thestock stereo deck is mest up. the volume *** dosint work rite. So i need to get a new one. I dont know what brand to get or what to get... I know that all icare about is that it lets me use my ipod, it looks cool, it has to be low in price but not a garbage deck. can i get a good one for around $150-$90?

 

What brands have you seen that you like, or do your friends recc. Most of us are Alpine Jarheads.. I am anyway, I prefer Alpine decks. 150 gets you an alpine deck thats pretty decent with 20 bucks for the ipod adapter. Shipped around 175.

Most any of the 150ish decks offer ipod controls, but most of them are gonna sell you an adapter to use it, get ready. They run around 30 bucks max.

Update us on brands and we will make some pics.

 

Iv been looking on ebay.i cant get on thier cuzz im at school. im going home soon. do they all come with cd players, cuzz i dont need one with one, cuzz i have a 6 cd changer in trunck. will the cd changer work with an aftermarker deck? how dos this ipod adapter work?

 

i found this. what do you think of it? what does RMS Power: 19W x 4,Peak Power: 50W x 4 mean?


http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-KENWOOD-IN-D...QQcmdZViewItem

 

I use a Kenwood KDC-X791. Its got 22w x 4, 50w peak, and the Full-speed iPod control. I researched the bejeezus out of head units before buying it. The main selling points for me were the 22w over Alpine's 19w, and the fact that it has 24 bit DAC (the thing that converts the mp3 files to sound nice on your system.) I would not recommend Alpine's deck with the little 2 inch screen on it. My bro got one and its near impossible to see unless it's night time. The X791 displays 3 lines of text at a time, and has a little control **** for navigating that works the same way as an iPod click wheel thingy.

But to answer your other question, I doubt you will be able to find a deck capable of controlling the iPod for less than $200. The kind with aux cables require the iPod wheel to be used to navigate. I'm kind of a security buff, so I like to be able to leave mine connected to the head unit, while concealed in the glovebox. The only problem with mine is cost... after installation and parts it was over $400...

I have always loved Panasonic, and I have heard good things about Clarion as well, however, I am not extremely knowledgable on these brands.

Edit- Just noticed your last post. RMS means Root Mean Square, which in electronics can be boiled down to the average power delivered to a load (in your case, thespeaker). In a stereo, this means that the amp can hit many different powers, but will generally be about 19 watts. Peak voltage is kinda like ideal conditions. An amplifying transistor rarely outputs its peak all the time. (This is where RMS comes into play.)They are basically telling you the type of transistor they are using. 50w peak is pretty much bueno if your going for a new unit. If you decide you want something louder, you will need an Amp anyways.

Whew. One more thing, about amps... A speaker is not killed by power, it is killed by distortion. Turning up the volume of a preamp only goes so far, because eventually the sound waves its sending out start to flatten out. This is what causes the distortion and buzzing, which is bad for the speaker. An amplifier boosts all aspects of the wave at once, which is a lot easier on your speakers. Not to say that you can just amp a speaker till its as loud as you want; paper cups have their limit, and will eventually need replacing.

 

Is this what you have? is geting this a start to a good sound system? what dos "head unit" mean?


http://cgi.ebay.com/KENWOOD-NEW-KDC-...QQcmdZViewItem

 

Kenwood is good in my experince...alpine and pioneer are decent. But thats the extent of my expience with head units... oh wait my very first was a sony and it sucked. But my preference in order are Kenwood, Pioneer then Alpine.

Also a very reliable site that I've had awesome transactions with is sounddomain.com. The price match +5% and have really good shipping. I've ordered 5-6 different systems for people from them...and only 1 time got a fuse holder that was wrong and they didnt even make me send them the bad one when they replaced it.

*edit: to answer your question...the "head unit" is the in dash receiver

 

Yes, that is my head unit. The cost of buying cables and harnesses, along with all the new wires (mine were very old, and shot) totalled up to over 400. If you can install it yourself go for it. If you buy that unit though you will need to buy another cable made by kenwood. I forget what its serial number is.

Head unit is the part that you see in the dash, and yes, this is the most critical part of a good sound system.

Rice eater knows his stuff, so I would check out that website he got his from. I like to support local businesses, so I may have paid a little much

Just so you know, their is a lot of brand name recognition... Kenwood and Alpine are the two best known.... Even though Kenwood is better IMHO... lol

 

You might find a used stock deck on ebay or at a local junkyard. It will work with your CD changer. No aftermarket deck will work with the stock CD changer.

There is some nice stuff in the $150 to $200 price range. All of those will let you burn mp3 files onto a CD and play about 700 MB of music from the CD. Some will also play from memory cards, or there are a few that only take memory cards and don't play CD's at all. If that's enough space you may not need to involve your ipod. Most will not take full control of an ipod. Nearly everything does support the most basic way of hooking up an ipod, the "aux in" jack. That lets you pipe the ipod output thru the stereo instead of using headphones. You will still have to control the ipod from it's front panel and run off of battery power, just like you were using headphones.

Don't worry about a watt here or there, they will all have the same or more power than your stock one did.

 

Definitiely some good advice from a reasonable person. Unless you are a major audiophile, it probably won't make a difference what type of iPod connection you get.