new head unit

i know nothing about car stereos and i think the Clarion i have fitted is on its last legs so its time for a new unit i dont want to spend silly money all i want is a swap for the standard Clarion i use a ipod so i need to be able to connect it .... any advice would be good i have a standard 2000 set up

Any and I mean any car stereo made in the last 5 years will sound infinately better than the standard fit POS Clarion. I went to th bother of fitting new speakers a sub and amplifiers and it sounded better but not THAT much better. New head unit and wow.

Alpine are probably the market leader and even their or there are some good SOny units on offer in Halfords too.

They will all be a simple swap as the coupe has ISO sockets which are pretty much standard fit.

Loads to chose frome here

I would go for this with red display.

I would be tempted by This Sony as it has bluetooth and a tray to hold the ipod out of sight.

^^^ What he said.

I replaced mine with an Alpine, which sounds fine but has annoyingly small buttons . Just check what level of iphone control you're getting - mine just plays the currently selected album - it will let you fwd and rew through tracks, but you have to disconnect the iphone to choose another album. I think some units will give you more iphone functionality, at higher cost.
Actually I thought the original Clarion sounded perfectly ok too until it died...

I bought a budget Alpine in 2008 and it was night and day to the original clarion. Well worth the £110!

wink, for my alpine if I select "songs" on your iphone / iPod rather than albums then it'll play through my entire library in alphabetical song order. If you select an album it'll play through my library in alphabetical album order.

Thanks for that Gunzi! For the first time today, I selected 'songs' then 'artist' and was able to scroll through as normal on the iphone, or just play the library. Pays to RTFM I guess

Are there any new head units that will also just connect up to the cable for the exisiting cd changer in the boot. My Clarion is giving up the ghost

(not in to ipods- still analogue in a digital world)

Thanks in advance

I'm not sure whether anything modern will connect up, I guess your best bet would be another Coupe spec clarion from the parts for sale.

Thanks Gunzi for the input,

Don't think i could put up with another clarion though. Will have a look at the options.

I didn't even mention that I still find the casette deck useful...

MM

Then ebay would be your best bet, if you are willing to install a replacement CD changer in the boot. Here's a good example. The thing is for that price you could get a modern CD headunit with the option of ipod / USB connectivity. The modern unit would undoubtedly have better sound quality too.

Thanks Gunzi,

I guess its time to take that bold leap into the 21st century and go for something modern..!

MM

i have CD player / normal fm radio with iPod connection on the side. ken wood radio i got from halfords for about £60 + a windscreen mounted stick on arial

this works fine and the supplied connection lead made it simple plug and play until i decided to neaten all the wiring behind the dash.

Sounds about right what I need GF Chris,

Just looking at some of the new care stereo's around that plug and play now.

Whole new era of sound beckons...

MM

Just to add. Nothing will connect to the Coupes Clarion CD changer except very old Clarion Units. You can buy a converter to let it talk to the newer Clarion head units but that costs £120, which is more than a new cd changer unit

I briefly looked at doing the same thing and gave up an bought a hybrid* Pure head unit.

*DAB/FM+CD+Bluetooth+MP3.