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About to pull the trigger on a new car stereo

A complete re-wire would only make sense if I wanted to completely replace the stock system, which I don't. Not all stock systems sound terrible. Mine actually sounds half-way decent. I would have to drop a good $500 or more on component speakers and another few hundred on an amp to get a noticeable improvement. Throw in a subwoofer and I'd be north of another thousand dollars on top of the $340 I just spent. The car has low miles and is in very good shape, but it is 8 years old and I'm going to give it to my daughter in a few years. This is not something I want to drop huge money on. I might toss a Bazooka tube in the trunk, but that's about all I'd do. I am not a car stereo enthusiast. The only reason I replaced the head unit to begin with is that the CD player in the stock one died and I wanted BlueTooth.
 
I think you'd do as well with the under seat subs (like the Boss one) for around $100 than you would with a small low powered bazooka in the trunk. I'm gonna stick one of those under the seat of my car and that's all the fill I need. Those Monsoon systems are pretty decent. Most newer systems in a decent car are usually not too bad.

Now the important stuff, after a week or so how do you like the Pioneer? It's in play to replace the 10 year old Panasonic I use in my work van. It still works flawlessly but doesn't have any of the latest gadgetry I'm after, mainly Bluetooth.
 
I love the head unit. My only complaint is that the USB ports are only on when selected as a source and that is a truly minor grip. The BlueTooth functionality is fantastic. All I do is select the album I want to listen to and make sure the volume on my phone is up before I leave and put the phone in my pocket. When I turn on the car, the stereo pairs with the phone and starts playing whatever it is. I hit stop before I get out of the car or the song will keep playing on the phone, which makes sense. When I get back in the car later, the song picks up right where it left off just as if I had a disc in the dash. Very slick. I cannot change albums from the head unit, but I can play, pause and skip tracks.

The phone functionality is also great. It downloaded my contact list into the head unit, so I can make calls without ever taking the phone out of my pocket. My phone has a feature that reads inbound text messages automatically when connected to BlueTooth. The Navi on my phone will also voice over whatever music I'm playing. The end result of the phone/head unit combination is a pretty seamless platform for navigation, phone calls, inbound text and music. The only minor annoyance is that I have my phone set up to lock after five minutes, so switching albums while driving is a nuisance. I may end up getting a USB thumb drive for music, so I can have more control via the head unit. The phone/text features will still integrate seemlessly, but the navigation voice prompts would not come from the stereo (not a big deal).
 
^ That sounds great! Makes me want to get one.

Good going, Mr. Haywood! :text-bravo:
 
Get the thumb drive, makes life easy. The little SanDisk one I got is hardly noticeable at all, it's around the size of a penny. 16gb drive has around 11gb on it which is most of what I'd normally listen to. HP has a slightly larger 32gb, I got them both for $40. THough size may not be of importance if you have rear USB ports, I don't and didn't want a huge dongle sticking out of my dash.
 
I need to correct something I said above. The head unit will automatically stop the phone's music streaming when powered off. I only had it not do that once and that may have been due to a BlueTooth glitch.

I ran the USB to the dash pocket above the radio, so the size of the thumb drive is not really an issue. I will probably get either a 32GB or 64GB drive.
 
"Dual rear USB (type-A) ports allow connection of two compatible USB memory devices. Both rear USB (type-A) ports allow you to connect a USB portable audio player or USB flash memory device that is USB Mass Storage Class compliant. Your USB memory devices must be formatted in FAT 12/16/32. A 5' USB extension cable is provided for better access. Up to 8 directories; 1,500 folders; and 15,0000 files per USB device are recognized by this unit. You can search for MP3, WMA, and AAC music files by category - Artist, Album, Song, or Genre. Once you have selected a category, you can search the list alphabetically (A-Z). The unit is compatible with ID3 Tags and will display artist, folder, file, and album name."
 
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