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Car head unit reviews

lupi

lupi

Lifer
I'd like to pick up a new head unit for my car, looking at a double din with mp3/ipod controls, sattelite ready, and able to be upgraded to HD (not interested in gps as I have a seperate unit and the cost/performance factor of a head unit gps seems rather poor). I haven't subscribed to car audio mags in several years and the quality of customer reviews on most vendor websites seems spotty at best. Is there a good forum/website(s) to do some research?
 
Originally posted by: lupi
I'd like to pick up a new head unit for my car, looking at a double din with mp3/ipod controls, sattelite ready, and able to be upgraded to HD (not interested in gps as I have a seperate unit and the cost/performance factor of a head unit gps seems rather poor). I haven't subscribed to car audio mags in several years and the quality of customer reviews on most vendor websites seems spotty at best. Is there a good forum/website(s) to do some research?
Click to expand...


caraudio.com

go to the site's forums.

there is a forum for head units.

I recommend Eclipse. It's a brand I never liked but the cold hard reality is that they make some of the best HQ decks you can buy for the money. I've had two so far, and while I sometimes wonder about their build quality, the sound they put out is amazing. Far superior to the Alpine's I've had. (granted, I haven't had the top end Alpines, but for the money I've spent, I've gotten much better sound from Eclipses)

I have the Eclipse CDA 8445 which, while still available, was an 06 model and can be had for cheap now. check out woofersetc.com

It's not what you want, but its one badass sounding deck.
 
I agree with the Eclipse statement. I had an old school Eclipse 5303R deck back when I was into car audio. By far the cleanest deck I've heard, however it had no internal amplifier so you had to have external amps. Not a bad thing if you are serious about your sound.
 
I love my Pioneer head unit. What I like best about it is the Premier series has "Premier" displayed boldly, but Pioneer is hard to find. Who wants to steal a Premier brand of car stereo? That sounds like a Wal-Mart brand. As another perk, the Premier series has a longer warranty, higher pre-amp voltage, and usually costs the same or less as the non-Premier series.
 
Fuck Eclipse. I have a CD5444 that was originally installed in May of 2005. I'm on my fourth warranty replacement and now this one is dead as well. On top of that my amp, an Eclipse PA5422, is also dying. So much for long-lasting gear. 🙁 Eclipse have great SQ while it lasts but the build quality is utter crap.

When I can scrape up the cash my deck will get replaced by an Alpine, probably the CDA-9884 or 9886. It might not sound quite as good as the Eclipse but the build quality is good, and more importantly the ergonomics don't suck. My Eclipse deck was a fucking nightmare to use, mostly due to the idiotic button and function design.

No, I'm not bitter at all. 😀
 
Originally posted by: AlexWade
I love my Pioneer head unit. What I like best about it is the Premier series has "Premier" displayed boldly, but Pioneer is hard to find. Who wants to steal a Premier brand of car stereo? That sounds like a Wal-Mart brand. As another perk, the Premier series has a longer warranty, higher pre-amp voltage, and usually costs the same or less as the non-Premier series.
Click to expand...

Pioneer DEH-P9300. I <3 mine.
 
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