I have to admit that your options aren't making a lot of sense to me. The Ben Hur is $2,500 US alone, plus a radio, plus installation, your 16,000HK is less than half of what it would really cost.

You haven't answered the biggest question of all: how is the sound? If you are ok with the current radio and speakers, just add the camera and bluetooth. My sound was absolutely atrocious, it was terrible and I couldn't live with it.

If your fifteen year-old car is the same as my fifteen year-old car, the sound is bad. The speakers were bad sounding and the radio was terrible sounding. I couldn't live with it.

Is your sound good enough? That is going to drive the correct decision.

But, your cost estimates seem way, way off. Far too cheap.

 

To be honest I have not really had enough experience of the sound system to really know if I want to upgrade the speaker themselves. But I feel I can always do this later if needs be. Currently the only thing I have is the radio and its more than good enough for that, but I appreciate that playing proper music may end up being different.

Those prices are what they are. Hong Kong is cheaper for labour of course and has better access to Chinese-made components where necessary. I should be clear that Option 2 is not an actual BEN HUR component but simply something similar from China, hence why it will be cheaper. But overall life can be cheaper here if you really drill down - a tire change is about HK$3,000 for instance, annual insurance (comprehensive with no NCB) about HK$10,000, a complete re-painting of the lid of my boot, which has a couple of chips, maybe HK$5,000. The flip side is that new import car prices are substantially more - the current New Continental GT off the rack is maybe HK$4-5m at least.

 

Off topic, but I now wonder, are the HK wages in the same line as cost, I mean really, between $515,000.00 and $645,000.00 USD for a Bentley GT....
How much is a gallon/liters of milk ?
Johnny

 

Well I lived in China for eight years, and Hong Kong is not as low as there. But nonetheless wages (and therefore labour costs) in Hong Kong can still be significantly lower than in the OECD, particularly where more traditional skills like mechanical engineering are concerned. Furthermore, Hong Kong can be almost as cheap as China for items which come from China itself, particularly manufactured goods electronic or otherwise. But a European import such as a piece of Rimowa luggage, would be far cheaper in Europe or the US.

Economics is a nuanced matter but milk is expensive because it is imported, about HK$20 - H$30 per litre most of the time. Luxury cars are imported at a duty of 85% - 100% so you can begin to see why the rack price of a Continental GT is what it is. Property is by far the biggest cost in Hong Kong, with rentals being higher than almost anywhere else and so this feeds through into things like showroom prices and hence new car prices. But the curious thing about the Hong Kong used car market is that whilst starting prices are high, the depreciation curve is steep until you reach about 7 years in, at which point prices fall to below that of the West. So great value around if you can be bothered to look for it.

 

BTW this is an example of an installed Chinese version of the smaller screen updated head unit replacement. I am guessing that it looks rather like the BEN HUR.

This GTC was another one I looked at buying a couple of months ago and is a 2005 GTC. I did not like the colour as much and the car was rather more worn since it was being used as a family car! However the owner had upgraded the head unit and, I believe, the speakers also.

 

I don't think that's a Chinese version of the Ben Hur, I think that is a Ben Hur. I was wondering if a Chinese version existed, it didn't make sense to me, it's a lot of engineering to duplicate for an exceptional small aftermarket.

Here is mine, you can see they're the same:

 

When dealing with car audio, just changing the speakers could be the most important thing you could do. Then the radio then adding amplifiers. Try the speakers first. Those paper things they use are trash after 10 yrs.

 

What Mr. Jones said is true. My speakers were unlistenable. Just terrible.

I got them back in a box and they were way more junky than I expected.

Here are the pictures of them out of the car. They just look like super-cheap speakers. They sounded like them too.

Both Teamjones and I changed the 6x9 speakers to 6.5 inch inch round speakers, but it was a lot of work. The tweeters and 3 inch speakers were easy by comparison.

 

This is what Team Jones and I both put in. I like the sound a lot. I did a subwoofer as well. One guy on here changed out his amplifier, that is what we call colloquially, "a hairball", or something that is really, really complicated.

You can see the difference in quality just by looking at the speakers and size of the magnets.

I don't like the tweeters, though, they are too bright and tinny-sounding, I'm going to change them for cloth tweeters when I finally get some motivation. I also need to run a new microphone.

 

Just a few notes here, and this is NOT to diminish or disrespect anyone's choice of install or brand.

Just my gathered information first hand from the makers of the Ben-Hur unit, also, @British this in no way directed at you personally as you are only relaying said information that you were told.

I am not sure where the story started and by whom, but I have an idea, as to it being the same person who stated that the Ben-Hur only uses one channel for sound, I personally called back when that information was posted and spoke with one of the top personal representatives, I asked about the one channel comment, along with the story of Bentley hiring them to make this unit as a replacement for the factory unit as to no stock, I received long laughs as to both questions, and was told "ofcourse not, it is not one channel (mono), it is stereo, who is this guy ? ", as to the made for Bentley Company question, another laugh and comment of " no that is not true at all, would you as an owner allow a Bentley dealership to install our aftermarket unit in place of a factory unit ?" , and "I think our unit is a great alternative, but it had nothing to do with Bentley themselves", then I was asked "who is this guy? " when I stated who and that he claims to be in touch with your company and is working on some firmware update, I received more comments I will not repeat here along with the answer of "I have no idea who this guy is, never heard of him", ...

I only put this out here so that others can see/read my first hand knowledge from an actual phone call.

Johnny

 

Johnny, since you're reading this, what's the bulb part number for the right front headlamp?

Second, I'm the one that spread the (apparently) weird and incorrect tale about the factory connection with Ben Hur. Honestly, it felt weird when I heard it, I repeated the story since it was so unusual. The story came when I was getting a replacement for my first Ben Hur unit, which I blew up good due to something I'll only admit to in a private message. I had a lengthy talk with a Nav-TV rep (the phone number was Florida, but I may have been talking to England) and he was really knowledgeable and chatty, he's the one that told me the suspect "origin of the Ben Hur" story, complete with, "Bentley called us because we knew how to do this stuff". He went on and on about warranty work and a lack of parts and how Bentley dealers were cannabalizing radios out of new, unsold cars to fix the warranty work of irritated customers. That part might very well be true and unrelated to NAV-TV.

Coincidentally, I had a question about how the Ben Hur deals with the in-car mounted microphone and I emailed him just a couple days ago. Email was returned, "No such email address", so he's gone now, probably telling tales at his new company?

Lastly, I didn't know you were a moderator, can't think of a better person for the job.

 

British, running that microphone should not take a hour. The most time will be in mounting it after taking out the old one (get your hot glue or monkey snot ready). I did mines and found out the cloth that covers the mic muffles it some and ppl couldn’t hear me. I used the Kenwood mic that came with my radio. I’m guessing their all pretty much the same tho...correct me if I’m wrong and it’s better mics out there. For not it’s in the upper left of the headliner.

 

When I fitted my Kenwood microphone,I fitted mine in the empty left hand one, and just swapped the inserts over. Running the microphone wire up the left hand A pillar from behind the dash took the longest. I angled the microphone towards my head using some hot glue, and have been told it is very clear when on the phone. Siri seems to understand me as well

I am thinking of replacing the speakers, but not sure to go 6.5" or stick with 6x9s. Thinking of sticking with Kenwood, as the head unit, subwoofer and amplifier are all really good. Thinking of the Kenwood KFC-X694 from their top of the range series.

 

I’m in Clearwater Florida on vacation right now but when I get back (or someone can give you the info now) I’ll measure the depth of the speakers for you so you’ll know if you need some spacers made. Although these speakers are in “pods” already, certain aftermarket magnets may hit the window/window regulator.
That’s where most of the cost factor comes from when doing audio upgrades to these cars, the custom work.

 

Re the microphone, I got a lot of complaints that my sound quality was terrible when I was hands-free. I did a little research and found that the Alpine has a builit-in mic which apparently is in the wrong place, or terrible, or both. I know the original car microphone is tied into the infotainment and I was trying to figure out if the radio would have access to this. I turned off the Alpine mic and…something…worked, I don't know if it was the car microphone or just my handset.

It's kind of confusing, I looked at the NAV-TV diagram and they show the car mic going into the Ben Hur, but I don't know if it is then connected to the Alpine "external mic" input.

How did you do yours? Did you just run a new microphone and hook it up to your radio?