MP3 Head Unit Opinions Please!

[egomeister]

A mate of mine is looking to get a MP3 headunit out of the following:

Alpine 7893R - £239.99
Blaupunkt Los Angeles - £219.99
Kenwood KDC-M9021 - £249.99
Pioneer DEH-P7400MP - £249.99

He have decent speakers and was really looking for the best out of these with regards to function and sound quality.

He also has a Blaupunkt CDC-A-08 CD changer in the boot. Would it be possible to hook this up to any of the non-Blau headunits above?

Thanks in advance!

[DennisTheMenace]

Go Alpine you will not regret it

[t1grm]

DennisTheMenace said: Go Alpine you will not regret it

Don't forget your skis though

[manek]

I bought the Piioneer 7400, and it worked well for me. It now lives in dannyboyo's car so if you wanna see it, talk to him!

[DennisTheMenace]

t1grm said:

DennisTheMenace said: Go Alpine you will not regret it

Don't forget your skis though

[RCA]

Pioneer and alpine are great, I have a full pioneer install in my car and its great but if I was fitting a new system would go alpine, a bit more expensive but I have not heard a system thats better!!!

[egomeister]

Thanks for the replies, sounds like the Alpine and Pioneer are both rated highly.

What are the access times like on any of these units. Have you found any to be significantly better/worse than any of the others?

[Olly2000]

I got the blaukpunkt in my car. It is very nice, also takes SD cards which is cool. Nice easy mechanism and sounds fine.

[tiggs]

Tape and radio, gets nicked, no big deal.

All digital all sing all dancing, gets nicked your insurance company laughs at you!

[RCA]

Get a good alarm/big fcuk off rotweiler/or go to the gym lots!!!, Doesn't get nicked!!!!!

[dannyboyo]

The pioneer 7400 is a cracking unit mate. Got lots of nice features, like being able to use the back speakers effectivly as subwoofers, or putting a high pass filter on the speakers if you decide to fit a subwoofer. Got a good and very tweekable EQ, you can select individual frequencies etc. Nice movie style graphics on the display. Good 4x50W amp in it, nice clean sound. CD doesn't jump about (apart from when I set my suspension to hard once!!)

Can't speak for the other units, but I've had Alpine's in the past and this is as good (if not better) than any of them.

[CB-Dave]

I've got the 7893R and I sell the stuff!!

It's a bit of a pain to wire as you need to have a wire coming directly from the battery to power it (and a seperate earth) cos the onboard amp will pull 20a current (4x60w)

To be honest though, kenwoods give the best MP3 experience as they've got the tech down to a fine art - there's next to no pause while it decodes the next song whereby on alpine and the rest there is a noticable pause, bout 1s on my unit - I've heard 5s on some sony's before... It only plays a major part if you listen to mix cd's etc on them.

Alpine also have a 6cd MP3 changer, as do sony - the alpine is better built though and the SQ is second to none...

I'd say Alpine - all the time!

[CB-Dave]

Oh, and the blau changer won't work - if he wants to keep that and have a MP3 unit, the Blau Woodstock DAB unit is a good option...

[armynick]

Check the prices on MCS-direct.co.uk (.com?)

Bloody cheap!