ok i need to prove to my friend why she should buy pioneer or almost anything for that matter over a sony deck....keep in mind these are more the lower line ones...feel free to rant and rave and giuve your honest opinion

every sony head unit Ive ever had (cd or tape) has sucked and given me problems, pioneer is hands down bang for the buck material, I got my first pioneer last year and I love it.

sony xplode lives up to its name. their stuff is all show and no go. i also dont fell they are very user friendly. i work w/ them on an almost daily basis, so i can vouch for their crappyness. go w/ a pioneer or kenwood.

jacob

i had a cheap sony and it was total crap, i didnt like it at all.

i would buy one of the lower model pioneers for sure...its almost impossible to get them to skip

The Pioneer deck in my RS is 5 years old and STILL doesn't skip a beat on rough gravel roads. I've never seen a Sony hold up as well, and have heard only bad things about the Xplode decks.

sony does suck but i think their are better head units out there then SOME of the poineers. SOME!

The Pioneer in my car is almost 11yrs old. Still plays really good.

Pioneer rules, it's whats in my car, it's whats in my home.

I've had both Pioneer & Clarion Decks.. I like them equally ... Never had a problem with either.. If I where to by another though I would probably go back to Pioneer. (Got a Clarion now)

Get the lowest model Alpine, and don't look back.

I love my KDC-X559. Tell her to go with a Kenwood eXcelon or an Alpine deck. You get what you pay for!!!

i love pioneer but they can't hold a candle to the JVC as far as long life in rough service my blaze was a fleet vehicle with a 9 year old JVC in it and it was far better than the pioneer i had in the s-10

i've had great luck with JVC and Pioneer both i would reccommend either one for a person on a budget

maybe the old jvc stuff was good, but the newer lower end stuff sucks balls. go with pioneer.

I have had three pioneer head units, i have hatted them all. The pre out signal was pathetic on all of them. I replaced my old one with a Kenwood excelon flip screen ,black mask whatever its called. Anyway the kenwood is much better.

Alpine forever

when you want a real head unit, look into eclipse. clean, durable, great pre-out power, user friendly, 3 year warranty, 1 year theft replacement.

IMO, best head units around.


adam

let her get a sony, when it burns out for no good reason after a few months of use, she will probably take your advice at that time. If I had a nickle for every sony i saw XPLODE!.... I would own Sony and fix thier retarded car audio line!

Pioneers will give good sound without an amp, but they do have a low voltage pre-out, Alpines have 4volt pre-outs. I think some of the pioneers have been providing 4 volt signals, check the stats.

I think a Pioneer will do the trick, they are bang for thier buck, decent sound. Clarion and Eclipes will definitly rock.

I went through the same thing with my sister, she wanted a sony X-plode to match her red BMW. I couldn't convince her, I asked the sales guy for assistance...he backed me up...ALPINE!!! My sister is glad I convinced her that 'they don't all sound the same' and that Alpine sounds like a home theater system, powering the speakers without an amp on HP, and using the LP pre-out to power some old beat up rockford subs, the box even has cardboard tube ports! It sounds great!

That was in 2000, it was a $275 unit 78XX, somthing.

LP adjustable 80hz,100Hz,120Hz pre out

BBE and a few different sound features, angle adjustable face to reduce sun glare....very nice, I have to reset all the settings whenever I go home, She always forgets how to keep it tuned...read the manual!


I had an Alpine at one time, it was great, it broke alot, but it was warrantied and i bought it open box at CC, I've never heard of anyone else's Alpine breaking, "I must've got a bad egg" one installer told me, who had a few alpines still funtional after 20 years!

I have a Skipwood in my car now, a freebie from some install work I did, it sounds ok, but has sucky sound features, only bass,trebel and 'loud' KFC-xxx something or other.

My personal preference is Alpine

If she goes Sony, tell her to prepare for major skippage

pioneer is the only deck i will buy...

i would take a sony deck for free for something to practice aiming my pee..

pioneer :hail: :hail: :hail:

All I gotta say is Alpine. Next deck I buy is gonna be 320.00 and believe me Im sure as hell gonna get what I pay for. 3 pre outs, bass adjustment, subwoofer preout and mp3 youve gotta love it!!!! ALPINE!!!!

I wouldnt get a sony deck. However I have the sony octagons. I dunno how you guys feel about them but Ive had 2 12s for a while and theyre banging pretty good along with my 1000 watt max amp. (i know max dont mean ****) I forgot the rms.

nate

I have a Kenwood, Works very very nice. I also like the clarion and alpine stuff, they hold up excelent

I would stay away from sony I work at a car audio store and we had too many problems with sony (warranty took forever and or they wouldn't repair under warranty) so we quit carrying sony. I would get an alpine cd player but that's my personal preference

OK-

After reading all the replies to this topic, I guess I am the only person who has ever had good luck with Sony audio equipment. I have had my Sony deck (not one of the real cheap ones, $400 is what I spent) for three years now. Not once have I skipped a beat. It has three-preamps, a ghost face-plate, remote control, everything all you pioneer decks have. I have not only used it in my 88 rs, but in my town car, thunderbird, and monte carlo. I never had a problem in any of my cars.

Now you can't have a good deck and not have speaker to go with them. I have 2 Sony 6"x9"s powered by a "cheap" amp (1 of 2 pieces of equipment not Sony). Never had a problem. I actually have run into prolems with my Kenwood 6"x9"s. Front speakers I left stock, just because I channel all music to behind me.

I also have had several configurations of my 4 12" Sony xPlode subs, and my other piece of non-Sony equipment, 1 10"lightning audio bolt sub, and 2 1000W Sony xPlode amps.

I have finally burned out one amp, after three years of torturous use. And that doesn't bother me in the least.

I have done all my own audio work including building all of my own sub boxes and amp racks. I also do my own neon lights.

And (for those that might be interested) here's my best ever configuration. I did this in my 88 rs. I mounted that 10" lightning audio sub way down in the cargo area and powered it with the amp that I now run my 6"x9"s with. Then I used all 4 os my Sony xPlodes and mounted them right where everyone puts there boxes, over the cargo area, and I ran my box all the way to to flush with the back seat. I then "carved out" two spots inside the back of the back seat as a place to hold the 2 Sony mps. I had the remote turn-on wire leading to the Sony amps, wired through switch. So I could use them only when I needed to. And when I needed to was the best part. I would be sitting at a red light with the 1 10" pounding and someone else would pull up along side of my and turn up their bass. I would just look at them and flip the switch. And look for the expression on their face. I would then proceed to light 'em up at the green and leave those darn Civics in my dust.

i worked in car installation at best buy and we all agree...

Sony Sucks!

If i had a penny for every Sony Headunit I've replaced I would be able to melt them all down and make a giant cube of death with tank treads on it and go rampaging about the city blowing things up!

Sheesh!

dont go with sony!!! but i'de never recomend someone to go with pioneer either. my pioneer was crap!!! i sent it back to be fixed 5 FRIGGIN TIMES IN 8 MONTHS!!! ahhhhh, well it never did completly get fixed but i always have crappy luck. i got a mid level alpine and have never had a problem. i never had problems with the sony that came with the car except it skipped alot... but it never sounded good either.

go with alpine

My buddy just bought a sony Xplode headunit for his Escort. Only reason he got it was the price of 140$ cdn. At first I was like "oh cool should be good" cuz my buddy has a Sony head unit in his tempo and its been holding out awesome. We installed this head unit in his escort and DAMN!! what a piece of junk. Skips on the slightest of bumps. If you are driving on a gravel road the head unit literally crashes and spits out the CD and powers off. I have a kenwood in my Tempo. Had it for 4 years now and its never done me wrong.

Hey, I think Sony XPlod rules!!!

j/k

I have only heard horror stories about their stuff, skips, burns, randomly dies... etc.

I have a 2 year old JVC deck and I love it, never skips, great features, and it was only $199!

Thats a sweet deck for sure.

Yeah Sony picked a good name for their line of car audio. Xplode is the only thing that it doesn't do....yet

The sony I have rules. It should, though, it's the cdx-c910. Retailed for 900 bucks. It never skips and sounds absolutely mint. I have the equalizer\processor too, the 210eq, which i also love. Good parts are always worth the money.

Well for that price I hope it performs.

The one my buddy bought was a cheap 160$ deck. The Kenwood I bought was a 200$ deck. My 200$ deck never skips compared to his 160$ deck that skips if you accidentaly break air. However for a 900$ head unit, it better not skip or someone would most definately hear about it

ive owned a sony xplode deck for about a year and a half now, and it hasn't skipped once. I ahve had absolutely 0 problems with them so far. Boughty for $140.00 canadian NEW


While my friend has owned a pioneer deck for the same length of time, and his skips and it doesn't light up anymore. Bought for 179.99 Canadian NEW

hey guys


I have always like pioneer stuff. It just don't die.lol

Any of you guys remember when the double din style radios were popular for GM and Chryler cars. well i have one in my camaro and it's about a 91-92 model it's a DEH40DH \. this this has killer cd sound and it play the CDr's with no problems and the nice things about it is you can't make it skip.

It's a dinosaur campared to all other things but it's still playin and i'm still rocking


In the above pics i like the idea of puting a speaker in the center of the dash. I wonder how it would sound with like dolby 5.1 surround sound?

hehehe..well thanks guys....from this post she decided to get the 2nd from the bottom alpie..it sounds real nice

i got a jvc cost 100 bucks new it works lol thats all that matters aint been able to road test it.

had a junk extreme sound played 10 times maybe n stoped workin.

pioneer stuf is great cheap or not they work i got 6x9s the middle ones fomr wal amrt they arent the cheapiest they had and not the rev series they are great sound good and put out *** bass before i got my subs, cant hear them now puttin out bass subs do that too wel now.

had a pioneer 25 disk home system was aweomse shake whole house and ratle windows only problem we had was lil aem lifts cd in place after about 5 yrs of usin it it messed up and we glued it back n worked but never got around to replace it.

For those who stood up for sony here, do keep in mind, just because a products has a bad rep does not mean there will never be a person that has had a heavenly experience with the product.

The idea here is that most of the time sony's product fails in one way or another more often than the other products it is being compared to.

If every single product sony released died all the time, there would be a few things happening. Sony would lose so much money in warranty repairs and returns that it would discontinue the line, and I am sure there are legal reprocusions for releasing a product that does not work.

Yes, I hate sony, I had a 600$ deck that skipped every time I hit any bump at all, it hated burnt CD's and it was rather complicated to use. Keeping in mind you are actually supposed to be focusing on driving not on using your deck.

Mind you when it did work, the 5.5V preouts were very nice.

I have a 250$ pioneer deck now which has only failed me once, thats when I was in a hurry and increadibly stupid, and I plugged the wire harness into the deck with the car running which of course fried the deck. (Good futureshop no questions warranty repaired it for free in a week)

But it has never skipped once, over cattleguards, dirt road, etc.

glad she took the alpine man!!!!!

ive never owned a sony explode deck but my bros gf has one and it overheats and cuts out alot...its cr@ppy!!!! i hate the deck my bro hates it and sometimes the dropdown faceplate doesnt always always stay closed when pushing it up. It was one of the more expencive sony decks at the time she got it...like 3-4yrs ago.

1st deck i bought new was pionner and i loved it sence then ive owned about 1other cdplayer and a tapedeck from them and everyones been great.

Ive also owned a refurbashed alpine and a few jvc kamilions all those were great products IMO (kamiloin face plate motor sometimes always didnt open when key turned on but it would the next time)
I now have a kenwood and love it its great ive had few of kenwoods in my time and they for the most part held up great too.