I really stick to brands that have always done me right over the years and my favorite for car audio head units is Panasonic. For just going and going and going they are hard to beat and generally inexpensive.
Well, I bought a used '95 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the Infinity Gold stereo cassette. I don't even own a cassette tape any more! So it has to go. I always wanted a head unit that did Sirius satellite radio. Of course I started looking at Panasonic units. To my surprise for 2004 Panasonic DROPPED the Sirius control feature from their line! But, they had it in the '03 line. Well, there are still some new '03 units to be had out there. So I will see if I can get ahold of one. I ran across this board poking around on the internet and this seem like a good place to be since I am considering adding a couple amps and a sub later on. I have not been into car audio much since the mid 90s. Things have really changed a lot. Not for the better I fear. It seems that there is more interest in ~BLinG!~ than good sound quality.
What are your favorite head units? We all have our brand loyaties from good/bad experances.
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Real High Fidelity........
or forget it.
Hi and welcome to the forum.
Asking for brand recomendation can be like discussing religion or politics. Everyone seems to have an opinion and many people will argue for one brand over another. I never understood this, actually, unless the person has something to gain. Some people will stand by a brand simply because they happen to own it and they don't want to look "wrong" for buying it (or in some cases usually caused by immaturity they simply like to brag.)
In any case, I generally recomend that people buy whatever sounds best to them and has whatever features are important to them and that fits their budget. I always recomend people stay away from low-end brands simply because it will ultimately not satisfy.
That being said, of brands currently available in the USA, my personal favorite heads are those from Nakamichi and Eclipse. Blaupunkt would be my personal next favorite. My wife loves her Panasonic head but I think it sounds too thin and processed (I have similar feelings about most gear I've listened to from Pioneer, Kenwood, Sony, JVC, Aiwa, Clarion, Rockford, Sanyo etc.) But at the same time, I've heard some significant improvements in the sound from higher-end offerings by Pioneer in the past year. Many people like the sound/feature mix of Alpine gear.
So, bottom line is if you like Panasonic and want features they offer, then go for it. Cheers!
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Support the12volt.comHey, thanks for the welcome :)
I really have to agree as far as overall sound quality of most affordable equipment. But in a car there is so much road noise (in my vehicle there is) and acoustic properties of a car's interior leaves much to be desired anyway. I leave my purest stuff for my home gear. Heck MOST people listen to MP3s encoded at 128K and think they sound great (PuKe!!) In my opinion it has to be at least 256K encoding and then they are sutable for background music. But I am pushing 40 and my ears are not what they use to be. The noise of driving really robs me the nuances in the music anyway. So in a car, just good features and reliability is a must.
I scored a Panasonic CQ-FDX883U yesterday NEW, not refurbed. Last year's model but it has Sirius satellite control like I wanted. Looking forward to getting it install!
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Real High Fidelity........
or forget it.
Well, got my Panasonic head unit in and it is a beauty! A CQ-DFX883U. Scored it on Ebay brand new for $159. I ordered 2 pair of Panasonic 6.5" speakers from Crutchfield (slow on shipping) for my Grand Cherokee because the factory speakers are shot, plus the necessary wiring harness for an easy install.
I then started doing some digging on the Sirius satellite radio stuff. The Panasonic tuner for this unit is out of production so I am hunting Ebay for it too. I is the CR-SRT100 tuner. Wish me luck!
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Real High Fidelity........
or forget it.
My favorite head unit out there is by Nakamichi. They are by far my favorite and i consider them to make the best head units ever! They make the CD-45z (My baby), CD700ii (Ungodly how good it is) and the new CD-400 which is fantastic as well! They are all fantastic head units but the best head unit is what your ear tells you, remember that!