S10 Factory Fitted Nippon Audio

My S10 has this factory fitted ICE of Nippon make. I have two front speakers, two at the back an two behind the two OVRMs. This is a 2003 system so has just the cassette player. Plus it needs servicing (you know, that thing with the funny sound controls knob :)

Now I cant find any Nippon service center number on the net (New Delhi). Plus, since this is factory fitted, I am not sure how to upgrade to a better ICE since this fits inside my dash board!

A little help?

An authorized Nippon service shop will be as easy to find as a public water distribution system in the Rajastan desert. If you ever come across one, by fluke, the people there will not be able to do much with a 'fossil' such as a cassette player.

But, if you want to retain it, you could try your luck in one of the older audio shops in town for a head cleaning cassette.That should clean off all the residual oxides from your playback head.These oxides are what cause the audio to, for eg, make Ms.Mangashker sound as if she has a pillow held against her face.

Alternatively, you could pull out the whol unit, open its top cover and manually clean the head. Or, if you want to up grade, replace the whole unit with a more modern one which plays everything but cricket.

BTW, you might need two 'removal tools' to get that unit out of the dashboard.They go into those pairs of tiny holes on either side of the unit.

The factory fitted Nippon player is an excuse of a player and not to mention the cheap paper cone speakers the S10 came with. Given the fact that you spend many hours on the road in your S10, it would be fitting to give her an upgrade on the ICE front as well.

There are many threads on the forum on getting a good setup for your car, so do look them up. I also want to upgrade (speakers included, the stock speakers s*ck!). My question is: Will I not need that entire curved dashboard piece? Of will that guy cut a rectangular hole in this one itself?

The last thing I want is a shoddy job and a rickety ICE installation.

What do you say?

I have a GTX and have re-done the ICE totally. 2 two way components go into the front. The mid-range (anything between 4" and 6") will go into the doors (you will need rings to fit them) and the tweeters will go into the pods below the ORVM levers. You can put 6X9 Oval co-axials onto a MDF/plywood parcel tray. Any 1 DIN head unit will go into the dash replacing the OE unit beautifully.

What you need to first is to make a budget, then make a list of priorities. Decide whether you want to do the ICE up all at one time or in stages. ICE is addictive and can become very expensive. So please do your research carefully before proceeding.

The current config is like this:

Two tweeters behind the OVRMs.

Two 2-way speakers in the front doors.

Two 4" speakers on the parcel tray.

So when you mentioned 'two in the front' did you refer to the ones in the door?

I will check out your thread now. and true, I need to fix a budget. So in addition to your help with the kind of speakers and configuration, you're mentioning that my oval-shaped stock Nippon can be replaced by a head-unit of the same dimensions? Because all I have come across are rectangular units. That's my major concern.

You get that faceplate for aftermarket headunits. I changed it for my weekend.