Who in your opinion is the "Best Headunit Manufacturer?"

 

Alpine, Kenwood, Pioneer


Sony is POS

 

have to agree with un4givin, man i wish i didn't buy my sony, man if i knew then what i know now...

 

send me your email adress, i see your in Va, I'm working on putting together a thridgen fboyd asocation for Virginians

 

I like JVC

 

I love my Excelon. The pioneer was good, but had the visual bells and whistles that i didnt need. My Kenwood has double the signal voltage and 3 pre-outs as opposed to 2.

 

clarion and eclipse are by far the best.....

 

I cant wait to try pioneers new DEX-P9 it looks like a sweet deck and as of right now pioneer is my favorite deck.

 

Why what happend wit your SONY?

 

Ok, on the Eclipse brand, certain models are good, but some really blow. My friend bought a Eclipse head unit, and it blows, skips all the time, doesn't pick up good signal, and it is brand new, been cleaned, etc. They are pretty good though, I like JVC, Alpine, Kenwood is pretty good, and Panasonic.

 

I like my clairion in my trans am, I'm gonna put a kenwood in my camaro when I get it running. from what I've heard and seen they are good ones.

 

I just went from a Kenwood Excelon to an Alpine. I aways used Kenwoods Headunits so I thought I'd try something different. The Alpine seems to be alittle brighter IMO. And my Alpine has never skipped on me yet

 

It skips like crazy, the harnesses are cheap, low preamp voltage, no sub output, built in EQ sucks,time displayed is smaller than the fingernail on my pinky finger...shall i go on?

 

Same with me. My Sony Mobile ES deck broke 3 times within a year. So much for quality.

 

The new convertalbe I bought has a new JVC HU......IT SUCKS SO BAD Compared to my 1995 ( ) Alpine Unit. I think everyone knows what swap I am about to perform.

 

I can't stop laughign every time I see that avartar, its a good one

 

IMO the Sony's are just ugly. They've taken on this red theme that's on nearly every car audio product they sell. I like red but geeez that's just overboard.

 

the best companies are Nakamichi (by far), Alpine, and Exclipse. However, the name does not always mean quality. some of the less expensive models by these companies are just as bad as some of the companies. When i had my Kenwood, it was a great HU, but I also paid a little extra to get something nice. Right now I'm stuck with a Sony Xplod HU that the previous owner left in here. Since I've spent all my money on the rest of my system, I can't upgrade. But make the best of what ya got.

 

Rockford Fosgate, but I'm totally biased

I just can't get enough of my RFX8350! No problems, no complaints. Underrated deck manufacturer, if you ask me.

 

I had a Sony Xplod 750X model. I found it do skip a bit It was never mounted right in the first place into my S10 so i sold it to my buddy when i sold my truck. Works great in his car. However it didn't have 4V preouts which is what i really want. So last week a car audio store around my area was having a new years blow-out and i picked up a Alpine 7873 V-drive deck, a Rockford 500.2 and they threw in the beauty cover to put my 2 amps together all in all a christmas bonus well spent. As for the deck, I had been eyeing it up for quite some time. These are excellent decks. I think they are skip-free as i've never seen it skip yet and they have a true 4V RMS preout(which is what want so i can hook up a EQ and get 4V pre-outs going to all my amplifiers)

 

I've never heard of Nakamichi so, I really can't compare. I know ther are plenty of high end units that cost more by themselfs than my whole car,but those are no good for the average guy. Alpine never fails to get the job done,time after time I've been Impressed with alpine,they come standard w/4v pre-out most have BBE,the newer ones are.....insane! I put one in my sister's car and used the "sub-out" for the dual 12" rockford's (old school punch) the alpine fronts and polk db rears were powered off of the deck and sounded perfect...possibly the best system I've ever installed!! especially since the Alpine 7863 (guessing) was the only new item....the rest was all "hand me downs". I was impressed because the unit costed $275 and out preformed radios costing hundreds more. at first,my sister said they all sounded the same,she was glad I talked her into the alpine because "it's the only one were you can really HEAR the music when it's cranked up!" damn right!

 

Since this basically comes down to a matter of opinion....

These are some of my all time favs in no particular order...

Clarion 9255
McIntosh (modified Clarion 9255)
Alpine 7909
Eclipse 5302
Pioneer full ODR set
Pioneer P1R
High end Denon (I forget the model number)
High end Nakamichi (again, forget the model number)
Sony C90

For more moderately priced decks...

Alpine mid level
Kenwood Excelon
Panasonic DF801

The panasonic honestly is a very good sounding and good quality deck that is often under rated because many people can't deal with the silver face and bright blue lights. I have personaly A/B'd this deck side by side with some of the larger name decks and for half the cost you get near the same sound and build quality.

I personally use my Clarion 9255 and my Wife's car has an Eclipse 5302 and I love both of them for their particular uses.

 

Those are pretty well strictly professional decks no avg person would ever need them or afford any of them. All they serve for me is to get rid any extra saliva in mouth as i stare and drool. Junkyarddog you must mean a 7873. Alpine doesn't make a 7863. Especially if it has 4v pre-outs cause its teh 7871+ line that has it. It's an awesome deck though. I would not trade mine for anything. Well that's a lie!

 

Well, topic just said best head unit manufacturer...nothing about price points

 

I was thinking of this one Sony one I found, it looks way better than all the other Sonys. It somewhat symmetrical nice design, silver, its the Sony CDX-L350 Cd Receiver. I was honestly ready to buy it, but you guys started saying Sony is terrible, so what should I do get a Kenwood, or this Sony one <a href="http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-PVpfSgP3agc/prodview.asp?I=158CDXL350&s=0">Check out here.</a> Recommend any specific models, I want a good with close to 200 watts, and less than 200 bucks like 180bucks and down, whatcha think?

 

I think you are smoking the pipe alittle to much. No one makes a Head unit that puts out 200watts let alone 100. If they did we wouln't need amps.

And don't except to find anything of the quality it sounds like you want for the prices you named.

Kenwood & Pioneer are you best beats though for your price range.

 

I hate the Sony deck that ive got in my car, & the one in my moms is **** too, wont play burnt cd's; wont even play store bought CD's half the time, and its less than a year old!!!

I still have an old (10years at least) clarion cassette deck that still keeps truckin along; Id definately buy another one.

The local stereo shop swears by Panasonic; so does my uncle he's had 3 in 2 different vehicles (one was ripped off cause he left on the faceplate)

 

Smokin the pipe? you couldn't be any more wrong, don't even try that ****. And the Sony one I'm talking about has 50 peak watts per channel, which is 4. Now I don't have to tell you how to multiply those two numbers also do I? ...fine 200! I could easily get a better sounding head unit stereo than stock, for under 200. I picked up a good Sony, I chose it, for my mom/dads car, like 3 years ago, it has a tape player, its excellent, still running fine. I gave yas the link, check it out tell me what you think, and this one has a feature to play CD-R/RW discs.

 

Doesn't look too bad as far as Sony's go....not the deck I would put in my car...but hey we all have our own preferences ;-)

Don't expect this deck to be pushing 50 watts per channel....it will barely hit max power unless you crank it up ALL the time...even then....you probably still won't be maxing it.

It's only got 23 watts RMS....so it's not going to drive any decent speakers very well. You'd be better off picking up a small amp and a pre-out deck. I never use the deck's power...I always slap an amp in....

 

I still have my stock speakers, they sound alright, could be better of course, but I helped my friend install a cd player in his truck and the tape player in my mom/dads car, and just by putting in an aftermarket stereo head unit, it sounded much better than with the stock one, much better. I 'm just looking for a good CD player, I'm not into getting amps, speakers, and stuff like that, I don't really have that much money, and if I did I would spend it on performance mods. I just need to have the speakers actually react to bass/treble settings, stock unit hardly does, and be able to hear my music. I'm not looking to blow out windows of a car at a stop light a mile away from me, if ya kno what I'm sayin.

 

Integrated head unit amplifier ratings are mostly bs. To achieve their ratings they use tricks such as driving each channel seperatly, instead of all of them at once. They also advertise their max ratings; most head units put out 20-22 watts RMS, for a reason. Head units do not use power transformers, due to their size and expense. Therefore, their maximum output voltage is 12 volts (or whatever your car runs at). Power = V^2 / R = 144 / 4 = 36 watts. Factor in about 65% efficiency and you have about 23 watts. So without the use of a power transformer, a head unit is not going to deliver 200 real watts. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.

- Mike

 

Read the first few pages of my Amplifier Basics tech article. You can find it here...http://www.caraudioresources.net/technical.shtml

This is a pretty simple explination of how amps and power supplies work and it explains the limitations of head unit amps and such.

 

I have the Alpine 7863 HU and love it lots! Altho that BBE button at night is as bright as my headlights. It carries about the same features as the Excelons which is what I had before. As for voltage. It has 2 preouts - 1 front 2-volt and 1 rear 2-volt or 4-volt Sub preout. I just bought a Clarion EQS750 EQ and it has 6-volt preouts so that should fix that problem. I was going to buy an Audio Control EQX but there are no dealers in my area. I talked to this one guy at a shop here and he said he could get me one for $330.00 and I was like "Don't think so!". I'm gonna wait till I get my Credit Cards paid down(from Christmas ) And then I'm gonna order one off the net for $260.00.