I just recently bought a 98 Honda Civic EX, and it still has the stock radio... with no cd/tape player!

I'm thinking of investing into a new car stereo, any suggestions on which ones will fit/be best for the car? I'm just looking for something that can play MP3 cd's and such.

Thanks!

 

alpine, pioneer, and sony are some good entry level brands.

PS if you have keyless entry you'll also need one of these so you can relocate the stock stereo to behind the dash. without doing so, you will lose keyless entry.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/96-19...spagenameZWD1V

 

^ its funny why honda had to do that. lol

anyways, i have a sony headunit,my girlfriend, and one of my friend has sony also. i recommend it. i'm sure lots of people would point you towards alpine and pioneer. but any of them would get you what you want. go to best buys, and check out the selections there, they usually have some kind of promo where if you get a $99.99 and up they will install for free. also check out circuit city since they are closing, you might find a good deal, but you will need to do the install at another shop or yourself.

 

I replaced the radio in my 1997 Civic because the factory radio was going out and it took the factory keyless with it... Either that or I had yet another remote fail... I think my late wife and I went through at least a dozen of the Honda remotes since 1997.

Regardless, for great sound quality, you can't beat Alpine or Pioneer, hence the reason everyone will recommend those units. From there I would go Eclipse or Clarion, even though it seems that Clarion is pulling out of the high-end car audio market ... Afterwards I would only consider Sony or Kenwood as a last ditch effort.

I will say this though... steer clear of Jensen, Dual, and any other lower priced brand that has a ton of "bling". Those decks are more about flash and glam than sounding good and lasting long.

 

Sony stuff is right up there with Pioneer, and I have experience with comparable head units from both brands that have formed this opinion.

A lot of you hardcore car audio people like to talk heavy **** about Sony, when it's really not that bad. It's not as good as most Alpine stuff and the really nice brands you guys use for competitions and such, but it definitely still sounds good.

In fact, I prefer my Sony head unit over the Pioneer head unit I had (I have no recollection of the model numbers).

The only thing I liked better about the Pioneer head unit was how advanced the settings menu was. Being the kind of guy who likes to tweak every last setting on electronics, I loved all the advanced options. I wish Sony would come out with more advanced setup menus (they might have now, idk).

 

i'd go with a kenwood or eclipse any day over a sony ...... the new kenwood line is very user friendly and supports alot of sources through the USB ..... i was very skeptical at first but after installing alot of em iv'e grown to really like em

 

The main problem I have with Sony is that I owned one of their Mobile ES receivers from 1996 through 1999. Now a days, I have changed my focus with regards to car audio and plan to run full active installs starting with my Mustang's system revamp. Sony just doesn't give me the flexibility that I can get from an Alpine CDA-9887 or a Pioneer DEH-P800 PRS.

Kenwood, same thing. Their last high end eXcelon unit that I looked into buying had a built in crossover, but it was only High Pass on the front/rear outputs and low pass on the subwoofer. Without the bandpass option, it was useless to me. I am glad I didn't listen to the sales associate who said it was an active deck and decided to read on my own....

 

i love my kenwood eXcelon. kenwood's also have the best looks/lighting.

 

I feel that Alpine makes the best radios, and will continue to for a while to come.

other brands that are pretty good are Pioneer, Eclipse, and surprisingly this years Kenwoods are pretty nice.

I've never been a fan of sony, but its not bad. I'm kind of neutral towards their car audio stuff. There's definitely way worse stuff out there such as Jensen or Dual.

 

we actually stopped doing free installs about a year and a half ago no matter what the price