Any suggestions on head units??

[Colin 10+ year member]

I’m looking into getting a separate head unit for my aftermarket stereo; my factory H/U is all integrated and doesn’t work well with aftermarket parts. My system is all Memphis. I have a 6.5inch component speakers in each door (rms 75), two 1.5inch tweeters in the front, two 6.9inch speakers (rms 60) in the rear deck and two 12inch subs (rms 250). I have two 4-channel amps, a S-class digital amp and an M-Class amp from Memphis. What kind of head unit would work well or best with this kind of setup? Do I need on with a lot of pre-amp outputs and a high pre amp voltage? Not really sure where to start but I heat the more outputs and volts the better?? Will a second H/U mess up my car battery??

Any ideas??

Thx,

Colin

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[modskwod 10+ year member]

From what you've described, just about every head unit there is will work. But, some good brands are alpine, eclipse, nakimichi. Some good budget HU's are made by kenwood and pioneer. In general, the higher the output voltage the better, and with your setup you'd want three pre-outs, a front rear and sub. Good luck!

 

[nabissssco 10+ year member]

whats your budget? I would advise you get the alpine 9887 if the coin is cool, just make sure any deck you get has front, rear, and sub out with at least 4volt preouts.....most will have 4 volts and some will have 2 which is fine too but I like to stay around 4 volts myself.

 

[Colin 10+ year member]

I'm willing to put money into it, budget is fine. I've heard a lot of good things about alpine. With the pre-amp outputs, I thought I needed one for every pair of speakers or can multiple speakers go into one output?? I don't know anything about this stuff if you didn't guess by now. Also, with some head units I noticed that the rms output for 4 channels is around 18-22 watts, with a speaker that has an rms of 75 watts how would that sound good?? Or is that when the aftermarket amps come in??

Thank you for the help!

 

[NoCoSPL 10+ year member]

From what you've described, just about every head unit there is will work. But, some good brands are alpine, eclipse, nakimichi. Some good budget HU's are made by kenwood and pioneer. In general, the higher the output voltage the better, and with your setup you'd want three pre-outs, a front rear and sub. Good luck!

I hope your joking.

 

[TnT_Sounds 10+ year member]

I hope your joking.

been seeing a lot of talk of this naka-my-cocka brand

 

[djarmy2004 10+ year member]

Im an alpine fan personally as i have a cda7998 and it works flawlessly. but if your wanting new i would say something like a 9886 or 9887

 

[nabissssco 10+ year member]

I'm willing to put money into it, budget is fine. I've heard a lot of good things about alpine. With the pre-amp outputs, I thought I needed one for every pair of speakers or can multiple speakers go into one output?? I don't know anything about this stuff if you didn't guess by now. Also, with some head units I noticed that the rms output for 4 channels is around 18-22 watts, with a speaker that has an rms of 75 watts how would that sound good?? Or is that when the aftermarket amps come in??
Thank you for the help!

when you asked about preout voltage I assumed you have or will be getting an amp as thats really the only way preout voltage comes into play. your not going to get good sound out of any deck pushing speakers off its power, sorry but it just wont happen. You will need an amp to run the speakers. front, rear, and sub outputs are what you need, each rca out will have a left and right channel so you only need the 3 preouts like I said. If money is no issue with you and you plan on running your speakers off the deck I would advise you save money and just get a cheap deck! If money is no issue and you want to do it right than get a good deck like the alpine I stated earlier, get a good set of component speakers for the front ran off an amp, if you have to run rear speakers get cheap ones and power them from the deck for rear fill but I would just leave them out all together. Get a sub and box that will go with your tastes in music and get some mat in there. Use a good rca set with a nice power and ground set and call it quits.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[RJesus 10+ year member]

Sometimes stores describe their headunits with "6 preamp outputs" this means it has 3 pairs of outputs. So be careful and make sure you check what your buying, because some only have 2 outputs.

I'd recommend the pioneer prs 880 or 800.

I say pioneer over alpine because alpine requires extra equipment/software to use some of its more advanced features, which is a royal pain.

Preamp outputs are only for amplifiers. If you are simply plugging your speakers into your headunit, you will not be using any preamp outputs at all.

Although, adding an amplifier is the biggest improvement for the money you can make to your system.

On a side note, there are PEAK watts and RMS watts. Peak watts mean nothing, RMS is what the speaker can play continuously.

 

[boogeyman 10+ year member]

I second the 880 or 800