help finding new head unit

[98dodgestratus 10+ year member]

Hey guys,

I need some help finding a new head-unit. The only requirements I have is that it needs to have a defeatable internal amp, or no internal amp at all, it needs to have an aux input in the back, it needs to be single DIN, and it needs to look clean (no cheesey face plates with 623 buttons and 917 colored lights).

Its going into an Audi A4 (B5) with a factory bose system that already has an amp for the speakers (hence the defeatable internal amp). I know it sounds terrible, but I'm at school and I don't want to spend the time running all the wires for new speakers. Because of this, I don't need any fancy features, just your basic head-unit.

Money isn't a factor, but the cheaper the better, right? haha. Also, I can do new or used, it doesn't make a difference to me.

Oh and I was also considering a dvd flipout unit, but thats all new to me. If you know of any at a decent price that fit my requirements, I might scoop one up.

Thanks in advance for all the help and sorry for the long post. I figured too much information was better than too little!

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[98dodgestratus 10+ year member]

okay so I still can't find a head unit with a defeatable internal amp so I was wondering if it would be possible to make my own rca's with only one side having a plug. This way I could use the preouts and just hard wire it into the stock wiring to the amp in the back. I can get the rca jacks for free so this would be easy for me to do.

I just want to make sure this will work before I waste my time haha.

Thanks

 

[ekincam 10+ year member]

I had an Eclipse 8454 that had an internal amp that could be turned off. I *think* I had a Kenwood before that could have the internal amp disabled, but I haven't touched that thing since 2004 so I don't remember.

But you can still use any head unit with or without the internal amp disabled since you are just going to use the pre-outs. If you limit yourself to those with defeatable amp, you may not get all the features you want.

I really liked the Eclipse because it would display function of the six soft keys on the display. If you were using the tuner, for example, it would display the 3 or 4 digit frequency of the station and still display the current station and other info on the display.

I currently have a Pioneer DEH-P860MP and it is capable of displaying 3 or 4 different colors at the same time. However, it allows control of the colors of the display. YOu can set it so it will only display 1 of the 3 or 4 colors and with or without background animation. The blue buttons cannot change color though. The eclipse I could choose green or red.

Also buttons are sometimes useful. On my Pioneer I have to go to a menu to pause the CD. There are six soft keys on the front for the radio presets but that's all. They have no other function which I find totally sucks because they could be useful as soft keys to pause the CD player for example.