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Folk who bought those cheap USB head units....


dave21478

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I cant find the thread now but a while back someone posted about sub £20 ebay Chinese head units.....no cd player, just radio and USB / SD card.

Are they any good?

 

I need a new unit, preferably cheap, and see no point getting one with a CD player any more. My worry is whenever I have had cheap head units in the past they turned to shit after a few months.....volume knobs not working, bad contacts on the fascia etc etc.

 

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I know someone who did and IMO the sound quality was wank. I've never gone any cheaper than the Aldi Tevion CD/radio/SD card/USB/bluetooth things that usually cost £50-ish and for the money I've been very pleased with them. I do have a tendency to use bookshelf speakers than actual car ones though, which seem to improve matters greatly.

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I had one in the Maverick.

Sound quality pretty good, scotchlok wiring as no ISO fitting, just bare wires.

Display wasnt as advertised but at something like £13 I wasnt going to grumble.

 

Got Radio 4 and Radio 2 which was all I was arsed about and the kids listened to Harry Potter via the USB input.

 

I now have a not quite as cheap £70 sony DAB so I can have Absolute 80's and Radio 4Xtra.

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My local scrappy u pull it give you a choice of half decent Sony/kenwood etc CD players for just over 20 quid. Would sound a lot better than one of the Chinese units I suspect.

 

I've just splashed 75 on a new old stock Sony DAB unit for the calibra off eBay. Came with the dab aerial etc and took me all of ten minutes to fit. It's got a direct port for my iPod as well. Decent bit of kit for the cash.

 

This is what I bought: http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=351099647636

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I bought one of these from aldi,its in my Volvo,has bluetooth,both phone & music,also usb & sd card.

Installed this,fitted straight in,only about 4" deep so would fit in shallow dash.

Plugged direct into existing wiring.

Sounds really good,bluetooth through iphone worked straight away,plays music fine as does phone hands free.

Well recommended especially at £35 with 3 year warrenty

 

post-1-0-19257800-1427052594_thumb.jpg

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I reckon I had the same basic unit as Daveb but mine was wharfdale from Argos. Exactly the same display, button layout etc.

 

It was OK, lasted 10 months and one speaker kept crackling every couple of days - a minor annoyance for £35 or something. I took it to Argos thinking I'd just swap it for a new one, they gave me £35 back without even asking and physically lobbed the head unit into a corner. Apparently they get a steady stream of cheap head units back.

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The Volvo's head unit is really nice, double DIN job with CD and tape, I'm tempted to upgrade it with one of these.

 

http://www.gromaudio.com/store/usb_adapters/volvo_94-00_usb_ipod_adapter_direct_digital_interface.html

 

Pricey, though. Is there a shiter's way to add bluetooth?

Does it have an Aux-in?

 

I bought a Bluetooth dongle, needs USB but only for power so I tapped into a spare fuse that's ignition switched and hardwired an old phone charger in. This dongle then has a 3.5mm aux out which goes to my head unit aux in.

 

It was about £3.50 - actually decent quality, and I was so chuffed I splashed an extra £4 or so on a 12v - 2xUSB module so I've got a couple of USB power ports in the glovebox. BT dongle in one, other spare for a dash can.

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If it has a changer port at the back, there's often a way to trick it into thinking it has a changer connected and you can blast Aux into the back.

 

Like http://www.auxadapter.se/ does

 

Or someone good with electronics could probably disable the tape player and feed a cable in to the same bit so it amplifies it and it comes out the speakers.

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Or someone good with electronics could probably disable the tape player and feed a cable in to the same bit so it amplifies it and it comes out the speakers.

 

I had a go at adding an aux in to an old head unit with a knackered tape deck using random bits from the scrap box,  it worked but the sound quality was shit.  It would probably have worked better if somebody who was actually good at electronics did it with decent materials but it proved the concept.

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If you have a cassette player, get one of those shite tape-to-3.5mm-jack things that poor people used to use for connecting discmans to their cars to play cds. If you run it to your phone (assuming it has a headphones out) then you get the ability to do handsfree phone calls as well as playing any music or whatnot off the SD card in your phone too. GR12 IMHO.

 

Oh, it also amplifies the sat-nav thingy on the phone too, so if you're into that then it makes it eleventy tenhundred times more useful.

 

All for about £2.25 delivered. I did it and was amazed at the versatility of the setup.

 

EDIT - cassette head units (incl decent ones) are giveaway cheap too, so if you need the whole kit and caboodle you can probably source it from ebay or somesuch for less than £20 for a shit new head unit. Plus, no-one would ever try breaking into your car to steal it.

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I had one of those tap to aux jobs in the xm. £7 from asda.

 

From my phone it was proper shit as the unshielded cabling in the xm picked up every bit of interference. I knew when I was about to get a text before it came through...

 

On airplane mode it was fine, but then I couldn't use Google maps and listen to music...

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Can i fit this new fangled USB you talk of to my gramaphone in my vehicle? Also trying to get the shipping forecast on my MW/LW wireless but cant?

 

I had one of the aldi specials was ok but didnt like minus temperatures, was very slow to work when cold.

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My local scrappy u pull it give you a choice of half decent Sony/kenwood etc CD players for just over 20 quid. Would sound a lot better than one of the Chinese units I suspect.

 

I've just splashed 75 on a new old stock Sony DAB unit for the calibra off eBay. Came with the dab aerial etc and took me all of ten minutes to fit. It's got a direct port for my iPod as well. Decent bit of kit for the cash.

 

This is what I bought: http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=351099647636

Yep, thats the one I have - £70 new from Halfrauds in the Boxing Day sale.

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French radio makes me want to swerve into oncoming traffic and I dont have any CD's left, I ripped them all to the computer before I emigrated as I couldnt be arsed humpfing boxes of the things around.

My telephone is a monochrome screen Nokia 1110, so no point in connecting it to anything.

 

I am leaning away from the cheap Aldi units as I must have gone through 3 or 4 cheapo stereos in previous cars and they all turned into a pain in the ass after a while. Ebay has plenty of decent branded units that have a front USB or SD card socket. They still have a CD player, but thats not a problem.

Cheers.

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If you have a cassette player, get one of those shite tape-to-3.5mm-jack things that poor people used to use for connecting discmans to their cars to play cds. If you run it to your phone (assuming it has a headphones out) then you get the ability to do handsfree phone calls as well as playing any music or whatnot off the SD card in your phone too. GR12 IMHO.

 

...

I've got one of those that plays my SD card. You have to charge it up via the cigar lighter. The problem is it wont work in the cassette slot with the charging lead plugged into it. Design fail.

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I have one in the T2, I think it's a JVC but it could be anything.

I bought it in one of the endless Halfrauds sales for about fifty pounds - basically so I could take it back if it packed up.

We use it to listen to the iPod when we are camping. 

It does everything I wanted it to.

It said it would blue tooth to my phone but it was hard work & no bugger ever calls me anyway.

 

Best of all, I can make the display ORANGE like the van and it has a remote control for when we iz sat in back!

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My local scrappy u pull it give you a choice of half decent Sony/kenwood etc CD players for just over 20 quid. Would sound a lot better than one of the Chinese units I suspect.

 

I've just splashed 75 on a new old stock Sony DAB unit for the calibra off eBay. Came with the dab aerial etc and took me all of ten minutes to fit. It's got a direct port for my iPod as well. Decent bit of kit for the cash.

 

This is what I bought: http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=351099647636

 

Did you remember the irritating Vaux habit of resersing the permanent live and the switched live in the ISO connector?

 

If your radio won't remember station presets, this is your reason.

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Did you remember the irritating Vaux habit of resersing the permanent live and the switched live in the ISO connector?

 

If your radio won't remember station presets, this is your reason.

Not just Vaux - buy post 2000 BSI French PSA chod too. The Pic keeps the radio playing for 2 minutes after the car has been locked up.

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