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Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Premium-Brand OEM Audio

By Peter Tanshanomi May 18, 2015

EH-premium-OE-audio
For many years car radios were manufactured by subsidiaries of the manufactures themselves. The usual Ford or Delco radio, however, has been perceived by much of the buying public as low-end, with sound quality and features not quite as good as aftermarket audio components. To combat this, many manufacturers have begun installing components that wear the logo of third-party audiophile brands. Buick has strongly promoted its association with Bose (though certainly not the only car maker to do so), and Suzuki featured components from boomcar fanbois’ favorite Rockford-Fosgate.
Your encyclopedic task for this Monday is to list all the car brand/audio brand bedfellows you can think of, as well as notable models that made use of that partnership for extra bragging rights.
Difficulty: As easy as taking candy from fish in a barrel.
How This Works: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates. Bonus points for adding photos. Remember, you can simply paste in the raw image URL now, thanks to the magic of Disqus.
Image Source: Bose Corporation and Kizashiclub.com
[Oh, and the few of you who know what prompted this question today, please don’t spill the beans.]

By Peter Tanshanomi

Tanshanomi is Japanese [単車のみ] for "motorcycle(s) only." Though primarily tasked with creating two-wheel oriented content for Hooniverse, Pete is a lover of all sorts of motorized vehicles.

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124 thoughts on “Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Premium-Brand OEM Audio”

      1. When I sold it was:
        Avalon
        Camry and Solara
        Sienna
        Highlander
        Prius (And the V, but not C)
        FJ Cruiser
        4Runner
        Sequoia
        Tundra
        Tacoma
        Venza
        Rav4
        Land Cruiser
        The Corolla and Matrix had it for some years and option packs.
        So basically all but the Yaris and Prius C.

        Reply

          2. I think I have some on the shelf next to the can of magic smoke.

      1. Posting pictures of Principal Musso in her prime will not discourage me from being a bad boy.

        Reply

          1. Excellent point. I think she got better looking as she approached 40.

  7. The Hummer H2 had a Bose system in it that was a horrendous pain in the butt for upgrading.
    The stereo/onstar system had to be re-installed somewhere in the system if you wanted an aftermarket radio/DVD/Nav.

    Reply

    1. Which surprises me a lot, said no one. [“That’s the one all those young kids at the mall like, with their leg warmers and new wave music, isn’t it?” said the Toyota exec in 2003.]

      Reply

    3. Pioneer supplies many of the stock radios for the domestics. They just don’t usually get labeled as such.

      Reply

  10. If I remember correctly, my 2002 Mazda had a Kenwood system from the factory.

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    1. My 2002 Mazda had a cheap JVC double-din aftermarket that barely worked… from the PO.
      I replaced it with an AIWA I’d pulled from the last car I sold, then had to replace all four speakers, as they were stock paper and quite spent. Much, much better, though I was always annoyed by the speaker grills present in the rear doors that were merely placeholders for the sound system in nicer models than my LX.

      Reply

      1. My had the Sun&Sound package (I remember laughing at the name) so I had the moonroof and the upgraded stereo. It was really decent.

        Reply

  12. VW’s Fender association was a bit of an odd one — who associates Fender with car stereos? Live music, sure, but not reproduction of recordings. Accordingly, I think the stereo was actually developed in conjunction with Panasonic.

    Reply

    2. I put it up there with Car and Driver floor mats that were sold at Target. I mean, wtf?

      Reply

    4. Came here to post this one. I remember thinking, when I first heard about that partnership, “Man, the EQ on that setup is going to be all kinds of weird for just playing music” — and then the rest of my brain caught up and assured me that Fender knew what they were doing and weren’t going to use a guitar-amp-style setup in a car stereo.
      Seriously though, yeah, has Fender always had a hi-fi/general-use audio arm that I just wasn’t aware of?

      Reply

    1. Heh. My Toshiba laptop claims “harman/kardon” speakers. They get loud, but that’s about it.
      The audio on my cheap Kindle Fire tablet has better depth.

      Reply

      1. High end BMWs have this Logic7 surround sound system with 13 speakers, should be good…..

        Reply

        1. Oh, I have no doubt. Though my last experience with the h/k system was in an E65 760Li, I recall it being damned good.
          I was mostly commenting on the absurdity of finding something h/k branded on a midrange laptop. I wonder how many useless dollars were added to that laptop for speakers that are almost never used, since laptop usage lends itself to headphones.

          Reply

          1. Yep.
            I was really impressed with the factory sound (once I learned how to change the speaker output, hint, set to xA) on the Scion tC. It could get very, very loud, but not be too mulded for a sub-$20k car.
            Also, my Mazda Protege5 may have had the cleanest factory sound system i have ever heard in a bargain car.
            The Lexus SC430 when it was newish had a Mark Levinson in it, the crispness of that system was ridiculous, and it compensated on where the sound was sent based on if the top was down, etc. Really cool for such a terrible car and a bunch of old people listening to NPR and Bloomberg radio.

    1. My first encounter with a Monsoon system was in my college freshman roommate’s 2001 Grand Am GT (which he chose as his graduation gift. He chose a Grand Am).
      He had an affinity for terrible 80s music, which seemed fitting being blared in a car whose bones also dated back to the 80s.
      After I got my license back in the spring of 2002 (why I’d lost it is another story), I never rode in that car again.

      Reply

      1. It’s better in a hatch I think. I don’t need a subwoofer in my trunk thumping the backseat. haha.
        I had no option it was standard in the GT and I wanted to GT because of the suspension and manual transmission.

        Reply

    1. Really? I always thought the stock stereo in my 960 sounded pretty good. Now I know why.

      Reply

        1. Cool, I always thought they only used the Alpine interface (same as many 2000s Chryslers did) but some googling leads me to believe the SC radios were manufactured by Alpine. The HC units are manufactured by Mitsubishi instead.

          Reply

    1. If nothing else, it’s attractive.
      Even if made from paper, I have always appreciated the look of a contrasting speaker cone/surround/center cap.

      Reply

  21. My recently departed Fiat 500L had a Beats by Dr. Dre stereo system in it that I found to be pretty decent or at least miles ahead of the stock stereo in my new Wrangler.

    Reply

    1. I’ve always thought that brand name sounded more like overpriced kitchenware than a producer of audio systems.

      Reply

  25. Looking at car audio in a broader sense, I think it’s worth mentioning that Lexus worked with Yamaha’s audio department on the LFA to engineer an intricate system of ducts and dampenings to bring what’s probably the most exact and refined engine noise of all time into the passenger compartment.
    In other news, the optional Lexicon sound systems introduced in the Hyundai Genesis in 2009 are by the same brand that’s responsible for the OEM audio in Rolls-Royces, and reportedly they’re nothing short of great even though the headunit by itself doesn’t look like much.

    Reply

  30. Many of these radios are just branded with the “high end name” For example the Lincoln Town car had an available “Alpine” system in 2003 while the exact same components had the “SoundMark” labels on them for 2004. Both were made for Ford by their usual suppliers and just silk screened with the different name.

    Reply

    1. Becker’s Europa is all but nonfunctional* in my 1980’s Mercedes!
      *Turning it on makes the electric antenna rise and a little red light come on. Also, if you put a tape in, it will spit it right back out. That’s a function.

      Reply

        1. It makes no noise. PO said they’d re-installed it after pulling out some aftermarket CD player. Makes me think the wiring is mangled and it isn’t connected to anything but power.

          Reply

  41. The third-generation Mazda RX7 and the Bose Acoustic Wave system, which snaked through the cargo area like intestines.

    Reply

        1. Both companies do stress unique designs that are quickly copied by competitors at 1/3 the price and 95% of the functionality.

          Reply

  42. My Acura had a Bose system built by Alpine and my current Lincoln has a Ford “Audiophile” branded system built by Pioneer, while the older models had Alpine sourced equipment also.

    Reply

  44. My 1998 328i has a 300 watt rms 10-speaker Harmon Kardn system that is pretty awesome. A few interesting points – it has both a Dolby Cassette Deck (you young kids can look that up ) and a 6 CD-changer in the trunk, and it has an acoustic hall-size adjustment.

    Reply

    1. My Taurus SHO had the AM/FM/Cassette in one slot, with the CD changer below it. PO took out the the cassette deck and replaced it with a Pioneer-Walmart-special.

      The CD changer is still there, completely disconnected. The cassette deck came in the trunk. No idea if it works, but I still want to reinstall it.

      Reply

  48. Peugeot’s upper-end OEM head units were made by Alpine in the US market, though the head units had no visible mention of Alpine on them.
    Trivia: one of the head units that they offered on the 405 was capable of receiving audio for TV channels 2 through 13, and could also tune six or seven of the NOAA weather forecast frequencies. The only other manufacturer I’m aware of who had a weatherband-capable head unit offered from the factory was Subaru, though theirs did not also receive TV (and I believe that Subaru’s manufacturer for the radios was either Pioneer or Panasonic, not Alpine).

    Reply

  49. My 2015 Challenger R/T’s sound system has “Alpine” badges on the door panel speaker grilles, thanks to the “Sound Group” option that was mandatory to get the 8.4″ infotainment/navigation screen. My 2005 Dakota Laramie’s tweeters similarly bear “Infinity” badges for a system that was top-notch then, and is now equal to the 2015 Challenger’s midrange system which is midrange now but would have been about the best you could get from the factory in a Dodge 10 years ago. Meanwhile, my dearly-departed 2010 Challenger R/T (…for certain values of “dearly”) and the ’96 Thunderbird that I still own, justifiably had no premium badges on their speakers.
    (But on this topic, it’s quite possible that I have a bias. I have an uncle who’s risen through various companies to become the VP of marketing at a loudspeaker manufacturer, and his son / my cousin has been responsible for the programming of a number of the demo tracks on certain models of electronic keyboards. In family gatherings, “Bose” may be one of the dirtiest possible words.)

    Reply

  52. Mark Levinson does Lexus factory systems.
    Also on a style basis, the BMW i3 should so have a Bang & Olufsen stereo because the instrument cluster looks like a B & O product sitting on an Eames chair.

    Reply

  53. There was Lamborghini and Alpine
    [URL=http://s491.photobucket.com/user/ironwill8495/media/highfidelity.jpg.html][IMG]http://i491.photobucket.com/albums/rr273/ironwill8495/highfidelity.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

    Reply

  54. I’ve always loved the Rockford-Fosgate system in my 2005 Sentra SE-R Spec V. Especially the subwoofer integrated into the trunk.

    Reply

  55. To get a Volkswagen radio code, look for a code that starts with “VWZ” and make sure you can distinguish between a capitalized ‘I’ and a ‘1’. To remove the radio, use a pry tool, a screwdriver, and radio unlocking wrenches to push the keys into each corner of the radio until it locks into place
    VW Radio Code Generator Online

    Reply

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