Head unit recommendation for S1

[Black Sport 160]

I'd like to be able to listen to some music in the Elise for long journeys, etc. I'm not that knowledgeable on the car audio front though.

What head unit is a decent one? I've heard good reports of Alpine stuff. Halfords are currently selling the Alpine CDE-103BT unit for £199.99.

May well need to upgrade the speakers soon afterwards, but I assume a decent head unit is a good starting point.

Would be looking for a removable front panel, I-Pod and CD facility.


cheers


Justin

[JBanx]

Get the cheapest you can with an ipod adapter; you won't be able to hear it anyway!

Or

Just put some earphones in and listen to the ipod without using the stereo

[Gooby]

Budget?

[Strangely Brown]

Alpine iDA-X300

iPod and radio only. What more do you need? There is nowhere to store CDs anyway and you won't be able to hear it above 60mph.

[Black Sport 160]

Gooby said:

Budget?

Don't mind spending a couple of hundred pounds for the head unit.

I was thinking the head unit needs to be reasonably potent - the car itself is quite loud anyway - Sport 160 with no cat.

[Black Sport 160]

Strangely Brown said:

iPod and radio only. What more do you need? There is nowhere to store CDs anyway

You're probably right on that one. I can just copy my favourite music from the CD's onto the I-Pod and keep things nice & compact. Not too fussed about the tuner itself - reception is always going to pretty poor in an Elise anyway.

[Strangely Brown]

Black Sport 160 said:

Strangely Brown said:

iPod and radio only. What more do you need? There is nowhere to store CDs anyway

You're probably right on that one. I can just copy my favourite music from the CD's onto the I-Pod and keep things nice & compact.

Exactly!

Black Sport 160 said:

Not too fussed about the tuner itself - reception is always going to pretty poor in an Elise anyway.

You'd be surprised. The tuner is actually pretty good, especially at locking onto traffic announcements.

If you want to display album art and have a better display then look at the iDA-X100 (or whatever the current replacement is).

[S Works]

As above, HU with iPod interface and a decent radio (you can get a good reception with a little fettling) and you're set. To get half decent sound you need to invest a little time with some dynamat, a small sub and some upgraded speakers (mount 2 forward ones if you can - search the archives for Tippers install). Without the sub and better speakers you won't get the benefit of a decent HU. Alpine are great though.

[Grinnders]

I was going to recommend a Kenwood D-Mask as it saves taking the head unit out of the car



the can come with a mini steering wheel mountable remote control (because they don't put the head unit within easy reach on an S1 do they?) and you can get a ipod cable (audio and charger) in place of a CD changer unit but.....

... it looks like they don't make them anymore.

[TIPPER]

Perfectly possible to get half decent sound you can hear at real world Mway speeds roof off and on.
Don't go mad on the Head unit (I paid about £150 for a Pioneer jobbie a few years ago) but try and get one with a sub out, 4 X 25 watts rms (not 'music' power) and reasonable equaliser options (wouldn't touch them at home but in the car its a different matter).
My unit is hooked up to a pair of Kenwood 17cm component (seperate tweeters) at the rear and a pair of 10cm Sonys at the front plus a small Alpine sub in the pax footwell.
If you remove the outer dash top air vents then you can just drop the speakers into the hole - a little sikaflex will secure once you're happy.
My sub is secured using heavy duty velcro on the footrest and bulkhead and has never moved (even on track days although I ought to take it out).
Have a dig through the archives on here and on Seloc to get radio reception sorted, then fiddle with the gain of the sub (mine is barely on) and equaliser and hey presto, listenable sound in the Elise.
I burn about ten CDs onto CDRs and use those in the car.
Thanks to Piooly who inspired this after his Sport 160 installation.

[NJS25]

I paid the princely sum of £29.99 for a headunit from.............Aldi.

Bluetooth phone, remote control, aux in, usb and best of all SD card reader. Can't fault it.

The sound in a car is always going to be compromised, the sound in an elise is going to be very compromised. I don't trash anymore cd's on our less than perfect roads and can keep about 500 tracks on 2GB card (you don't need to save them as lossless, IIRC I saved everything at around 160kbs and they sound fine).

Power was rated as less than the OE unit but it actually performs better before the sound degrades. The wattage tells you nothing about the amps ability to create a decent sound throughout its volume range. For example 30W per channel is one hell of alot in a car, my home stereo has two channels at only? 30W (Naim amp, Royd speakers), and you wouldn't want to put your head 1m away from those speakers!

As is often the case in a car the limiting factor tends to be the speakers not the headunit. I would recommend you buy the cheapest headunit you can and the best speakers to extract the best from it. The SD card facility is a very good idea, you can put most of your music on a couple of 2gb cards, at a couple of quid each, and leave them in the car, no need for expensive hardware in a car with no roof.

I bought the £30 Aldi unit because I was sick of damaging cds and at that price it was worth the risk, I was expecting that I would need to keep looking for something better. I'm absolutely delighted with it and while I shall probably upgrade the speakers I have no intention of changing the headunit again.

Regards, Neil