Custom Autosound question

[joeinbcs]

Howdy all,
I have a Custom Autosound aftermarket unit in my '67 Eldorado (was in the car when I got it).
It works OK, but the appearance isn't great.  It's made worse by the unfinished look of the area behind the knobs.  Anyone know if I'm missing something, or if there was no provision for a chrome-like bezel or washer to cover the raw steel that looks crappy beneath the knobs.  Just looks unfinished as it is.  Any ideas?
Thanks, Joe

[35-709]

Almost looks to me like those bezels are installed inside out, maybe because the Autosound shafts aren't long enough.?

[billyoung]

My 1968 DeVille convertible had one of those when I got  the car. What I did was buy a non working original AM FM Stereo and installed it back in the dash now I had the original radio and knobs that came with the car for appearance sake and left the antenna permanently in the down position. I went to a custom auto sound shop and had them install a brand new system that the brain box sits under the passenger side of the front seat and connects to the 4 new speakers that are in the factory positions so when you look in the car it looks completely stock. The system connects thru blue tooth to my Android phone thru Pandora so I can activate it any time I am in the car and pick any song I want to listen to. The system was about $ 1,200.00 installed.

[James Landi]

I think Bill Young nailed it. If you want decent sound, you need to customize.  The original sound systems in gm cars were rarely "state of the art," until rather recently when the technology competition among audio makers became a serious factor for purchasing decisions.  My '67 Eldorado sported a newly introduced FM stereo radio;however, when one drove the car into fringe reception areas, the radio would audibly click from stereo to mono-- an obvious mechanical relay noise.  Another case... the highly anticipated ALLANTE featured a Boise sound system with four remote amplifiers, two which were mounted in the doors and subject to moisture and premature failure... The Boise system is elaborate with many buttons, but truly has mediocre fidelity as it depends on four small speakers. Even my XLR is not exceptional and gm did not design in an audio input function. 

[Jeff Rosansky CLC #28373]

I modified the original knobs on our 70.

[TJ Hopland]

Typically the shafts on the custom autosound products are pretty long and they give you washers and extra nuts so you have a rear nut to set the depth then the front one that actually tightens down so shaft length should not be an issue.   

I don't know if something is missing or not.  Did the original knobs just have a really large section there that filled that gap?  This may be a good spot for 3d printing, basically design and print a rear knob section that has a large enough diameter to fill that hole, likely in black.