Best Aftermarket Headunit

Originally Posted by Herbalicious

2nd richest state behind Maryland....also of note is the fact that according to Forbes 39% of New Jersey residents are originally from the cities of New York or Philadelphia. The only reason they reside in NJ is due to the low property taxes and ability to commute into these cities! I guess Newark or Camden don't cut it for jobs!

Any way check out the Kenwood Excelon line of products...won't be sorry!

Sorry, I am only buying OEM because anything else would seem "out of place"

I just happen to be in this industry and I'll tell you flat out that alpine has fallen behind in the game and is no comp this year. If you are lookin to avoid cutting the sub-dash(for a double din, aka indash nav/media center), the kenwood kdcx995bt is pure sex. You'll get 3 lines of text, Bluetooth, 3 5 volt preouts, a 2yr warranty from kenwood, full color customization, USB and aux on the front for iPod/mp3 amongst other things. Trust me, I do car audio for a living.

Kenwood is absolutely top dawg in head units right now followed by pioneer, jvc, alpine, clarion, sony. In that order. I am serious though, I've built 14,000 dollar custom systems as well ad cars pushing 176db in spl comps. If you have any other questions, fell free to pm me.

-Gary

Originally Posted by 3MPOWERED

Trust me, I do car audio for a living.

I wouldn't trust anyone saying that, but he's right about Kenwood

Look into their single din decks, mine matches perfectly with the amber BMW dashboard. I've got a KIV-BT900, has no disk drive since I use USB/iPod.

Originally Posted by albuyeh

Sorry, I am only buying OEM because anything else would seem "out of place"

Oh...Get an oem setup...bad sound quality will feel right at home...not "out of place"

Anyone have experience with the Dynavin on cars with factory HK audio? I wonder if the audio quality is preserved, lost, improved?

Originally Posted by Herbalicious

Oh...Get an oem setup...bad sound quality will feel right at home...not "out of place"

I have to agree here as well don't limit yourself. After swapping out the Business CD with my Kenwood, (5v preouts and 20wrms per channel) it sounded like I had new speakers. The quality coming out of those paper cones is incredible!

3 questions: If I replace my Business CD with a Kenwood:

1. Can I play music direct from a USB flash drive?

2. Do I retain audio controls from my steering wheel?

3. Does the Kenwood fit in easily or does it require plastic to be cut?

Again, stereo is what it is. If you have a old used E46.....Dynavin is the way to go if you want nav and a complete plug and play package. If you want to spend more money on the stereo, that is on you. Just remember what your car is worth and how long you want to keep it. I got a nice trade in on my E46 because of the Dynavin. Money well spent for me.

Originally Posted by Constantine

3 questions: If I replace my Business CD with a Kenwood:

1. Can I play music direct from a USB flash drive?

2. Do I retain audio controls from my steering wheel?

3. Does the Kenwood fit in easily or does it require plastic to be cut?

There are ways to retain the steering wheel functionality, yes.

Originally Posted by Constantine

3 questions: If I replace my Business CD with a Kenwood:

1. Can I play music direct from a USB flash drive?

2. Do I retain audio controls from my steering wheel?

3. Does the Kenwood fit in easily or does it require plastic to be cut?

1) Yes, mine does and I imagine most others have this feature standard nowadays

2) Maybe. You need the PAC interface installed, which includes tapping a wire under your steering wheel. Its not hard, but it requires time.

3) Straight fit with dash mount kit. Bought mine from sonicelectronix, and it came with the deck free, as did the antenna adapter and harness.

Originally Posted by 3MPOWERED

I just happen to be in this industry and I'll tell you flat out that alpine has fallen behind in the game and is no comp this year. If you are lookin to avoid cutting the sub-dash(for a double din, aka indash nav/media center), the kenwood kdcx995bt is pure sex. You'll get 3 lines of text, Bluetooth, 3 5 volt preouts, a 2yr warranty from kenwood, full color customization, USB and aux on the front for iPod/mp3 amongst other things. Trust me, I do car audio for a living.

Got any pictures of it installed?

Originally Posted by ac_2007

I wouldn't trust anyone saying that, but he's right about Kenwood

Look into their single din decks, mine matches perfectly with the amber BMW dashboard. I've got a KIV-BT900, has no disk drive since I use USB/iPod.

Same as before, do you have any pictures of it installed?

Originally Posted by neiltyme

Anyone have experience with the Dynavin on cars with factory HK audio? I wonder if the audio quality is preserved, lost, improved?

I recently bought and installed my Dynavin, I used to think a couple speakers were blown, after I put the unit in, it really brought the factory speakers out to about twice as loud with fairly clean undistorted sound at almost full volume. The sound improvement is difficult to translate into words, all I have to say is that I was impressed (might check out BSW for my speaker upgrades). In the end I'm out about $950 and some change with something I'm overall happy with... iPhone Bluetooth for calls or music, nice OEM look, overwhelming potential as far as the NAV/Android side of the unit goes, you have market access to run all kinds of apps and navigation, microsSD, usb, and several input/output options, awesome reverse camera, fairly easy to install if you're at all inclined.


Do your research on this one, read the Dynavin forums before you deicide, and also keep in mind that there's probably a decent line waiting for the next batch of androids. I've been happy with the customer service and overall dealings with Jeff at J&T

here's a good place to start...
http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=839753

Originally Posted by Herbalicious

Curious to see what this kid talking about...thats all! Bored

You need to know what touché means to understand my point.



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Ahhhhh DYNAVIN!!

Originally Posted by Constantine

3 questions: If I replace my Business CD with a Kenwood:

1. Can I play music direct from a USB flash drive?

2. Do I retain audio controls from my steering wheel?

3. Does the Kenwood fit in easily or does it require plastic to be cut?

YES...to all!

Originally Posted by neiltyme

Anyone have experience with the Dynavin on cars with factory HK audio? I wonder if the audio quality is preserved, lost, improved?

I have. The Dynavin makes the sound a little bit louder. To be honest I was not happy with the HK system so I gutted both my cars and started from scratch.

Originally Posted by JDCBMW

You need to know what touché means to understand my point.



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This Hump!!!

1. Yes you can use any thumb drive to play music

2. Yes. You'll need an ASWC module from which usually go for around 90 at most audio places.

3. Any aftermarket single din will perfect with a dash kit.

As I stated earlier, I would definitely stay away from the Android Dynavin right now. It is in it's infancy. If you're going Dynavin, check out the "v4" or "v5"

Bottom line that I've realized with the Dynavin is that it failed in one very blaring regard. They give you 200 different options and you end up using 3. This could be much cheaper/sleeker/refined if they just focused on exactly what people need, not what they think they want.

The other way of looking at it is that it gives you anything you want, but just not quite the way you want it. The UI is crap, but if you upgrade to primo 1.2 and stay on the nav screen, you won't notice it too much. You can install a reverse camera, but you need to buy and install it which is not the easiest thing. You can use your ipod, but the interface sucks. You can load songs/music/pictures onto a usb stick, but it takes forever to load and needs to be optimized for bitrate for the slow ass processor. You can hack the winCE partition, but petrut needs to sell you some stuff... which is the person who wrote a good chunk of the software in the first place. The list goes on.

If you want something that you can customize and work to your liking, get something like a Kenwood or Pioneer... but be ready for a LOT of customizing.