Elise S1 audio upgrade (recommendations)

[Geek]

Any recommendation for an audio upgrade for an Elise S1, currently the audio is the original (which I will keep for originality). I don't want to make any un-reversable modifications.

Therefore, a couple of option 1) something with Apple Car play so that I can connect my phone, however, my preference is 2) something with a CD player (old school I know but I have lots of CDs).

Thank you.

[Bibs]

Headphones? There's not a lot you can do in an Elise, especially an S1 as there's very little if any sound deadening which is key to good audio and with only 2 speakers to play with, there are limited options. You could dynamat behind the bulkhead and upgrade the speakers and sound insulate the back of their their enclosures. 

[ADF]

I couldn't recommend a specific head unit as I dont keep up with what's currently  available but this is what I did.

The Elise S1 isn't suited to good hifi no matter what you do. I do like to have tunes at times so I have fiddled with mine a bit.  I improved the speaker sound slightly by properly mounting the speaker boxes so they didn't rattle and using a bit of dynamat inside and sticky back foam. Sounded better to my ears when not running but not sure it makes much difference overall as there's so much ambient noise.

The best change I made was to ditch the CD player as there's no space to store CDs. I just bought a cheap (£40 ish) mechless unit with my music stored onto an SD card (CDs ripped to mp3) I just change it around every now and then. My music collection is all on my laptop now as Mp3s so this suits me but if you have it on a phone it perhaps makes more sense to just connect that.

I also added a separate power switch (using an old HRW switch from a pug 306).

This setup makes it a lot easier and safer to use especially at night,  if I want tunes I just click the button in the panel by the lights and it just starts up and plays from where it last stopped. I can even turn the display of for night driving.

The mechless units really suit the elise as they are so much lighter and shorter than  the CD players.  

 

 

 

 

[Geek]

Headphones isn't an option since the audio upgrade is  for the benefit of driver and passenger. Also, my intention is to keep the Elise as standard as possible and not make any modifications which are not reversible. My intention was just a head unit change (which the previous owner did too), however, based on the above I may need to reconsider.