience same way the "Wadia/M-L" owners have multiformat Philips players.

[v1p3r]

I feel warm and safe now that navin thinks similarly.

[hydrashok]

Originally Posted by navin

... is it just plain myopia or is it snobishness (the audiophile community can be very snobbish).

Could be part of the reason. Such a listener might think (maybe foolishly) that a player that also plays MP3 couldn't sound "pure" enough. That would affect sales. So the manufacturer would rather cut this feature, than have this feature hamper sales because of this perceived "flaw".

[low_bass_makker]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

I feel warm and safe now that navin thinks similarly.

Same here. I think Navin Ji is more of a practical man than a snobbish Audiophile.

[clipto333]

hi guys,

whats this all about? mp3, original cd's? i dont want to get into this but i still.

talking of a high end HU, i dont think there is a need for an mp3 compatibility. for that you have many good budget players. comnpanies can integrate mp3s but i dont think it is needed. a person buying an hx-d2 knows it doesnt play mp3 but still he buys. its upto him. as for gunbir, i can assure you if the music he want is not available and he has to download free rips, he wont. why should he? he has his own will and he can do whatever he likes. even i would never think of buying a high end head unit and crib it doesnt play mp3.

as for companies not providing mp3 capability on high end HU ask them. why are all of you having a debate on what you dont know?

for playing mp3s on HU you have aux in like jb pointed. or dont buy that HU. i dont expect a comany to provide mp3 facilty on their high end HU. they are designed for sq which mp3 cannot provide. baaki its all about opinions. you have yours and i have mine.

chill guys

clip

[techn9ne]

Originally Posted by Autophile

but each one have given Aux input for user to connect anything he wants to.

why does the high end hu manufacturer has to do that even, for whom are they doing that, wont it affect the sound quality it produced from a external source? i guess for the consumer then tell me won't the consumer be more benefited if it had the option of a mp3 also? and not to buy of make gadgets interact for a simple mp3 file!

technology is to make life simple not complicate it!

[gunbir]

I for one, prefer to spend my hard earned money on a unit that just plays CDs better than all the multimedia units out there. Again, I'm glad there are some units still available for people like me. Why is it so difficult for you guys to grasp that you are not the intended customer for these products?

And I really don't get your problem with these units. Are there not enough MP3 CD players out there for you?

Anyways you folks need not worry. Before long there will be no high end units like these. You will just have other products that will replace these at the same price point but with features like MP3, BBE and what not. Why, most manufacturers (like Alpine) have already cut "audiophile" features from their HUs.

So rejoice. For you can already spend $1400 on a average sounding unit that will have GPS MP3 WMA USB etc etc. I'm happy for you.

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by gunbir

I for one, prefer to spend my hard earned money on a unit that just plays CDs better than all the multimedia units out there. Again, I'm glad there are some units still available for people like me. Why is it so difficult for you guys to grasp that you are not the intended customer for these products?

And I really don't get your problem with these units. Are there not enough MP3 CD players out there for you?

Anyways you folks need not worry. Before long there will be no high end units like these. You will just have other products that will replace these at the same price point but with features like MP3, BBE and what not. Why, most manufacturers (like Alpine) have already cut "audiophile" features from their HUs.

So rejoice. For you can already spend $1400 on a average sounding unit that will have GPS MP3 WMA USB etc etc. I'm happy for you.

Don't sound so upset about it. No one is denying you want high-end high-fidelity audio. If and when I can afford such a player, I'd like to buy it too. But I would gladly pay $100 more a player that integrated this sort of high fidelity with the capability to play various compressed formats. I'm sure that's neither too hard to understand nor to manufacture.

[hydrashok]

Another spin on this I think we're all going around in circles around the same thing.

A guy who spends 70K on a HU is looking for the best sound quality there is, for that money. Now he wouldn't touch an MP3 with a 10 foot pole anyway. He typically uses only Audio CDs, simply because they sound better.

So why should the unit have to play MP3 at all? This guy isn't going to waste his investment on a really good-sounding HU by playing inferior quality stuff on it, right? (And we all agree that an MP3 does not sound as good as a CD?)

EDIT: Gunbir, Just saw your post. I know what you mean. Not in the context of High-end HUs, but in the general principle.

My Dad uses very very specialized, expensive and really difficult-to-get books on the English language for his work. Lately (esp. over the last 3-4 years) he feels bad that research of the kind needed for these books is now not done; That people don't care so much anymore to take the time and effort and the money to publish books like that; That people don't care for books like these that are already published, they don't care enough for these books so they can be made easily available (and at a reasonable cost).

Who loses from this? People who really love what they do (language, in my Dad's case), and people who can (and do) make significant contributions to what they love and do. And as a result of this the general community that could have made use of these contributions suffers.

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by hydrashok

Another spin on this I think we're all going around in circles around the same thing.

A guy who spends 70K on a HU is looking for the best sound quality there is, for that money. Now he wouldn't touch an MP3 with a 10 foot pole anyway. He typically uses only Audio CDs, simply because they sound better.

So why should the unit have to play MP3 at all? This guy isn't going to waste his investment on a really good-sounding HU by playing inferior quality stuff on it, right? (And we all agree that an MP3 does not sound as good as a CD?)

For when his son uses the car or the audio system and wants to listen to that newfangled music of his, off the Internet.

That's like saying 50% of users never use equaliser settings, and 90% never use all the functions in a Pioneer HU, so maybe we should just stop selling those.

[hydrashok]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

For when his son uses the car or the audio system and wants to listen to that newfangled music of his, off the Internet.

This is not intended to be an in-your-face answer: If I had such a HU in my car, my son would not get to touch it (or use the rest of my system) unless he really understood what it stood for and respected it and appreciated it. I would rather get my son other means of enjoying his music (not in my car) until he grew up enough to appreciate and enjoy it. And I would work towards getting him to do that too, for certain.

Originally Posted by v1p3r

That's like saying 50% of users never use equaliser settings, and 90% never use all the functions in a Pioneer HU, so maybe we should just stop selling those.

I don't think so. In the context of what I said, a Pioneer HU user wouldn't dream of spending 7-8 times what his HU cost, on a HU that sounds about twice or thrice as better. He wouldn't think of it simply because he is happy with the cost-to-sound ratio of what he's getting from his HU. Maybe he would spend twice that much on a better sounding HU, but I doubt if he would want to spend that much on a high-end HU.

EDIT: An addition to what I said earlier.

High-end HUs can be bought by two kinds of people broadly speaking:

1) The guy who really loves to listen to his music and is very very finicky about how good it sounds. He may be an average joe in everything else (money-wise too), but he would not think badly about taking a second mortgage on his house to get a really good (and so expensive system).

2) This is a wannabe. He wants a high-end HU so he can show off. So he can pretend to be an audiophile. The HU in his car is supposed to scream out that "Look! This guy is an audiophile".

Now Guy 1 is so serious about his music that he wants the best. He will obviously not compromise on hardware, and on software (music). He does not listen to MP3 simply because it does not sound good enough. So the presence of MP3 in the HU makes no difference to him. Even if the HU had MP3, and even if the presence of MP3 facility does not affect playback of SQ of CDs in any way, he wouldn't use the MP3 facility at all. So as far as he is concerned, the HU doesn't need MP3. And if adding MP3 facility costs more (the manufacturer now has to do additional R&D to ensure that MP3 does not screw up what it was doing well in the first place) he, the prime target of such a HU, is being put to a loss.