Cars Cds and classical music dont mix

[maxg]

I recently transferred a dozen or so classical CD's from the house to the car for my daily commute, having got tired of the selection of music on the local classical radio station.

Sadly this has been something of a failure. I cant get the volume to a level I like. Either the quiet parts are totally inaudible or the loud parts blow my ears out. This never happened when listening to FM, nor when listening to Cd at home - I am guessing its a dynamic range thing combined with the relatively high noise floor in a car.

Weird huh - I want more compression it seems - or do I need a better insultated car?

[kexodusc]

Car noise is hard to remedy.
I upgraded my car's amplifier and it solved the problem for me...I just bought a cheap Pioneer deck with 12 or 15 watts to 4 channels (I think it spikes to 50 watts or something). Now I can listen to the classical music at enjoyable volumes with spikes that don't distort or hurt my ears. The sound improvement was noticeably better too.
I still have cheapo factory speakers, but I'm only in the car 1/2 hour a day and I don't think I'll spend anymore on speakers there...I spend at least 3 times that down in my listening room :)

[mtrycraft]

I
Weird huh - I want more compression it seems - or do I need a better insultated car?

You will have a hard time finding a car with suffiently low noise floor:) I think 60 dB is about it.