Best Head unit features.
Thread Starter
One of the original OG's
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 1,429
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From: San Antonio, Texas
Best Head unit features.
Okay so, my four year old JVC head unit with remote got jacked. Insurance gave me $218.00 for (about what I paid four years ago with a serious discount). I want anew one and have found some good ones on ebay but what are some good features to look for? No SONY or PIONEER recomendations please. My first two decks were both of those and neither lasted as long as my JVC without something breaking.
hermit
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 6,421
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From: san diego
Clarion
Alpine
Eclipse
^^ Id recommend those brands. Alpine has the best looks in my opinion. All the models of each that compete in the same price range have pretty much the same features and specs. For $200 - $250 you can get a pretty nice head unit with remote, mp3, XM or Sirius ready, and preamp outputs, CD-R playing capability, removable face plate, and maybe a tilting face. Go out and look at some and see what you like.
Alpine
Eclipse
^^ Id recommend those brands. Alpine has the best looks in my opinion. All the models of each that compete in the same price range have pretty much the same features and specs. For $200 - $250 you can get a pretty nice head unit with remote, mp3, XM or Sirius ready, and preamp outputs, CD-R playing capability, removable face plate, and maybe a tilting face. Go out and look at some and see what you like.
Senior Member
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 128
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From: New Jersey
Once again I have a biased opinion I would go Alpine. Eclipse also rates very high and not as expensive as Alpine. It all depends on how good of an ear you have and how picky you are with sound.
If you are running your front speakers in your doors (like most people) you can look into headunits with digital time correction which allows a delay in the speakers which are further away from your ear so that it seems that they arrived at the same time.
Are you drawing power from the headunit or are you going directly to an amp? If you are going directly to an amp, you really dont need a built in amplifier. But you may need more pre-amp outputs.
It all depends on what your needs are
If you are running your front speakers in your doors (like most people) you can look into headunits with digital time correction which allows a delay in the speakers which are further away from your ear so that it seems that they arrived at the same time.
Are you drawing power from the headunit or are you going directly to an amp? If you are going directly to an amp, you really dont need a built in amplifier. But you may need more pre-amp outputs.
It all depends on what your needs are
0wnz YOU
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 44
Likes: 0
Alpine CDA9807. Got one installed yesterday in my new '04 Civic EX. 50Wx4 peak with 23Wx4 RMS power. Got 3 preamp outs. Even with no amp on stock speakers and wiring, this sucker is loud. Also plays MP3 and WMA. MX (Media Xpander) function brings out extra depth, especially with MP3s. All in all, this unit kicks major a$$ in my opinion.
