That is my favorite looking head unit. I've owned Pioneers and Kenwoods, but I've always wanted a tft on a deck like that.

 

Panasonic. I own a stereo and upholstery shop and unfortunately my vendors dont carry panasonic, but Thats all I'll use. Better pre out power and great power handling overall. You cant beat it but they are expensive for a good unit and hard to find.

 

i voter alpine...cus i havent had much luck with anyting else....alpine only...that will go into my car

 

asking which head unit is the best is like asking what ketchup tastes better. it is all about what your preferences are and how much you can cormfortably spend on one. I got the Kenwood MPV-619 and love it.

 

i got my alpine CDA - 9813 and i love it. The only thing i need to do is get the rest of the system! It is all about the decks that play MP3's!

 

sony is horrible... never buy a sony.. pioneer and alpine are prob the best...

 

Everyone dogs the RF, but I have one and I love it...and I sell them and I havent had one come back for warranty...

Pioneer Decks are good...I sell them too...they're reliable and sound good.

Alpine decks are good too, a little overpriced, though...I don't sell these and I wish I did...I'd own one if I sold them.

Panasonic decks dont sound good at all (I did an A/B comparison with Pioneer and it was day and night...Absolutely Horrid....but, they look killer and some people love that. Pana's tend to be more reliable than Pioneer, believe it or not...

Pioneers rock because of the features - you get a HPF with the 3600 - what other deck in that price bracket that sounds as good will have that? Very very good.

Kenwood...I've got nothing good to say about them, and I'm not too sure about the fact that they're the "only" brand to do military grade soldering...All RF equipment (as of 2004) is Military grade PCB and solder...Not that it makes a whole hell of a lot of difference...if you bash the unit enough that it's breaking solder joints, you've got a helll of a lot more issues...

Sony's suck ***, IMHO. I used to own one and it skipped like a *********a...sounded decent...

JVC's are good for the money...wouldn't buy one though...

Nach/Denon sound amazing, look like *** though...but the SQ is absolutely amazing.

When it comes down to it, a Head Unit will only do so much...people can say that one kind sounds like *** and one sounds better, but what are you comparing it with? An external amp? the same speakers? Different car? Subs? There's a ton of factors...

I've seen competitors use all kinds of brands - as long as it produces the CD decently, it's all good...Most HU's do that.

 

Alpine is the way to go!

 

i second that and dont forget clarion

 

i second that and dont forget clarion and rockford

 

i secnd that and dont forget rockford and clarion

 

oh **** i posted too much sorry

 

clarion here hehe

 

Rockford Fosgate

 

Any of the brands in the poll make good HUs. The trick is to buy the right one I've got the Alpine CDA-9813, XM ready (whatever that means), MP3, etc. Anyway, it's pretty cool, and sounds good and all that. It's a high power HU whatever that means and required a heavy power wire hookup. It plays MP3s so that was a big plus for me.

Personally I don't like the controls. There are way too many and it's just too freaking complicated to use. For instance, I've yet to figure out how to play with the tone controls. It does not have a plain bass, treble and midrange adjustments but a buch of funky crossover graphs that mean **** to me. I mean, slope adjusting, cut-off frequency, flat slopes, WTF! Likewise, getting the various functions to work almost requires that you keep the freaking hand book with you all the time

What ever happened to the plain rotary knobs to control various gains? What's wrong with a plain rotary selector to choose between functions or functionalities? I also hate all the bullsh!t colors and lights and other useless, distracting things like that. I guess the Alpine is good and all, but I'm about to put back the stock HU and get rid of the BS... I'll just miss the MP3 playback capabilities....