The question was - Will I be stuck with this inferior sounding audio system for all my life I live with this car.
Well, the answer is a clear NO.
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This article is for people who are planning to buy an i10, i20, Ritz, Punto, Linea and SX4 and many more vehicles that sport an in-dash audio system. Fortunately or Unfortunately, we will witness a rise in the number of such models. Almost every car sports an audio system now and customers take them for granted unlike the situation about a decade back when the cars were just bought and music systems were either not thought of or put after a few years when money allowed. Things are drastically
different now. Customer not just demand an audio, it has to be a cool sounding one with MP3 and USB support etc. Customers of higher end cars are luckier. For example the Mitsubishi Outlander comes with a dolby digital state of the art Rockford Fosgate audio with 8 speakers factory fitted and it even has a sub woofer. This is a neat little feature and can sway the buyers pretty successfully away from a similarly feayured Suzuki Grand Vitara or a Honda CRV.
Small car buyers are not that lucky. The in-dash audio systems that come in these cars are fairly basic and possibly have those simple speakers from Nippon Audiotronics which are anything but great. Listening to these systems during those numerous test drives that you do before finalising on the right car, gives an impession of the utter simplicity of these units. Well, you are not stuck with it. You CAN enjoy excellent bass and treble in your car. There are two ways to it. I would prefer the first but some also prefer the second.
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First: Upgrade the Speakers and put an amplifier and a subwoofer. Yes, you can do this in your car with an in-dash audio system. Go to any accessories shop and select the speakers that you would prefer. Pioneer and JBL are doing well in the market and you can get some real good machinery for as low as Rs 3500. Check the size and the wattage of the speakers and you need to base your decision also on where you will place them in your car. If it is the rear parcel shelf then you have a better choice of speakers to look at. The i10 has a little space for speakers in the rear door which is neat and won't spoil the looks of your car. The similar size speakers are available from JBL
and can give some great music straight from the in-dash music system in your car. If you are in the mood to spend more, and of course get some depth in your music, an amplifier and subwoofer combination is the next best thing. They are cheaper than you can imagine and yes they CAN be fitted to that system in the dash. The dual channel
amplifiers can be bought for as low as Rs. 3000 and will easily power a 12inch JBL bass tube or blaupunkt boxed subwoofer. The bass tube can be had for as low as Rs. 2500 and will give such a bump to the audio streaming out of your car, you would be hard pressed to believe what this little amount of money can do to the music in your car. Save a couple of more 1000's for labour and wiring costs and what you have is fierce little audio system that looks as neat as your new car looked. Avoid drilling the parcel shelf if you already have a slot. You will pay little attention to the loss of base from the little speakers in the doors once you have a subwoofer kicking up in your boot.
Second: This is higher level of upgrade. If you still want to get rid of the in-dash audio and are bent upon buying a special head unit for your car and do not mind spoiling the original neat dash, you too will be luckier than you can imagine. There are panels available in the market for almost every car which can replace the front panel on your car's dashboard and allow fitting a new head unit of your choice. Their will be little difference in the looks and such panels are available for almost all the cars in the market at leading accessory shops across the country. What you will get in this is the head unit of your choice and you can soup it up with the amplifier and subwoofer setup that I detiled in the first point. So to conclude, there is not really a limit of what you can do with your car audio and if you have your decision stuck between buying an i10 Asta or Spotrz, you can safely go splurge on the more value for money Sportz withhout worrying about the limitations of the existing audio on the car because their are seriously not many.