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View Full Version : What headunit?



gazz
30-01-2010, 07:59 PM
Whats headunits are everyone using?

I origonally had a pioneer system that was in the car from Japan.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v102/gazz200581/vr4/vr4001.jpg

I removed it and fitted a single din jvc unit with a cubby hole tray to fill the slot when the car was up for sale, but now I'm keeping it Ive decided to put something else in.

I see alot of double din tv, dvd units on ebay for under £200. Has anyone had any experience with these or is just worth sticking with a good quality single din?

Beastlee
30-01-2010, 08:13 PM
I wasn't too fussed by the video side of things and got a JVC iPod model, R901. It is excellent for what I need and has front and rear USB ports with a USB bluetooth module.
The question of the cheap HUs on ebay has been brought up before and the same thing is mentioned each time...you get what you pay for. The audio quality is not as good but at least it does all the stuff you could want. I wouldn't expect much to happen if it breaks, which it's more likely to.

I would always say get a branded unit over a chinese all you could want including the kitchen sink.

John TheAntique
30-01-2010, 09:54 PM
As I've said before I am delighted with my Korean? radio.
, cd, dvd, sat nav, bluetooth hands free etc. Been in for 18 months with no problems whatsoever but--------------------------it doesn't do the washing up

gazz
30-01-2010, 09:59 PM
I just feel that because mitsubishi went to the trouble to provide a double din space I ought to put one in, I just cant find anything thats any good without spending a fortune!

Beastlee
30-01-2010, 11:09 PM
I take advantage of the din space holder to store my EBC remote. :)

Turbo_Steve
30-01-2010, 11:22 PM
I still want a PC in mine :)

giblet
31-01-2010, 01:28 PM
The display on my kenwood stereo is buggered, as in the aux socket. Then again its 2 years old and has been in 5 other cars in that time. Im tempted to buy an all singing all dancing double din ebay jobbie, but are they really worth the risk?

Turbo_Steve
31-01-2010, 01:41 PM
Well, given what a comparable unit costs......probably yes, TBH.

You need to carefully study the feature set to ensure it's actually going to do what you want.

They generally don't all have phone-book transfer (for example) so bluetooth linking your phone results in incoming calls just displaying as numbers unless you update the phone book yourself.

I've not heard one to comment on the sound quality. I'd be willing to bet it would equal a kenwood, but fall short of the "best-of-breed" products.

The Windows-CE based systems (which most of them are) generally conform to the basic Microsoft specs anyway, so there isn't that much varience between them: there are a limited number of chipsets out there, so it mainly comes down to how good the DAC is, and how good the user interface is.

And which movie formats it will support (which are invariably not the ones I want!)

Atik
31-01-2010, 02:34 PM
I bought one of those all-inclusive eBay Chinese jobbies and managed to get lucky. Got it installed and everything to find that it would not play ANY mp3 files, from any media! It was advertised as being able to, so I got a refund and as the return was listed at sellers expense, he said to keep it, So I have one of those units in the cellar.

Audio quality is passable, radio cannot hold frequency that well, and regularly jumps to look for the best frequency. DVD playback is ok I guess. Bluetooth worked fine with my old Sony Ericsson W810i, bluetooth audio and mic worked quite well.

However the OS display etc was HORRENDOUS! Spelling errors in the main menus and options and titles for options that boggle the mind. Almost like those cheap intsallation manuals you get sometime with cheap products.

I probably could have run it for a few months if the mp3s had worked, but I ended up buying a decent second hand all-inclusive branded product which has now seen me through over a year and a half without any issues at all.

Ultimately if you are happy with it, then thats all that matters!

giblet
31-01-2010, 02:54 PM
Ah well, single din branded unit it is then. I need one that plays music from a usb flash drive and bluetooth for calls. Never really been much of an audiophile, but my car has upgraded front and rear sony speakers it seems so might as well get a stereo that makes them sound half decent. Any suggestions?

Turbo_Steve
31-01-2010, 03:16 PM
You could go for the Pioneer double-din unit? No video playback or Nav, just quality audio. Nev has one :)

Beastlee
31-01-2010, 03:40 PM
Ah well, single din branded unit it is then. I need one that plays music from a usb flash drive and bluetooth for calls. Never really been much of an audiophile, but my car has upgraded front and rear sony speakers it seems so might as well get a stereo that makes them sound half decent. Any suggestions?

If those are your requirements I really rate the JVC KD-R901, http://jvcmobile.co.uk/product.php?pr=180, it has twin USB ports, iPod direct USB compatibility, a bluetooth dongle that can be put in the front or rear port as suits. It supports contact transfer and the sound is fanstastic. Price is between £125 and £200 depending on where you buy, ignore the JVC pricing.

giblet
31-01-2010, 07:04 PM
If those are your requirements I really rate the JVC KD-R901, http://jvcmobile.co.uk/product.php?pr=180, it has twin USB ports, iPod direct USB compatibility, a bluetooth dongle that can be put in the front or rear port as suits. It supports contact transfer and the sound is fanstastic. Price is between £125 and £200 depending on where you buy, ignore the JVC pricing.

That looks decent, and the option to chance the backlight is nifty. Will keep an eye out on ebay for one. Thanks!

WizardKing
31-01-2010, 07:09 PM
Trying to save money (or is it just cut corners?), I bought a single din DVD player with folding screen from Maplins. It was £200 of wasted money, though. It started to lose functionality after about seven months (the motorised screen broke a few teeth off within 2 months and had to be 'helped' back in.)

I then had to bite the bullet and put a decent Kenwood unit in. the best thing is that you can throw DivX, mp3, Bluetooth audio and even plug an external hard-drive in,via one of the two USB ports, and it'll play them.

Buying cheap often means buying twice (or more) as they say !

gazz
31-01-2010, 11:25 PM
I do agree with the idea of you get what you pay for, but I also believe the 'branded' items are sometimes vastly overpriced. I'd really like a decent double din unit, but not for £500+

Turbo_Steve
01-02-2010, 12:11 AM
Given that every Kenwood device I have ever owned has failed me within 3 weeks of the warranty expiring, and also that I have consistently removed expensive Kenwoods to replace them with cheap Pioneers that have sounded a lot better, I am firmly of the belief that branded doesn't mean best.

Kenwood have awesome feature sets - their latest stuff integrates well with a lot of kit. It just doesn't sound the price IMO.

giblet
01-02-2010, 12:16 AM
My kenwood unit failed after a year and a half of use and abuse. Then again I only paid £70 for it, so it served me well. All the cars I used it in had stock speakers, and whilst the sound wasnt great, it was alright. How hard would it be to wire an amp and a sub in the bootwell? Might as well get that sorted if I am getting a new headunit

Atik
01-02-2010, 12:34 AM
I'm a big fan of Kenwood. Had a Kenwood all singing all dancing £2,500.00 setup in my Corolla! Awesome piece of trickery for its time. Since I've been driving, I have had an array of Kenwood, Pioneer, Alpine and Sony. But I cant compare then as they were not like-for-like products. Only the Kenwoods have been top of the range items, and the others have been budget end items, and I couldnt really see/hear/feel the difference in the low budget range. I now have a Kenwood double din all singing all dancing one that has served me well. I've never had my stereos fail on me (except the cheap Chinese one I bought) so cannot comment of brand reliabilities.

Beastlee
01-02-2010, 09:23 AM
Heidi has a Clarion single din 7" unit that cost £325, it's the latest model and works well but doesn't have Sat-Nav or bluetooth, the sat nav is another £600!

Turbo_Steve
01-02-2010, 09:52 AM
I'd just like to add that a Kenwood is still my weapon of choice when making a fruit smoothie :D :D :D :D :D :D :D


Atik's point regarding price point is a valid one: I am being unfair to the high-end Kenwood stuff, which is good kit, and extremely feature rich. It's still not as detailed as the competition IMO, however it's a lot more subjective at this price point (I'm thinking specifically of the DNX-724x which I auditioned against the Pioneer AVIC-900BT thingy recently...and an alpine IVA-W502R) where the Pioneer just edged it for me.

Interestingly, the unit that blew all the others away was actually a BlauPunkt MP68, though it's utterly lacking in any other features. Sounded lovely, though: smooth but detailed.


The best for me is still the old Nakimichi MB-75 (I think it was called). My god that sounded lovely.

swinks
01-02-2010, 11:41 PM
Other day I did search for any branded option with stereo (multi format), dvd/avi, tv tuner, sat-nav inclusive.
Hard choice, but finally realised that full set of Alpine would do best. Advantages? Quite plenty used stuff on eBay, you can built yourself what you want. Great quality (had Alpine in the past).
Disadvantages? You have to purchase separate boxes (head unit, tv tuner, sat-nav, dvd player).
Whatever, due to lack of decent funds, went for some cheap branded solution (not a chinese!).

bigsed
02-02-2010, 03:45 PM
I went for this one:
http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/products/25/121/61/FH-P80BT/index.html

Ok so it doesn't have the most amazing dancing graphics display, but it looks like it belongs in the car, and the bluetooth integration is excellent. The BT audio is excellent, and it can even play the voice commands off copilot on my phone. It supports hard discs with up to 250gb of music on too :)

Turbo_Steve
02-02-2010, 05:45 PM
Turbo_Steve approves of this headunit :D :D :D

WizardKing
02-02-2010, 10:05 PM
How the heck are you meant to watch a film on it, whilst driving ???

But seriously (for a brief moment), that does look a very smart fascia. It reminds me of a home-system style I like, think it's called anodised, brushed-aluminium finish. Never seen it used for in-car equipment before, though. Cool !

GoldenDragoon
03-02-2010, 10:28 PM
I have one of these....

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Kenwood-In-Car-DVD-5.1-Sound-System---DDX8047_W0QQitemZ280438555716QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ 20091215?IMSfp=TL091215157001r20211

I've had it for a few years now and it has been good. It was the top of the line unit and supposedly the best picture at one stage but for me it was a decent price for what I wanted. I have been using PDA's for years now and for the last couple they have had video out which I have hooked up to one of the video inputs. this has given me music and video straight off the PDA which also has navigation.

I always tell everyone these days that if you can't plug your phone or ipod into your stereo you are missing out badly. CD's are sooooooooo yesterday.

davcom1
03-02-2010, 10:51 PM
Gazz - I bought a double-din 8" screen "eonon" from a China-based Ebayer and have to say it was PANTS!

The radio "function" was simply a blue screen with 6 station numbers. (Think Sinclair Spectrum at best if you're old enough to remember them!)

DVD playback was ok but cannot say I want to watch "Deathrace" while driving!

TV was poor and bare in mind that most have analogue tuners which aren't much use in our digital TV age.

Mine also has a GPS unit with 2Gb card. The included software wasn't good so I managed to get iGO to install. This was the best part of the system but the GPS box stopped working after a week.

Newer models may be better quality and perhaps have improved interface but don't expect too much.

I've now installed my own build PC using an Intel Atom mobo and good 8" touchscreen from LinITX.com The motherboard and dongles fit behind the screen in the dash - gives me web cam recording to the front, reversing cam at the back, Garmin satnav, MP3/AVI etc, EvoScan, bluetooth, USB, Internet, Centrafuse etc etc. Getting decent radio on the PC is the biggest problem.

gazz
04-02-2010, 12:05 AM
yes I'm very familiar with the spectrum! To be honest I have been looking at the eanon one, needless to say I wont be anymore!

davcom1
04-02-2010, 12:36 AM
Gazz - Don't get me wrong, these things do achieve a lot for the money. As mentioned, mine was an older model (0853 from memory). They seem to bring a new model out every week! The reliability seems very hit and miss.

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews147960.html

The manufacturer's site is http://www.sbo2.com

And they have a forum too - http://forum.eonon.com/

This video (with a sad sounding commentary) covers the model I had http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c765s3Rzh2k

BUT - I have to say that the newer models do look to have better graphical displays. Perhaps do a net search for the model number you are interested in..

Turbo_Steve
04-02-2010, 12:52 AM
DavCom - how is the PC at handling BlueTooth hands-free and phone-book transfer from mobile?

davcom1
04-02-2010, 08:18 AM
Steve - the irony is that I don't know! I'm only using the Bluetooth for communication with a solar GPS unit. I guess that it will only be as good as the software used for the frontend.

http://www.centrafuse.com/CentrafuseAuto.aspx - You can download a 30 day trial of the software and install on a desktop/laptop although I use the previous version and I couldn't say for sure that the Bluetooth module will be enabled. You'll also need a suitable dongle.

gazz
04-02-2010, 09:41 PM
This is the one i had been looking at, seems to have a good specification and can be bought for £160 if prepared to wait for it to be delivered from Hong Kong.

http://b2b.eonon.com/details.aspx?pro_id=914&product_no=D2202

elnevio
04-02-2010, 09:47 PM
I went for this one:
http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/products/25/121/61/FH-P80BT/index.html

Ok so it doesn't have the most amazing dancing graphics display, but it looks like it belongs in the car, and the bluetooth integration is excellent. The BT audio is excellent, and it can even play the voice commands off copilot on my phone. It supports hard discs with up to 250gb of music on too :)
This is indeed a most excellent head unit. And it is agreed that the Bluetooth is also most excellent. /yes

davcom1
05-02-2010, 12:51 AM
Gazz - the spec looks good and the interface looks a lot better than the old machines!

I'm not sure how useful an analogue TV tuner is going to be? It would be nice to have one with the GPS unit too as mine was fairly easy to upgrade (the nav software) because it was WinCE based.

I think I originally paid £160 for mine old model a couple of years ago so price wise, it is hard to ignore. Down to you I guess! Good luck!

KiwiTT
05-02-2010, 01:20 AM
I was in the same dilemma (see thread (http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30865) ).

What I wanted was a good quality double-din unit, but was easy to use. Teh DVD types were overkill.

davcom1
05-02-2010, 10:03 AM
I have a nice JDM Pioneer with triple mini disc, CD & radio in the garage... large display with LED dolphins and stuff! Also has 6 CD changer...

swinks
05-02-2010, 01:45 PM
This is the one i had been looking at, seems to have a good specification and can be bought for £160 if prepared to wait for it to be delivered from Hong Kong.

http://b2b.eonon.com/details.aspx?pro_id=914&product_no=D2202

IMO... DON'T do it!
Nothing different than other chinese gizzmos. Just improved GUI. But still radio reception is very poor quality.
I think it's running iGO sat-nav.

WizardKing
05-02-2010, 04:16 PM
It isn't running ANY sat-nav !
Doesn't have the hardware nor software.

swinks
05-02-2010, 10:36 PM
It isn't running ANY sat-nav !
Doesn't have the hardware nor software.

Ooops, some "eonons" have.../pale

WizardKing
06-02-2010, 01:31 PM
Probably only temporarily, though !

Is their brand name an abbreviation of their intention to hide from customer-returns by remaining "anon"ymous ?

burunduklover
27-02-2010, 04:24 AM
Whats sad is that we are still building in this old outdated model all over the country, in fact this has become standard.
Has anyone seen the new re-modeled Pavillions in Weho? What do you think?

MarkSanne
27-02-2010, 03:04 PM
After someone stole the Pioneer AVIC-HD3BT headunit from the Legnum, I've bought a chinese all-in-one marvel. It does GPS, radio, MP3, USB, bluetooth, DVD, reverse cam and even WiFi, Word, Excel, everthing you can with a PC.

And after not even 2 weeks: it's out again and sold. Audio-settings are (too) limited to treble/bass/loudness/balance/fader. Audio quality is a 6.5 at best. Ipod-connectivity works, but not 100%, radio reception is quite poor, GUI is not all bad, but very basic. GPS works (but startup is slow), WiFi works but slow. Switching between functions and response from the system is slow. Bluetooth carkit functions are extremely limited (just being able to receive phonecalls). Switching between different functions which you would expect (like while listening to radio, the GPS voice is mixed with the radio sound). And I can go on and on. It all works, but not at the level I want it (probably spoiled with the Pioneers the we have/had). No chinese headunit for me ever again. I'm now saving up for a 2nd hand Pioneer again.

Atik
27-02-2010, 03:48 PM
Thats the point I made in the other thread not so long ago. The cheapo jobbies will all do the job, but not to the level you may expect.

Turbo_Steve
27-02-2010, 06:49 PM
That's always my worry: I reckon some of them must be pretty good (if nothing else the range of prices must indicate some differences in component quality) but you run the risk that the one you choose may be a big bag of pants.