Anybody want to help me decide on a head unit? I'm willing to spend only from 300-500. I want to decide between Pioneer, Alpine, and Eclipse. I just want to know what you'd like oh the three. Any feedback would be a great help.. thanks

 

I just got the 25th anniversary Kenwood.
AWESOME.
The place I had it installed at works on Bently's and Maserati's.
$20,000, $150,000 installs.
They are extremely knowledgeable.
They do not carry Pioneer. They do carry Alpine and Kenwood, but recommend Kenwood over Alpine. They no longer carry Eclipse because of the excessive amounts of problems. If you want your CD's to skip all the time, get Eclipse. My friend and I both owned Eclipse because the quality was supposed to be so high, and they were both a POS. I actually had two, because one got replaced and that one too was a POS.

The only thing they had that they recommended more than kenwood is the Nakamichi, they are around $900 and do not play MP3.

I have had Kenwood in the past and they have always worked great.

I would very hightly recommend Kenwood.

 

i own a pioneer 9300 in one car and an alpine 9835 in another. i think that both units are good. the pioneer is much easier to use while the alpine has better build quality. features wise they're both pretty competitive i think but again the 9835 isnt as easy to use- you will need its manual to figure it out.

i have the 9835 in the G, i think it looks good in the car. the buttons are amber and match the rest of the interior while the screen is white...

 

Don't forget that you need to spend $400 on a dash kit on top of all that. Now your $300 to $500 head unit is really $700 to $900.

I chose the Pioneer AVIC-D1. I like it a lot. Double Din touchscreen, GPS.

Ok so between your choices....

Pioneer... Go Premier if you can get it. The DEH-P860MP is a great head unit. I had that in my fiancees old car.

Alpine has gone way downhill IMO. I've had great luck with Eclipse personnally, and think it's an excellent choice as well.

 

Eclipse gets my vote. Selling them for 10 years and aside from the 98-99 era, Ive had no problems with skipping or anything else.

 

Out of the brands listed I would look at Pioneer, I would also highly consider Clarion. They are very user friendly and sound great.

 

thanks for the feedback.. I already have the double din installed and I'm running an old cd player until I find the one I want. I've had pioneers before and I like them but I want to see if there are other brands that would be better like eclipse and alpine..

 

Pick one with aesthetics that you like, features you want, and high output voltage with low impedance. All the brands you mentioned are respected names in the industry and anyone would be hard pressed to hear the differences. I have used units from all these manufacturers, but I am partial to Eclipse. Good luck and good listening.