eBay Double Din Headunits

Joshy

Joshy

Joshy

Soldato
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Right, I'm looking to replace the Head unit in my Soarer.

I know audiophiles will probably laugh at me, but I am really liking the look of some of the all singing, all dancing £200 units available on eBay.

One of the things I dislike about having a TT rather than one of the fully loaded V8s is the lack of the onboard computer with functions like reserving camera, Sat Nav and TV (Yes, all this back in 1991! :eek:). I'd absoultely love the add such functions to my TT (even though I'd honestly never use them!) so one of those cheap units really do seem appealing to me, especially given £200 would barely buy me a name branded double din stereo.

What surprises me is that very few bad words are said about them by people who actually use them.

I just need help with models. There are absoultely loads to choose from, but they all seem to do exactly the same thing? Any recommendations of specific model codes greatly appreciated. I'd prefer a face-off unit.

What are the touch screens like on this level of cheap electronics? Never really had anything touch screen before, so I'm a little bit worried that it'd going to be crap.

As ever, thoughts appreciated :).
 
They get a bad press around here normally, i wouldn't mind one for my Mondeo, just don't want to waste £200 on something that's probably quite crud.
 
Generally poor audio quality compared to the decent car audio gear, LOADS of features crammed in for a relatively low price means compromise and as well as the audio, the reliability of the units would be my other concern.

The UI is also pretty ugly on most of these, they work but are just...clumsy and well, ugly...lol
 
Six6siX said:
Generally poor audio quality compared to the decent car audio gear, LOADS of features crammed in for a relatively low price means compromise and as well as the audio, the reliability of the units would be my other concern.

The UI is also pretty ugly on most of these, they work but are just...clumsy and well, ugly...lol
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Seriously, just how much will one effect sound quality? Especially on a system that is going to be amp'd separately?
 
Joshy said:
Seriously, just how much will one effect sound quality? Especially on a system that is going to be amp'd separately?
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As Howard said, the original signal is important, if you amplify crap, you just end up with louder crap...!

I suppose it depends how sensitive or particular you are about your music. Or what you're used to.

Personally, if something sounds wrong or lacking in a system, it annoys me as I like a nicely balanced sound.
 
Maybe, maybe not. Who knows. It's up to you where your priorities lie, I guess. If I was buying a double-DIN unit, personally I'd buy a decent branded Pioneer or Alpine unit. I like quality items. There's reasons the cheap eBay ones cost about 4 times less, reasons which have been mentioned in this thread already. If this doesn't matter to you, then go for it :)
 
Thats all I seem to hear though, people assuming they are total crap with no first hand experience.

In all fairness your probably right but if anyone has some links to some actual reviews it would be interesting to find out?
 
when i was looking for the double din stereo the general option on them on the net was that for the price theyve got decent features but they didnt tend to be that reliable plus the sound quality was supposed to be crap but without hearing it yourself you cant really judge

what i ended up doing was buying a second hand kenwood one off ebay. picked up a single din with all bluetooth and ipod support for around £210 i think it was but ive seen double dins pioneers f900bt go for for between 250-300 and these are supposed to be one of the best double din screens for that price
 
Bargain basement electronics are never a good idea, bear with me and let me compare it to my alarm clock.

It's a 7" digital photo frame, clock radio with customisable alarms. It cost £7 in tesco. Yes, it does all of the above things but not as you might expect. If you try to put a memory card in it with more than 5 photos, it crashes. The alarm, although its never failed to go off on time sometimes turns on the untuned radio at the same time, despite being set for an alarm sound. If you snooze it more than 3 times, it locks up the next time it goes off and younhave to unplug it to shut it up. Oh, and sometimes it thinks Sunday is a weekday and wakes me up with a hangover at 6:30

So yes, it does what was advertised - but those head units are the equivalent of my alarm clock and exactly why the sound quality would be the least of my worries
 
iaind said:
Bargain basement electronics are never a good idea, bear with me and let me compare it to my alarm clock.

It's a 7" digital photo frame, clock radio with customisable alarms. It cost £7 in tesco. Yes, it does all of the above things but not as you might expect. If you try to put a memory card in it with more than 5 photos, it crashes. The alarm, although its never failed to go off on time sometimes turns on the untuned radio at the same time, despite being set for an alarm sound. If you snooze it more than 3 times, it locks up the next time it goes off and younhave to unplug it to shut it up. Oh, and sometimes it thinks Sunday is a weekday and wakes me up with a hangover at 6:30

So yes, it does what was advertised - but those head units are the equivalent of my alarm clock and exactly why the sound quality would be the least of my worries
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media compatibility is a very good point actually, big names tend to release more frequent firmware and software updates for better compatibility with media, functionality and stability etc. You just wouldn't get this from a no name brand.

A friend of mine bought a cheap single din unit from ebay, one of those with the smaller screen and all the bells and whistles. He's had issues with the Bluetooth connecting to his phone correctly and with it not recognising certain memory sticks.

I had a play with it very breifly and while it wasn't awful, the interface was a bit slow to respond and not very intuitive with buttons and menus. It did the job though.

Edit: If you can get one on the cheap, 2nd hand, go for it and try it out for yourself. Otherwise, echo the comment about looking for a branded 2nd hand unit
 
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I actually bought one of these last year and returned it a week later.
Loads of features for the cash, but the user interface was awful, and the touchscreen so unresponsive it was almost impossible to use on the move.
Trying to do anything on it when driving was actually dangerous.

I can't stress how bad it was. I've always been very open to these cheaper but more feature rich alternatives, but this put me right of them.
 
emailiscrap said:
I actually bought one of these last year and returned it a week later.
Loads of features for the cash, but the user interface was awful, and the touchscreen so unresponsive it was almost impossible to use on the move.
Trying to do anything on it when driving was actually dangerous.

I can't stress how bad it was. I've always been very open to these cheaper but more feature rich alternatives, but this put me right of them.
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As above, very interested in knowing what make and model it was :).
 
This is the same seller and pretty much the same unit:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XTRONS-TD716-...S_In_Car_Audio_Players_PP&hash=item5192e1af12

The quality of the unit was abysmal. The screen was very unresponsive, calibration was random it seemed, viewing angles poor, reaction speed of the fuctions was slow.
I also got stung as it was about £30 postage and when the item was refunded I obviously never saw that again. He's now doing free postage so that's not a big deal.

Lastly the sound quality was 'passable'. Not good, not strictly speaking bad. In the realms of Bush or Sendai units.
 
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Not a double DIN unit but I saw the above post and thought I'd give my input after recently picked up an Xtrons D706 single DIN head unit.

I'm not normally one to buy cheap electronics, but this unit was in good condition with little use and was offered to me for £90. Compare that to the ~£200 they go for online and I thought it worth a punt.

It's pretty awful. As emailiscrap said, dangerous to use while on the move. SQ is much much poorer than my Pioneer P80 and the unit lacks features such as LP filters and EQ adjustment.

Slow, noisy and with an ugly interface. I'm so tempted to rip it out and stick it on eBay. I can't believe some of these no-name units (Ripspeed and the like) go for upto £300.

What also made me laugh is the person I bought it from compared it to "top Alpine and Pioneer units", errr no.
 
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I wouldn't buy an after market headunit that was a brand other than one I knew/trusted. For me, I prefer Alpine and Pioneer head units. This is just me though.
 
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