Old school head units vs New head units

[illaudio]

I own a car audio shop in florida, wondering what everyone thought of old school h/u vs new h/u. In my sound board at the shop & I have both new and old head units in it. I have new Kenwood Excelon, JVC, & Sony head units in it. I also have a Kenwood (from Japan), Pioneer P1, Pioneer Mini-Disc head units. In my sound board i can pick any head unit with the same speakers, amps, & subs. I have found that the older head units sound like twice as good & loud as the new ones. Even though the new head units have higher voltage through the rcas. I carry Diamond Audio, Zapco, DLS, Rockford Fosgate, & a bunch more. No matter what speakers, amps, & subs I hook-up the older head units sound way better. Any thoughts

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[huberoy123 10+ year member]

A lot of us use external amps and sound processors with our head units, so we can tailor the sound to our liking. And the newer ones have more modern features. One vote for the New School.

 

[Old_Slapper]

I own a car audio shop in florida, wondering what everyone thought of old school h/u vs new h/u. In my sound board at the shop & I have both new and old head units in it. I have new Kenwood Excelon, JVC, & Sony head units in it. I also have a Kenwood (from Japan), Pioneer P1, Pioneer Mini-Disc head units. In my sound board i can pick any head unit with the same speakers, amps, & subs. I have found that the older head units sound like twice as good & loud as the new ones. Even though the new head units have higher voltage through the rcas. I carry Diamond Audio, Zapco, DLS, Rockford Fosgate, & a bunch more. No matter what speakers, amps, & subs I hook-up the older head units sound way better. Any thoughts

In the past, aftermarket radios were a big thing. Now that the new cars make it almost impossible to change out the factory HU, the HU industry has gone downhill. Now it has become a price war to attract the customers who still have the ability to swap out their factory HU. So, to sell a radio cheaper, you have to use cheaper parts. Heck, Pioneer dropped their Premier line because they weren't selling, and Eclipse is no longer in business. Also, as you have noticed, only the trained ear will hear a difference if you listen to the decks back-to-back. Another thing that killed the old school radios is poor installation. Too many installers were using the factory power wire with a deck that was putting out over 80 watts RMS. That was burning up the radios, so the factories started using lower priced mosfets and dropped the power output.

For the technology and convenience, I would lean towards the new decks. For performance, I would lean towards the old decks. However, with the old school DEH-P Pioneer decks, you can add a lot of attachments to obtain most of the conveniences of the new decks.

 

[spokey9 5,000+ posts]

With dsp being a thing now days...you don't even need a hu

 

[Old_Slapper]

For my son's Ranger, I'm installing a basic JVC deck and a PPI EQ. I'm installing a blue tooth adaptor on the aux. side of the EQ.