What if you didn't care how your HU sounded?

[Overzeetop]

Okay, that's a little bit of an exaggeration. I'm coming off of probably the worst HU ever - an Alpine 9885, almost certainly a lemon - and it occurs to me that I really don't care how good my next HU will sound, as long as it's decent.

In my truck, I can't really tell the difference between 128kb mp3s and lossless, there's no room for a sub, and I've got 4 low-mid level 6x8s and no amp. Heresy, I know. But it sounds "good enough" given my acoustic limitations.

What I have found is that operation means everything to me. Finding a track or album out of 6000 on an iPod was painful with the Alpine. I could spend 2-3 minutes finding an album by scrolling through. Bluetooth? Oh, the horros - I spent 20 hours troubleshooting, and took it back to the installer twice before giving up and ordering a Parrot standalone BT system (it wasn't great, but at least it worked). Back then, it was more expensive to get an HD radio adapter than it was to get a dedicated HD head unit.

So, what if you didn't really care how great a HU sounded, and you just wanted everything to f***ing work? Good, clear BT phone with easy hands free operation. Nice, quick iPod interface. Navigation that rivaled good dedicated units. And what if you wanted it in a double DIN? It's hard to enjoy fantastic sound when you're constantly fighting with the machine.

Is there a user friendly HU out there, even if it doesn't do justice to jazz or classical music? Or does such a creature simply not exist...

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[Upgrayedd 10+ year member]

JVC have always been easy to navigate and reliable.

 

[BeAlLsTaR13 10+ year member]

yeah, i hate having to scroll through both single and double din with ipod connection, its a PITA.. single din, you cant see whats even next and takes too long, double din you have to scroll down the list one by one which takes just as long, its a PITA thats why i use my aux input lol, 10x easier and faster, no headache.

 

[Twisted_0912 10+ year member]

the 9885 is not even close to one of the worst HUs at all //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif the ipod interface sucks yeah but other than that its a great hu

 

[iApex 10+ year member]

I'd recommend the Alpine iDA-x100 I have it, sound quality is good and the ipod interface is pretty awesome, i don't have issue's navigating through my 1500 songs, I also keep my playlist updated and know where most of my stuff is.

The unit as a whole will cost you a arm leg and testicle though. I payed $350 for the unit it came with the ipod cable and all the install stuff, I think the bluetooth adapter is another $200 so kinda pricey. I haven't used the phone feature so i can't comment on it.

I have also heard really good reviews on the kenwood excelon series, you might want to look into that.

 

[eviling 10+ year member]

so you wan't a simple head unit, but you want one that has all the bells and whisles. lol you're gonna get good sound no matter what head unit you pick with those fetures. here are some picks

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_19637_Pioneer+AVIC-U310BT.html

that one above is just one i thought might apeal to you, simple. not to many buttons, bluetooth, navi, and double DIN with decent sound.

you can just skim these results, stay away from brands you don't know or sound like knock offs, like boss, or pyle, I don't like them, though modevo i believe is also a good cheap brand, they are put into allota cars when they put GPS's in high pemium sound systems, i think toyata uses them exclusively and some others. check it out

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/viewcat.php?f_378=1340&category_id=11&f_129=417

 

[Overzeetop]

Thanks for the replies. Alpine told me it was the cab of my truck that caused the echo on the mic, after the installer tried three locations and two windscreens. The parrot worked flawlessly right after installation. I'm certain the Alpine was a lemon, but after sending it back twice to try and get the CD player fixed. At random times it starts skipping - it's just a funny 50-100ms drop on CDDA, but with MP3s it's a couple of seconds of skip. Happens on commercial and burned discs. When it starts, you can actually hear the disc scraping something on each revolution, but it only happens ~2-3% of the time. Once it starts, you can't get it to stop until the unit has been off for an extended period (hours). Practically impossible to troubleshoot, but a real killer if you're listening to, say, a book on a 15 hour drive. Oh, did I mention the rear channel went out sometime last summer? Nice.

Sorry, didn't mean to complain. I also should have said I'm fully expecting to drop in the range of $1000 retail on the next head unit. I might even stretch that a few hundred more.

I actually really like my wife's JVC AVX33 (?), but it's not DD and there's no nav. Well, now that I come to think of it, I don't think I've tried the ipod with it...still, it's pretty good. I'll have to look at the JVCs...last year (or two years ago?) the DD units seemed to lag the smaller units in features.

I should say that the local shop steered me towards the Kenwood DNX-9140. And, I could probably swing it if it were perfect, but I've heard tales of woe on both the BT (multi-minute phone list updates after every call, can't wake up the phone) and iPod interface (glacially slow if you have album art). Otherwise it seems to have all the right "features". If I'm going to drop $2k, though, I'm probably going to be expecting a happy ending.

 

[eviling 10+ year member]

the Kenwood DNX-9140 is an epix model to hold no equal with no other head unit for fetures and durability and parts, ive heard great things about that head unit. their is also a pioneer version that is int he same price range of the same quality, if you're afraid of glichy firmware and software, pioneer is always a strong choice.

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_19741_Pioneer+AVIC-Z110BT.html

I'd go with this or the Kenwood DNX-9140, half dozen, 6 in the hand in the other. I personaly like the pioneer, I believ they both have built in flash drive with the maps instead of puting them on a disk or an SD card like other navi models, whitch cause lag in the navi system.

 

[nineball 10+ year member]

it's not a ddin but my kenwood x993 has amazing bt (parrot) including streaming audio, ipod navigation is easy and it has tons of other bells and whistles. i would say check out thier ddin lineup to start with.

stay as far away as you can from the ida line. i had 2 of them, one with imprint, and they both sucked. alpine also charges you extra for every option (tuning, bt, etc).

 

[SRim23 5,000+ posts]

it's not a ddin but my kenwood x993 has amazing bt (parrot) including streaming audio, ipod navigation is easy and it has tons of other bells and whistles. i would say check out thier ddin lineup to start with.
stay as far away as you can from the ida line. i had 2 of them, one with imprint, and they both sucked. alpine also charges you extra for every option (tuning, bt, etc).

x2

after owning a Pioneer, eclipse, and kenwood DD unit the kenwood wins by far. i think the only way id replace it is if they come out with a DD that can go active. other than that its great.

not to mention your biggest concern youve listed, searching your ipod, is made extremely easy with the kenwood. from my DNX8120 i can search on the unit just like i can on the ipod. based on genre, album, artist, etc. very easy it also comes with usb ports so if you dont want to lug around your ipod you can use thumb drives like i do.

 

[eviling 10+ year member]

x2
also comes with usb ports so if you dont want to lug around your ipod you can use thumb drives like i do.

iphone for the win //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif I love my iphone, I always have it on me, and I can just plug it into anything i'm around and listening to most of the music i listen to, i can't fit all of my music on my iphone, i only have 32 gigs and i have 80 gigs of music //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif but 32 gigs is enough music for one man.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Do you have a F150 with stock speakers?

 

[ngsm13 5,000+ posts]

I believe you're looking for a Kenwood. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

nG

 

[Overzeetop]

Do you have a F150 with stock speakers?

No, replaced all four with 6" Polks when I got the alpine. They're nothing special, but they're decent. If I had room in the cab I'd add a sub, if I had free time I'd get some a-pillar mounted tweeters. Neither is likely on this upgrade round, though.