Different people like to spend their leisure time in accordance to their unique taste. One of the most common past-times is listening to music. Thanks to advancements in technology, one can now listen to his or her favorite music while driving the car at an incredibly high fidelity, volume level, and quality of sound than was possible a decade ago.

A car stereo can be as high quality as a home stereo system, inside a car. The market for car stereos are rising so much that manufacturers of home audio systems are investing in this field.

Before buying an audio system, one should consider some points. It is important to see whether the car stereo fits in your car or not. If you want powerful sound, you need large speakers -- but there just may not be room for that depending on the dimensions of your vehicle. In that case, your only solution is to go with higher power speakers of a smaller size, and to double them up in pairs of 2, 4 or even greater quantities.

The sound quality inside a car is greatly affected by the placement of speakers. It is typical to place bass speakers in the back, because they have a sound vibration that reaches a longer distance. Treble and high frequency speakers are usually placed at the front, near the listeners, and positioned for optimal "stereo effect".

An alternate solution to a custom installed car stereo, is simply to plug a portable tape player, perhaps with its own speakers, into the cigarette lighter that provides 12VDC power. There are things to be careful of, though, like leaving your player in the sun. Hot sun can melt not only cassette tapes, but even wires and speakers. Also, this kind of setup is very prone to theft. Someone can fairly easily lift your tape player right out the window.

Some new car stereos have DVD players and pop up display LCD screens. The LCD screens can be slide out or folded, though that depends on the head unit. Nowadays, some new car stereos can also display traffic signal messages and perhaps even GPS location tracking systems to help navigate.

An MP3 player is a good choice of portable format that can store many songs in one device.

Loud car stereos are quite a craze among the young generation and can play music above 140 decibels. However, this kind of stereo can cause hearing problems and it can also drown out road noise that may be important to hear for safety. For example, sirens and other cars could be drowned out be a loud stereo, producing a driving risk.

Finally, car stereos are not only for entertainment, but they also act as a status symbol and a display of wealth. Kids like to show off the size and volume of their stereo, even if that volume level is not legally allowed.