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1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Most aftermarket headunits should fit perfectly into 1 of the 1 standard DIN-sized spaces currently occupied by the H/K unit. I'm probably going to go with a Nakamichi, Alpine or Sony ES unit on eBay. The Nak CD-45z has dual 20-bit Burr Brown d/a converters. The Alpines have worse DACs, but you get more features for the money, including more controls and the ability to add in an XM tuner.
As for wiring, I haven't figured out the pins yet, but I may just replace the wires anyway.
As for wattage, while most head units may have "adequate" power for driving the front speakers, none of them can compete with even a modest external amp. In fact, the really good head units (McIntosh, Nak CD-700, Sony CDX-C910 or C90, Alpine F1) don't even have internal amps. This is for a few reasons: (1) because quality capacitors and power supplies, etc. won't fit inside a head unit, you can't make a high quality amp inside a head unit; (2) a "high-powered) amp inside a head unit doesn't get adequate ventilation and creates a tremendous build up of heat in the head unit, which is not good for any of its parts; and (3) removing the amp from the head unit leaves more room in the head unit to use quality parts for the CD player and preamp. Finally, don't believe the hype about how much power these head units put out. For whatever reason, the advertised head unit specs are always given in peak power, while external amps are given in RMS. peak power is usually around twice RMS. So a 40x4 watt head unit (sometimes advertised even more deceptively as a 160 watt unit) is roughly equal in "power" to a 20 watt external amp. And, even then, the 20 watt external amp will always sound better. Since you can pick up a used good 40x4 or 50x4 external amp on eBay pretty cheaply, it isn't worth it to use the head unit as an amp. For me, the only question is where to put it.
posted by 208.171.192...
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