Stuttgart 944

Im going cd player shopping tomarrow and I wanted to know what you guys would suggest getting or if one brand is better than another. I have roughly $160 to spend so anything around that price range. I have Pioneer speakers in the front and I was wondering if I went with a Pioneer head unit if it would make it sound better?? Any suggestions or tips would help me out. Thanks.

Alex

Chris_924s

It's tough to decide on sound in the cabin from listening in a store. Get something that will paly the music you listen to well- bring a CD. The head unit is important, but the speakers present the musical image. Buy better speakers and skimp on the head unit a bit.

PorscheDoc

In that price range, you are looking at a kenwood or pioneer etc. I have always had good luck with pioneer. The current one in my truck is nice, but I hate the blue screen at night, it is really bright and for some reason using crutchfields harness, it does not dim according to the dash lights. I looked around for a while for the 951 because it needed a new unit, but didnt want a bright display. Ended up with a $100 JVC unit, that has a black display and whitish lettering, red buttons. Nice and low key. Not much of a stereo junkie, just need something to play some CD's during the commute. What i really would have liked would have been a panasonic with a touchscreen ghost face, but couldnt really justify dropping that much on a damn stereo right now.

Stuttgart 944

Ya I dont want anything too bright or flashy. Just something that looks nice and is pretty good quality. Is the stereo swap fairly easy?

PorscheDoc

Well, i bypassed the fader control since pretty much any stereo now will have the fader control built into the unit. So i had to cut out some of those wires. I spent a lot of time doing it right this time, soldering the wires that were to be connected and getting rid of the crap that isnt needed. The PO hacked up the last stereo install pretty good, so hard to say what a "stock" wiring looks like. The metal mounting sleeve i had to trim on the one side oh...maybe millimeter or so, so that it would slide into the center console, but not a big deal.

Chris_924s

Check out www.crutchfield.com before you go to get an idea on pricing, styles and power. I bought a head unit from them a few years ago ($99 JVC CD) and it was fine. They have factory wiring harnesses as well.

pete944

I have a new Clarion that I'm very impressed with. You may wanna check those out.

johnny1423

just bought a sony cdx-s2000 at circuit city for $99 with free installation..
not in yet , so i cant comment on sound quality yet

944Fest (aka Dan P)

I'm a big fan of MP3/CD players. My head unit only holds one CD, but that one CD has about 200 songs on it. It is a whole jukebox on one disk. It eliminates the need for a multi disk changer, that's for sure.

ELLSSUU

Blaupunkt............OEM for the car. Simple looking and sounds okay.

For instance:

Click here

Mighty Shilling

I have an Alpine CDA-9830 with iPod integration...it's nice. no need to carry CD's.

Stuttgart 944

Are the mp3 cds just a cd that can hold a lot of songs or do u have to have an mp3 player. Im confused on that whole bit. I really like Alpine cd players and the mp3/cd players are nice. I jsut dont know what they do.

944Fest (aka Dan P)

MP3 is a computer format that stores audio tracks in 1/10th of the space a normal CD song takes up. You need a computer with a CD burner, and you can capture all of your cd collection, and move the files around and take your favorite 150 or 200 and burn them to a normal CDR. It looks like a audio CD but needs a special player to play it, such as a MP3 ready CD player. If you know the right way to do it and have a shadowy concience, all the free music in the world is available in MP3s on the internet. I'm sure there are people on here willing to share their MP3 collection, those who are really in to it have GIGS of songs (10s of thousands!)
The MP3 players mentioned like Ipods are mini "walkman" like devices that use a memory stick for media. Some plug into the car stereo and provide the audio feed. 256K on a memory stick can hold almost 100 songs, it is a personalized jukebox with awesome sound into headphones, and it is the size of a tick tack container.

Did I cover it all?

shmucklebuckle

The MP3 CD players for your car are just a CD playing head unit that can read the .mp3 file format. So, when you burn a CD, instead of burning a "music" cd in, lets say, Nero, you would burn a "data" cd instead. This way, the files stay small because they're still in MP3 format, not the ginormous audio format that old cd players use.

Damn. too slow

Stuttgart 944

How do you get songs into the mp3 format? Say if i have a bunch of cds but i want to burn them all onto one CD-R for my car can I do that? Do I need a special CD-R or will any work? And this can be used through Media Player right? Thanks guys.