I know the radio in the HCH II isn't all the greatest. Anyone try to install an after market HD radio? They claim to have a much better signal and you get many more choices. I'm curious to see how they worked in your HCH II and how you dealt with installing them on the dash.

Thanks for any info you can give.

Here's a link I found about HD Radios if you're not sure what they are - www.hdradio.com

 

Radio? What's that?

 

Can you really tell the difference between HCHII radio and HD radio? I think I'm just going to buy an iPod connector.

 

HD radio gives you more channels and a supposed CD quality. My question was whether or not the hybrid battery would give the HD radio a lot of static or not.

 

I don't think the radio is the problem with the sound in the HCHII - it is more likely the speakers.

Has anyone hooked up XM or an IPOD and noticed better sound quality?

 

I'm a car stereo guy, as a hobby (do a fair number of installs), and I guarantee you it's the speakers. The signal produced by the head unit is fine, and the integrated amplifier is fair -- not great, but not bad. (And unless you're storing uncompressed tunes on that i-pod, the CD signal from the stock head unit will beat the i-pod's sound quality by miles.)

I haven't actually pulled the speakers out of mine to see quite what they're using, but just from listening, you can tell there's virtually nothing below 80 Hz (in other words, missing the bottom two octaves) and a big peak at 120-150 Hz that gives you that boomy "simulated" mid-bass that you hear but don't feel. The lack of bass and "flat" midrange make it difficult to take advantage of the system's best feature, the in-dash tweeters. They could really be cranked up to sparkle if the low end could keep up.

A simple amp and sub in the trunk would *really* open up this system because it would let you turn down the boomy mid-bass and crank up the treble, while balancing with the sub's independent volume control.

My spouse won't allow me to do this to ours, though.

Cheers --
Doug