What headunit?

[gazz]

Whats headunits are everyone using?

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



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]

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]

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]

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]

I take advantage of the din space holder to store my EBC remote.

[Turbo_Steve]

I still want a PC in mine

[giblet]

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]

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]

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]

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]

You could go for the Pioneer double-din unit? No video playback or Nav, just quality audio. Nev has one

[Beastlee]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

I'd just like to add that a Kenwood is still my weapon of choice when making a fruit smoothie


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.