concours USA-6 custom auto sound radio.
? Any good. Only going to have a pair of 6x9 in back.
Will this unit have power to here over my flowmaster 40s.
Is it a good radio. ( no sub)
thanks

Really lousy radio. I have it in my car and I'm taking it out. Really poor sound and poor reception. Tinny FM. Don't waste your money. There are better radios. Get an original AM and put it in the radio slot. Then get a good radio and put it in the glove compartment.

Thanks
After doing some digging yes last years models are junk under power with bad shafts. From what I am told? the new one has 240 watts (60x 4)
Panasonic tuner ken wood amp? No tape No CD player but it has jacks for mp3/Ipod and CD player. ? with shaft it seems to be the best I can find with out cutting up dash.

As av68 said, fill the hole with a stock AA radio and put a nice DIN mount head in the glove box with an infrared repeater. Control with with the door shut. It will sound MUCH better.

I have seen a cpl of camaros that have a new aftermarket center trim with radio delete option to close off the radio area to mount guages there, and then under the dash mount the radio in a under dash kit.

http://www.autotoys.com/pics/thumbs/t_underdashkitmounting1.jpg

My neighbor has a custom autosound and it is tinny as mentioned above. He thinks he can fix it with an amp. Will see. I personally think all their stuff is junk and have no idea how they stay in business. If you want a good radio, find an original and someone who can gut it and put the modern stuff in it. I know a guy that does it and although not cheap, it keeps the concours look with actual good sound out of a modern high quality radio.

Mike

The problem with regutting a new din radio into a 2 shaft is loss of functionality in the radio. I have seen some and yes they can get the am/fm radio to work, but no other functionality such as cd changer, channel memory, etc....

If you must have a 2 shaft, only chance is to hit ebay or some place and find a 80's era 2 shaft radio from alpine, sony, etc... otherwise you buy these new classic kits and its basicly all the same old kenwood gutted radio with a different face plate.

I like the look of the center trim w/radio delete and putting a modern radio in stealth or under the dash.

I was ready to throw my custom autosound stereo in the trash. I decided to give it one more chance and used the RCA pre-outs to a MTX 2 channel amp and Polk 6X9's and an MTX mono amp powering a Polk 10" sub. I still don't like the feel of the controls, but the sound is great now.

How old are your radios. The concours USA-6 series only came out a year ago.(concours series)
They admit to the old ones being junk(custom autosound). They claim the new one are real nice .
A different vendor now making them using panasonic parts???????
Now with a two year warranty. ( no I don't sell them)

I just put one of the new ones in. I cannnot be happier with it. It sounds great. But, I did throw in some speakers (6x9's), (4x6's), woofers, and two amps. I am also using the RCA's for my IPOD. I really do not even use the radio. If you are planning on using an IPOD 99% of the time with just 2-6x9's and no amp, I don't think any other radio is gonna make itsound any different. But, if you are going to listen to the radio most of the time, you might want something else.

If money is no object, I'd send your original AM radio out and have all new components installed in it. Get all the bells and whistles, in case you want to add amps, more speakers, cd-changer, etc.

This fall I plan on putting a stock am back in the original location I bought off of e bay and putting a DIN unit in the glovebox with the IR repeater. Question for you guys that already did this, how did you mount it in the glovebox? Is there a prefabbed glovebox liner for such an application? The under dash kit shown earlier in this post looks interesting, never saw that before. wonder if that would work?

I would highly recommend using additional amps.

While they and many other companies claim power figures that high from their head units, it's not really possible to deliver it in that size package. Ohms law is against you. At 14 volts into 8 ohm speakers, that's 1.75 amps at DC, that's 24 watts. Stereos of course don't output DC, the real limit is about 13 watts.

Power amps use a switching power supply to step up the voltage and allow more current. That's where the power comes from, and it's why amps are so big.

When installing a din in the glovebox, you have to cut out a section in your glovebox liner, and also make some brackets to secure your reciever so it doesnt flop around and isnt so ez to steal.

I posted this info before, but this topic seems to come up weekly on radios...

We installed one of those hidden units w/cd changer. etc made by custom sound in my friends 67. The reciever felt cheap and I was thinking to myself the dude got ripped off, no way in hell this will sound worth a damn! So we mounted the stealth unit in the dash where the old stereo went and put a radio delte center trim piece in, then mounted the little display under the dash (its about the size of small cellphone folded) and we put in 2 kickpanels w/pioneer speakers (secret audio w/cd and 2 kick panel speaker kits came from Ecklers).

Cut it on and amazingly the lil head unit could push the 2 little pioneers pretty strongly. However since they were basicly mid/tweeter speakers he had basicly 0 bass and it sounded very limp over all. So off to circuit city to check their amp/sub combo packages (circuit city usually has 2-3 different combos of amp/subs), and picked up a bazooka amp and 2x10's enclosed in a box.

We wired in the 2 10's and the amp and wow! I am not one of those into systems that just overwhelm you with bass, but those 2 10's out back in the trunk had to be tuned down. Way to much bass, ou could see the trunk lid breathing while it was closed! So we adjusted the bass to suit more of a rock style instead of rap, and it made a big difference in the whole setup! For just under 1k his system sounded as loud and almost as good as my alpine/jl audio in my truck!

So like others have said the custome audio stuff feels/looks cheap but if put infront of a good amp and speaker combo it will surprise you!

Warning cars with alot of bondo should avoid overly excessive bass, as the vibration may cause body filler to crack under stress!

My glove compartment is filled with ignition. Where else can it go?

My glove compartment is filled with ignition. Where else can it go?

Under the dash if your going with a new din unit, or if your going with a stealth system you can hide the reciever any place behind the dash where you have room. The question is what kind of unit are you going with?

I just put one of the new ones in. I cannnot be happier with it. It sounds great.


Mine is now installed seems fine. 60w x4 Is all I need. (no sub 6x9 in back and dual dash up front):yes:

Put this in and it really breaks up with any volume. Do I spend more money on amps to fix it?

The look and functionality I can live with but the sound is not there. Will try Ipod via RCA next and see.

Put this in and it really breaks up with any volume. Do I spend more money on amps to fix it?

The look and functionality I can live with but the sound is not there. Will try Ipod via RCA next and see.


If the polarity is right on your speakers (+/- wired correctly) and you have to turn it up over half way to get over noise in your car, then yeah it's most likely clipping. 60W would be 30W RMS you'd think unless they post other stats. That should be plenty unless you have a set of speakers with a really low sensitivity rating (how efficiently they turn power to sound).

Usually what happens with a lot of ambient noise is that we turn the radio or settings up high to overcome the noise and wind up driving the output up to a point where the power is maxed and the waveform starts clipping. It sometimes sounds like a bad speaker. The ac voltage wave going to the speaker should look like a sine wave (like a hill) but comes out looking like a hill with the top sliced off once the peak is hit.

Putting good power on everything will even make bad speakers sound good. Not having enough power will make even the best sound bad.

After having mine for a year or so i am not impressed. Week FM and seems to need 5 minutes to warm up. (sounds like crap at 1st start up) the AUX with I-pod is better then FM.

i went with the retrosound and am very pleased with it.
http://www.camaros.net/forums/picture.php?albumid=67&pictureid=352

more pics of it in my album: Retrosound radio TC album (http://www.camaros.net/forums/album.php?albumid=67)

Rob

Oh yeah, i've got the flowmasters also and just use small kenwoods in the doors (mines a convertible)


wow, i just noticed the original post was 2 years ago.

About ready to return my custom auto sound. Looking at Retro and others. What is with the 1/8" gap in the top of the retro sound radio in all the photos? Do they all fit like this?

Also, what sounds the best? I don't want to mess around this time.

This fall I plan on putting a stock am back in the original location I bought off of e bay and putting a DIN unit in the glovebox with the IR repeater. Question for you guys that already did this, how did you mount it in the glovebox? Is there a prefabbed glovebox liner for such an application? The under dash kit shown earlier in this post looks interesting, never saw that before. wonder if that would work?
I have one of these, I love it. I mounted it as far back under the dash as I could. You can still see it but its not real obvious. My Stereo has a remote that makes it much easier to use.
Ron

our goal for early next year is to re-do that Camaro plate so it fits like our other plates around the face of our radio--- we acquired quite a large inventory of these and at the current sell rate we'll be revising this plate sooner rather than later--- thanks for all the support !!

Michael Robbins
Product manager
www.retrosoundusa.com