Headunits

Drowsy09

Coming from a car audio novice - any head unit would work with any setup correct? As long as you are wiring your mids and tweets to a seperate amp, correct?

Spef.

DUAL XDVD8182
http://www.dualav.com/indashvideo/xdvd8182.html

w/

2 MM2124SVC powered by a C500.1
2 db501's
2 db351's both powered by a C400.4

Greg Peters

Drowsy09 wrote: »

Coming from a car audio novice - any head unit would work with any setup correct? As long as you are wiring your mids and tweets to a seperate amp, correct?

Spef.

DUAL XDVD8182
http://www.dualav.com/indashvideo/xdvd8182.html

w/

2 MM2124SVC powered by a C500.1
2 db501's
2 db351's both powered by a C400.4

Will it work? Probably (for a little while). Will it sound good? Not likely.

Dual is a good brand of car audio to stay away from. It was once a proud European manufacturer of home audio, but the name was purchased a few years back specifically to be attached to awful car audio. If you haven't bought one, save yourself the trouble- you'd be far better off going with an entry-level Pioneer, Alpine, Eclipse, JVC, Panasonic, Kenwood or Clarion HU over any of those. That goes for Dual head units, amps, speakers and subs. They're styled to look flashy, but won't put out as decent a source signal as a basic name-brand head unit and aren't likely to last beyond the warranty period .

The better brands are known to last, will provide some decent sound quality, and are better designed to keep noise from entering the signal chain. One tip should you buy a Pioneer...make all connections with your battery disconnected, as they have an internal fuse that's easy to blow if you make your connections "hot" and you'll get alternator whine until you ground your outer RCAs or send the unit in for repair. You probably don't need any kind of install faux pas in order to get whine and other noise if you buy a Dual product. If you're stuck on buying a brand other than one of those mentioned, running it past some members of the forum first will help you avoid some 12V heartache .

eloplayspolo

dual blows... but i wouldnt say it will sound bad... just as long as the preouts are above 3v your good. why a dual though...its 449 bucks and not good, while i was at circuit city i saw a jensen one, that honestly wasnt too bad....http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?g=168550&i=110VM9412&tp=448


Installerforlife will know more about it then myself

Greg Peters

eloplayspolo wrote: »

dual blows... but i wouldnt say it will sound bad... just as long as the preouts are above 3v your good. why a dual though...its 449 bucks and not good, while i was at circuit city i saw a jensen one, that honestly wasnt too bad....http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?g=168550&i=110VM9412&tp=448


Installerforlife will know more about it then myself

I wouldn't spend money on Jensen either...

eloplayspolo

i never would have either... but apparently we never had a return, we called it bling on a budget.

black magic

I have a Panasonic deck thats about a year and a half or 2 years old now. I didn't think I actually wanted to spend a lot of money on a decent system in my car at that point. I was wrong. I don't really have anything bad to say about it. Ipod controls could have been a bit better I suppose, but I make my own playlists anyways. Once I've decided on a processor/HU combo, I'm going to replace it. Mostly, I've been looking at Alpine.

back to the original topic, though. I'd go for a better brand like whats been said.

dudeinaroom

Go for a Pioneer, they last for ever. I bought a Jensen back in the day because it had mp3 compatibility. I sent it out for repairs after a week. The week after I got it back same thing display would got out. They sent me a new face. Face died. they sent me 3 more faces and told me after that they would not do any more. It ended up being throw on the ground as hard as I could throw it. I had pioneers b4 and was going to get one, but said hey Jensens been around 4ever and mp3. I bought a pioneer after that and have had it for 5 year in 3 different vehicles with out a hitch.

Bubba -NJ

I've had 1-Pioneer and 2-Alpines . The Pioneer I installed in a Ford Ranger was great but it blew out my dash lights fuse regularly so I eventually hooked it up to it's own space in the fuse panel and never had a problem again . The 2 Alpines worked great and sounded great . I'll always buy Alpine as long as they don't start operating on the cheap .

Installer4life

I like Alpine and Pioneer Premier. The Premier comes with a 2 year warranty and a ipod cable. As far as Panasonic it is built pretty well. As a car audio company the defective rate for all car audio products for Panasonic is less than 1%. That is one of the main reasons that Circuit City started carry Panasonic. Thats about as good as it gets. Dual and Jensen are vaule added brands. You get a lot of features but a little less quality. If I were to purchase a video product from Jensen I would definately get the expended warranty. 9 out of 10 times or higher you will get a brand new unit if something happens. They are owned by Audiovox and this seems to be the way they handle defective product. Eclipse and Kenwood Excelon brand are also very good units in both sound and performance.

Installer4life

One thing often overlooked on lower end headunit is the lack of true preamp outputs. We did a test a few years back on a number of headunits from different manufactures. On some of the lower end models what we found was instead of using true preamp outputs the manufacturer basically added a LOC to the rear output of the radios amplifier thus giving the radio a low level output. It may not be as prevalent today but I would stick with equipment that is known for quality.

1996blackmax

Better to do it right the first time, even if in means waiting and saving a little more for it.

Drowsy09

Yea, I am looking at the Clarion headunits

This look good?

Clarion
VRX575USB
http://www.clarion.com/us/en/products/2007/multimedia/multimedia_source_units/VRX575USB/us-en-product-pf_1165294998356.html