[allenga]

Team,

Last year, I put a rebuilt, correct original radio and speaker in my Pontiac. See photo.

Now, I may be over the thrill of having an original mono AM radio in the car.

What are you thoughts on these upgrade scenarios.

1. Have the original radio gutted and upgraded with the Aurora Designs upgrade.
2. Custom Autosounds In dash radio. Not sure of quality.
3. RetroSound in dash radio. Not sure of quality.
4. Bluetooth Amp in Trunk. Stream music from phone. No head unit needed.
5. Hidden Audio. Small controller on dash. Base in trunk. I had one several years ago and quality was low.

I won't cut dash for a modern radio. 77 Trans Am

What do you have in your Pontiac.

[leeklm]

In my 66, I left the stock radio in place, and mounted a modern DIN style unit in the glove box. could connect to my phone for hands free, and a good remote that would work with glove box closed (UHF I think??)

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Scarebird]

From the feedback I get Custom leaves a lot to be desired. I did the gut thing and did not work that well. The $600+ unit Ames sells looks gorgeous but does not tune worth a damn. The Retrosound Hermosa works very nice, but took a bit of work to get to look stock.

were I in your shoes I would keep the AM unit and run a Bluetooth enabled amp, that way you run it thru your smart phone.

[Stuart]

Electro-Tech in Minneapolis generally gets good reviews for their conversion. http://www.turnswitch.com

[Formulajones]

Both Retro and Custom Autosound will sell you the same radio. I use their USA-630 model in one of our cars and it works fine.

There were 3 things I was looking for. A stock appearance, something that fits without cutting the dash, and a USB port to use an MP3 player.

The USA-630 does all 3 of those things for us. I've been using one for about 3 years now and so far it's been fine. I'd buy another one, and may have to because the 30 year old Pioneer knob style head unit (that you can't buy anymore) is dying in another car.

[mgarblik]

I had a conversion done on the AM radio that did not work anyway in my 62 Catalina. I have a portable XM receiver about 3"X4" square I wired in the glovebox. Replaced the OE 4x10 speaker with a dual cone 4x10". Now I have AM/FM/XM in the car. The only thing you can see is a 1.5" flat disc magnetic antenna at the rear of the deck lid. Sound quality I would rate a 4 out of 10. With the OE 62 system being a 1 out of ten. So certainly not high fidelity, but a decent upgrade that looks 95% stock.

[389]

Just connect a mini jack up to the radio. cut the blue wire that goes to the volume control, solder two 1K resisters onto it and solder them to the right and left channel of a mini jack patch cord that you cut the female end off of.. Plug the I-pod into the jack and your ready to go.. I put a small amp on y radio, just connected it to the speaker terminal.. Sounds nice, real hi fidelity..

[Entropy11]

Went through the same dilemma with my ‘69 Buick. Finally sourced a correct radio in great condition and didn’t want to pull it to swap in something modern and digital (even with an old looking appearance).

Stashed this away out of sight and now have the best sound I’ve had in any vehicle in years (even counting back in the days of tossing $$$ into systems that were high-tech). Regular single din width and height but only a few inches deep so easy to hide.

JVC KD-X260BT Digital Media Receiver Featuring Bluetooth/USB/Pandora/iHeartRadio/Spotify / 13-Band EQ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HCLJVCC..._BUzsEb18W24Z4

Hard to believe the sound out of that and all the settings provided. I even ran it to a small amp in the trunk and a little sub I made back when I was a kid. Best feature is the Bluetooth connection is flawless and connects in seconds to my iPhone (something Ram and Chevy can’t seem to figure out in my last vehicles lol).

Sorry for the sales pitch... I’d seriously vote for hiding a small unit like this out of sight. Who knows, In 5 more years you can probably upgrade it to the next standard in wireless connections, even better sound, and it’ll cost $35. Haha

[barrierblue66]

Originally Posted by Stuart

Electro-Tech in Minneapolis generally gets good reviews for their conversion. http://www.turnswitch.com

Sending them my '63 Cat AM/FM

[Stuart]

One other option I forgot to mention is https://redirad.com/ It's made by board member Engine-Ear, and allows you to play music from your phone or other device through your existing radio.

[pfilean]

Did the Electro-Tech for my 61. Bought two 61 radios on e-bay and sent both to Electro-Tech. Told them use whatever they needed to convert but just send one back. So I still have my old original (just in case whatever) but still have original appearance. Sometimes tuning is a little funky but not a deal breaker. Bigger problem is finding room for speakers (and crossover left from PO's Sony that I didn't like). I won't cut up door panels or kick panels for speakers and with a Vintage Air it is very tight finding space for front speakers. I don't know how mgarblik got a dual cone to fit in the 62 dash. The one I tried had too large a magnet and I couldn't get it in with the stock radio case.

[92GTA]

I went with the Antique Auto Radio (AAR) head unit for my 69 Firebird. Fits like stock, dial looks close enough, and has BT integrated. I worked with the dealer I bought from to have the backlight changed from blue to red.

Only thing is that it has the black buttons for the radio instead of the chrome that my original had.

[allenga]

I am now looking at Marine head units. Quality head units can put in trunk, operate by RF remote.

[kyle_blake]

Hey Listen, here is my thought on this whole jazz. So I have the typical (2) 6x9 in the rear package tray of my 6x9. I have the stock 69 gto AM radio...

I thought listen, all I need is an amp that sits in trunk wired to the battery, fused etc that the 6x9's connect up to. Now if it is bluetooth enabled then my iphone can connect to it and I can play all the music want. I can stream any internet enabled music app like apple music, spotify etc....

It's just like going to the beach with a little blue tooth speaker, you connect up. listen to music on the beach, why can't a company built a wicked 50 watt RMS a channel 2 or 3 channel amp that has bluetooth and rock our classic's?

I say they are out there. Two wires to fused power... Just be done with all this head unit change. A lot of these blue tooth's amps are small enough for glove box too, they also have a nice little hand held unit to "FAST FORWARD" , stop " TAKE A PHONE CALL"

That is what I'm interested in.

I found this to start:
https://www.amazon.ca/Bluetooth-Audi.../dp/B00JB4YWGO

This is good video of one. I think that is what I'd like to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAHOOZAkmSM

Sure you may have to run a large amp wire to your battery, but I'd say worth it.

[92GTA]

I considered this adapter for an amp before I just bought a stock appearing head unit that had BT integrated:

https://www.jlaudio.com/products/mbt...receiver-91126

[Formulajones]

I'd like to have an amp WITH the head unit, simply for the extra power output, but I'm not punching holes in the firewall and running big cables to the battery to power it. I just won't do that. So I nixed that idea a long time ago.

They used to make head units with built in amps, my old Kenwood head unit in my chevelle has a small amp on the back of it, and it powers itself. It's a kick a$$ old knob style head unit that isn't made anymore.

I don't know why they can't make a small amp today with all this technology, that can simply be powered off the back of the radio for a nice clean hidden install and no need to go drilling holes and running 5 lbs. of cable throughout the car.

[kyle_blake]

just spoke with local sound store, they said the marine units are ok but don't expect real awesome sound, he said you are still better off with a deck somewhere. i guess we have to wait until some company makes a real better unit..

[torqhead]

I went with a factory looking Vintage Auto Radio replacement. Unit looks just like the original factory but has later technology including bluetooth. Tuning works great and i'm on the outskirts of Denver where I've seen other radio's struggle. In my case I shaved the antenna from the fender and have one of those in car cheap ones hidden and it still works well.

[unruhjonny]

I would suggest one of two things:
1) a redi-rad running through the original, or a period correct radio/speaker(s)
2) put the factory stuff aside, and find an old two post cassette player with an aux input and aftermarket speaker(s).
I would not cut factory wires, but instead make an adapter to connect to your cars wiring if you go the aftermarket radio route.
I got my car in 1995, and put a Sparkomatic cassette player with an aux input in my car;
I never used the aux input, but that was a stellar radio... my only regret is passing it along to my brother.

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by torqhead

I went with a factory looking Vintage Auto Radio replacement. Unit looks just like the original factory but has later technology including bluetooth. Tuning works great and i'm on the outskirts of Denver where I've seen other radio's struggle. In my case I shaved the antenna from the fender and have one of those in car cheap ones hidden and it still works well.

I like those a lot. My only hang up to buy one was they just don't have enough features. No separate bass/treble control, no loud setting, just a typical tone setting, so I was afraid sound quality wouldn't be what I wanted.

Plus they don't offer the USB port, which is what all my cars are pretty much set up with to run a bunch of MP3 players I have here. To swap to a blue tooth or some other form of music would require me to do a lot of downloading, swapping, and purchasing of other devices making the MP3 stuff obsolete. So I just prefer to stick with what I have.

If this radio just had a few more features like I mentioned, I'd be all over it. Much better looking reproduction than the stuff offered from Classic Car Radio and Retro Sound.