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Getting a new head unit for my '90 S2 and 99% sure I'm going with the Conti but happy to hear some stories to either.
Conti: Looks great, orange, very period correct with all the modern bells and whistles, but a super simple interface that I love. Matches the aesthetic of the rest of the 944 interior to a T (ie the clock light bulb, which I painstakingly replaced). Only con is it doesn't have line level outputs for an amp, but you can kinda sorta handle this with an inverter. Also don't know a ton about Conti stereo equipment.
Blaupunkt: Has line level outputs, and all 944s had Blaupunkt stuff from the factory (i think?). Has good reviews, looks half decent but doesn't perfectly match the rest of the interior (blue/white lighting vs Orange). The UI looks a bit more tedious/complicated than the Conti as well, and less well laid out.
Anyway, happy to hear arguments for against one or the other, or another head unit (that doesn't look like a 70s disco..) entirely.
The Conti looks great, I'm a big fan of keeping the head unit with a period correct look. New head units with big displays and LED lighting just look so out of place in these cars.
Other options: Lots of people like the Becker CDR-220 for an OEM style upgrade.
My car has a Blaupunkt Lexington CM84 which I got in NOS condition on eBay. Preamp outputs and an aux input on the back.
I ordered one from egauges, got hit with a delay until mid July. Serves me right for waiting so long. VDO sells the exact same one on JEGS but with blue lights.
Another option that I did was look for NOS (new old stock) car cassette stereos on eBay. You can find them all the time. Several on there now in the 50-160 or so dollar range. Much better than the 800-1k for a perfect Blaupunkt.
This is what happened to a lot of the cars anyway, an aftermarket stereo was put in. They look car appropriate if you find the right ones too. Like this Sparkomatic on there now. Love the name. For $129.
I have a Becker/Harmon Kardon Traffic Pro. I think the model 4773 and the Porsche model have the orange display. They have line outs and work well. You can find them on Ebay for less than $200.
I have a Pioneer radio with the 200,000 color, Joshua Light Show display. The cool thing about it the light show can be turned off and I set the colors to a black background with yellow numbers/letters. It matches the yellow face gauges so well you would swear the radio is factory.
I have a Pioneer radio with the 200,000 color, Joshua Light Show display. The cool thing about it the light show can be turned off and I set the colors to a black background with yellow numbers/letters. It matches the yellow face gauges so well you would swear the radio is factory.
This is what I just did. Switched to a digital media receiver (who has cds?) kenwood KMM-BT522hd, I picked it because it's not overly gaudy and has dual zone color customization. Basically the display and the buttons can be any color you want them to be. I'm using white display with red/orange buttons because it matches my Pro-sport gauges. You could switch to an orange color though to match it to the interior lighting better.
I have a Blaupunkt 320 (just like the 420 but without BT) in my 300TD. That stereo looks totally appropriate for that car's dash, as all of the switches light up white, and the temp dial is blue and red, matching the stereo's lighting. Also the touch of stainless kinda matches the chrome trim on the dash. I tried setting the face in my 944's dash once, and it didn't look right to me, but only due to the metal parts. If you black out the brushed and chrome parts, it would look great in a 944.
I'll also say, I REALLY wish I got the 420BT instead of the 320. I got the 320 because I thought having the SD card would mean I wouldn't need to stream music from my phone. But it turns out that the SD card playback disregards folders and plays all songs in order of date loaded onto card. Useless.
The Conti is nice, too.
I just put a Pioneer DEH-X6900BT into my 951. I chose it because it's understated (all back but for a brushed metal **** which I might black out), has good sound, and all the features I wanted (BT and adjustable lighting - including amber).
back in the mid 80s, when CD players hit the consumer market, a blindfold comparison of an older Panasonic MASH digital to analog converter to the Sony chip licensed to all the other head units was obvious...much smoother.
compressed files just aren't the same.
the best CD ever was a 5.1 re-master of the sound city recordings of tom petty's 'damn the torpedoes' .....played on a Panasonic player, of course. dave ghrol owns the Neve 8078 mixing board now.
Apples to Oranges.. Vinyl has that beautiful analog sound.. Cd's are now an inconvenient storage format for digital media.
My thing is the car is so damn loud (exhaust, rattles, wind) that music is additional background noise, the car will never be a reference quality environment. The nice thing with the digital media receivers is they're tiny, only like 1/2 has deep as a cd receiver, so it made it a lot easier to get all the extra wiring behind it.
06-12-2018, 02:30 PM
Blaupunkt BT420 vs Conti 7412
