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Post by EspadaIII on Apr 9, 2024 21:30:11 GMT
I've never quite understood the mania for high end audio in a car. My father had been an operatic record producer in an earlier life and his home Hifi systems were very good but he never worried about the car audio. He said (as bpg said) there was too much competition to get anything a proper experience so just get something that works adequately.
The Kia EV6 is too similar in size to the I5 so I'll probably extend the lease by a year unless, in the meantime something else pops onto the market that meets my requirements perfectly. As it happens unless my daughter changes her mind, she has left home for good and is not returning. So my removal services will not be required again and downsizing from the I5 will be painless. A non-Chinese MG4 could suit very well but it is, so it won't.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Apr 9, 2024 22:14:13 GMT
…a custom fit fridge and ice machine, some crystal, your favourite tipple and retire to the rear seat. Whether you can persuade Mrs WDB into a chauffeurs outfit… If I did find myself holding fragile glassware in the back of something with electric acceleration and full regenerative braking, MrsB1 would not be my choice of driver. But you didn’t hear that from me. Obviously. 🙄 I’m generally with Esp’s dad on car audio: ‘adequate’ means gutsy enough to make itself heard in a noisy environment. The i3’s HK system needs to be wound right up to cope — perhaps an energy-saving measure — but once there it seems to cope even with Wagner. But some plusher EVs — the iPace for one — are so quiet that the old wisdom may no longer hold. I’m looking forward to trying the iX. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2024 7:55:20 GMT
I think I must listen to music in my car maybe twice a year. Just don't care for doing it, and haven't done since my 20s. I listen to Radio 4 or 5, depending on which is the least annoying at any given time. So my £9.99 Saisho stereo from Dixons, which I fitted to my MkI Escort in 1987, would do the job.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Apr 10, 2024 8:18:58 GMT
MrsB1 would agree. If I’ve been very good, I’m occasionally invited to play some music in the second half of a long trip. But then I go and choose something like this and it’s back to tense silence. deezer.page.link/sJ4gRweivvTSdxkq5 (It sounds amazing and the musical ingenuity is thing of wonder. To me anyway. There’s no helping some people.) Travelling on my own is a different matter. 🤘 |
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Post by WDB on Apr 17, 2024 17:56:57 GMT
I went to collect my shoes from the menders late this afternoon. That put me temptingly close to the BMW dealer outside Maidenhead, so in I duly popped and persuaded an elf to open an iX for me to clamber on. And I have to say, it’s rather nice. This one had my least-favourite dark ‘Atelier’ interior (which is dark grey synthetic leather rather than black, as I’d imagined) and the ‘Sky Lounge’ glass roof panel, but even like that it felt very welcoming. It easily passes the four-of-me test and would probably cope with five. And, although I didn’t drive it, first impression was that I was far less aware of the expanse of redundant bonnet than I remember from the iX3. And yes, it’s big - but I’m used to a big car and it’s not all that big. Here’s a different one they’d considerately parked next to an iX3.  But then, who should appear but the new-cars elf who sold me both i3s, and he now wants to lend me a car for 24 hours next week. So I will have a more thorough report for you after that. |
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Post by dixinormus on Apr 18, 2024 5:46:49 GMT
Sounds promising Wdb. You know you want to!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2024 7:49:59 GMT
"Not all that big". Hmmm.
There's not much bigger.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Apr 18, 2024 8:31:57 GMT
Yeah, I know, but the sybarite is hard to please and has eight long legs to satisfy. We have the luxury of a small car for towns so, apart from the occasional unavoidable Durchfahrt of Reading on the way to somewhere more agreeable, it won’t be used to terrorise the suburbs or obstruct the pavement outside a school.
The car I sat in was in the Oxide Grey I’d put in my DtD spec. Subtler than the white of the Leicester car, but still light enough to play nicely with the black features that define the shape. It’s more a dark silver than a rich grey like the Tenorite on the CLS; Saab offered something similar 20 years ago that suited a friend’s 9-5 and picked up warm light to look slightly bronze. But the green-blue Blue Ridge is appealing too — both more so than anything offered on the iX3.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2024 9:09:23 GMT
Got a couple of 9-5 enthusiasts in my neighbourhood. One has a really nice 07 reg Aero. I are depress every time I see them, I'd still like one myself and I mourn the passing of the manufacturer. But the VED on all the petrol autos after March 2005 is too off putting.
You and I should go on one of Reading Museum's official walks/talks around and about the town (with a kebab). I bet you'd be surprised at some of the lovely and interesting stuff there is to see. It's not all the IDR. Durchfahrt or any other kind of fahrt notwithstanding.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Apr 18, 2024 9:22:20 GMT
Yes, with you on Saab — and you kind of know they’d have done the EV transition their own way without having to make everything ten feet tall — best-forgotten, GM-mandated Subaru tie-ups notwithstanding.
But the IDR is the best thing about Reading. I know what it is, where it goes and how to get home from it. It’s when I venture off it that panic sets in.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2024 9:54:57 GMT
You must choose your exit wisely.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Apr 18, 2024 10:22:59 GMT
…or not at all. 😧
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2024 10:29:12 GMT
Can I recommend that Sir uses the A321, A340, A404(M) or the A34 then? Be nice to have fewer outsiders clogging up the bridges and bringing nothing but pollution and congestion to the town.  |
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Apr 18, 2024 10:39:47 GMT
Not my fault the town is in the wrong place. Just imagine all the extra energy an EV would use by travelling three sides of a square to avoid it!
(Which I do, on occasion, especially in the fossil car and for the reasons you suggest. A4-A3290-A329(M)-M4 does the job.)
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Post by WDB on Apr 18, 2024 10:44:54 GMT
Anyway, you may get to see us next weekend if I can persuade MrsB1 that Winchester would be a suitable destination for a test run of the iX, an approximate repeat of my first trip in an iX3 two years ago.
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