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i opened up the radio just to have a look inside and was slightly shocked to find a single 1" wide circuit board spanning the width of the back of the radio. Except for the circuit board, it was literally an empty box. no wonder it was so light.
Since I had it opened, I got some epoxy and glued some parts that look like they might break loose upon installation such as the antenna jack and the harness plug. worst case scenario, I can plug the oe radio back in.
install will happen mid feb.
my last bargain radio install was well north of $400 for the amp, sub, head unit and component speakers but that was probably 8-10 years ago.
That's how most audio and video equipment is today. Over the years these standardized unit sizes have been created but the internal parts keep shrinking so most of the box is now empty. What you are buying is basically a tiny mp3 player in a box that fits in a standard dashboard hole.
i got the harness a few days early and my daughter came home today so I spent 2 hours to install the radio. installation itself was fairly quick, but the radio's trim bezel was slightly too big so I spent about an hour with my dremel to trim the radio (not the dashboard).
the radio has more power than the old radio and there's clearly more bass. As long as the radio doesn't die within the first year I would say it was money well spent.
I agree. The other formats are more portable and therefore more convenient for use in the car, and the sound quality probably meets or exceeds the capability of most car audio systems anyway. But CDs do deliver better sound, so those of us who care about that will be buying CDs until something better comes along.
I still have this thing called a phonograph.
CD's still outsell digital album sales, 50 million to 43.8 million. Vinyl sold 6.2 million.
i got the harness a few days early and my daughter came home today so I spent 2 hours to install the radio. installation itself was fairly quick, but the radio's trim bezel was slightly too big so I spent about an hour with my dremel to trim the radio (not the dashboard).
the radio has more power than the old radio and there's clearly more bass. As long as the radio doesn't die within the first year I would say it was money well spent.
Good deal, thanks for the update.
I bought my 16 year old daughter a similar one at Walmart but it had bluetooth. After getting the harness I spent about the same amount of time as you doing the install. She's very happy with her new radio.
I recently ditched my factory Ram cd player for an aftermarket Pioneer with no cd port. It has two USBs (one front, one rear), and aux in, and Bluetooth. The radio itself was only about 4" deep and weighed almost nothing. For around $60 total I had it in the truck. All of my audio is lossless audio so the quality is well above average. My cd binder are collecting dust.
Good stuff. Good for older cars. New car OEM systems are a lot better than in the past. Plus everything is so integrated now in new cars no way you can just pop in a new aftermarket DIN radio
Good stuff. Good for older cars. New car OEM systems are a lot better than in the past. Plus everything is so integrated now in new cars no way you can just pop in a new aftermarket DIN radio
What do you mean? Most aftermarket companies offer up adapters that will allow the radio to still communicate with the car very similarly (if not the same) as a factory head unit.
What do you mean? Most aftermarket companies offer up adapters that will allow the radio to still communicate with the car very similarly (if not the same) as a factory head unit.
Most (not all) new cars don't have DIN style radio head units anymore. Can't simply just pull out old unit and put in new one like 15-20 years ago. Certainly none of the cars in our household.
Most (not all) new cars don't have DIN style radio head units anymore. Can't simply just pull out old unit and put in new one like 15-20 years ago. Certainly none of the cars in our household.
Our 2014 Expedition with navigation uses a standard double din unit. You can swap an aftermarket double din unit into it with no installation kit. However, my Ram uses an odd 1.5" DIN size so for it you must use an adapter to shrink the hole to a single din. (Or if you're frisky you can cut the dash to allow fitment of a double din.. but that's another ball of wax).
You can swap any factory radio with an aftermarket if you have the correct install kit and harnesses. It's pretty simple to do actually. Some are slightly more involved (like when I swapped my Audi headunit for an aftermarket) but still very doable.
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