help me pick a deck for my mom

Post by **Bfowler** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:24 pm

i'm looking deck to put in my mom's m3. anyone up on the currant lineups.

things i'm looking for are

-under $200 (absolute cap)

-controllable sub line out (bonus if its on a pigtail, instead of just inputs on the back of the deck)

-High pass crossover processing

-black/amber colors preferred

-aux out for an mp3 player

so far the kenwood x592 (or 591, older)

but those are right at the top of the price range, and the blue lights are quite bright..any other ideas?

Post by **Bfowler** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:34 pm

disregard...

i found a kenwood x791 for 150....for me...and she can have my x590!

Post by **Francious70** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:24 pm

I was thinking an older Pioneer DEH-P 7400MP would be exactly what you're looking for.

Post by **Wakeup** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 3:24 pm

Brian's a kenwood fan like me!

Got both my 25th decks cheap...one under 200. and the other for 200! But I am not parting with either of those at the moment.

Love them too much!

Post by **Francious70** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:33 pm

Enh, I'm a Pioneer guy myself. They have a cleaner look.

Post by **Rold Gold** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:43 pm

X969 in my dash.

Post by **Wakeup** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 9:41 pm

had me a x815, x959 deck, and a X869 deck. Now I've got my two 25th anniversary XXV-01D decks.

billyrohm · Post by **billyrohm** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:08 pm

Sony CDX-F605X

Dont think it has the colors you want but the deck is hard to beat for around $130 shipped.

24 bit burr browns
7 band eq

HoseHead · Post by **HoseHead** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:31 am

Bfowler wrote:disregard...

i found a kenwood x791 for 150....for me...and she can have my x590!

Passing on your used gear to your Mom?
She'd trade you in too, if she could.

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:34 am

haha, well almost all the gear is free to her...and of course im charging her cookies for the install (literally)

rolandk · Post by **rolandk** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:34 am

I have a Pioneer DEH-P5000UB at my test bench. <$200 and a ton of features but also has bright blue LED's and the UI is very counter-intuitive IMO.

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:37 am

thanks roland, the easy to use UI should have been a requirement too....she is scared of electronics...this could be rough even with the easiest of decks

im going for the kenwood and i will just not tell her about the sub menu's

Post by **stipud** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:44 am

I know this sounds funny, but I actually really liked the Sony Xplod deck that I had once upon a time. It had the best menu layout of any deck I've owned so far. The Alpine Pioneer and Kenwood decks have all been a major pain in the ass, where the Sony just worked, was easy to tweak, and sounded good to me as well.

The Sony CDX-F605X that billyrohm offered you is a really clean deck, and if I recall playing around with it on the wall... the interface was just as easy to use as my old one. 24-bit DACs on a budget too! I know Xplod gets a lot of shit, but their mid-to-upper tier simple clean decks are actually quite good IMHO. It's the cheapo plastic BATMAAAAN style ones that I don't like.

Sometimes you gotta wonder what these engineers are thinking when they come up with their interfaces. If you want to adjust your crossovers, just hold these two buttons, stand on one foot, and twist the dial countertopwise. Quite intuitive! I think Alpine is probably the worst for that. Fuzzy's iPod control is really awkward, especially on a large library.

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:51 am

shit...that really is a clean deck...if i had seen that before the kenwood purchase i would have gone for it. i will remember that for future installs.

buying a sony anything in car audio is a huge barrier for me...this might help me get over it

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:51 am

if someone wants a used but nice kenwood x590....i might still do it

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:58 am

sorry to keep posting whoring (cute that im worrying about that now at 4400 posts...)

dose the mp3 player adaptor make sense to anyone else for it?

it looks like it have to hard wire it in with the harness?

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-g68QYaOxYC ... =541PXHSN1

Post by **stipud** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:11 am

Here's a review of it: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/sho ... php?t=5161

He says the iPod controller is kinda shitty, but otherwise it's a good deck.

dedlyjedly · Post by **dedlyjedly** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:40 pm

Brian, the part you posted is just a Sony specific harness to be used with this....
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-OBYdRmynKL ... i=541PXDPA

The white molex plugs into the peripheral box and the rcas and changer cable plug into the back of the Sony deck. I really wouldn't recommend using a third party ipod interface though as it really leaves a lot to be desired as far as ease of operation. If she's anything like my mom I'll bet you really want to keep all the technology as easy as possible. If she is already familiar with the mp3 player/ipod you're going to use I'd definitely consider using a simple auxiliary input leaving all the control features to the handheld player itself.

BTW, there are accessories that allow you to input just the audio while still providing a power source to charge the ipod and utilizing the dock connector for your audio connection (instead of the lame headphone out). Something like this...
http://www.peripheralelectronics.com/pr ... oductID=52

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:45 pm

yeah, thats what i wanted to do...i thought that was the aux input for the sony?

at any rate i might just stick with the kenwood then. i already have the aux for that

Post by **stipud** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:57 pm

All of the mid-high sony decks I have seen have RCA aux-inputs on the rear of the deck. According to Crutchfield this one is no exception.

So you just need an RCA => mini cable, and voila... iPod playback.

dedlyjedly · Post by **dedlyjedly** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:00 pm

Any Sony deck with the "Aux-Lite" feature won't need any sony specific parts to accommodate an audio input as long as you're not already using the deck to control a changer.

All you'll need is a cable to provide rca output from the ipod. You can use a simple rca to 3.5mm stereo-mini cable ($5) or something nicer like I referred to in my last post.

If you can find a buyer for your Kenwood I think the Sony would be a lot better fit for your mom.

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:04 pm

^i'm looking for that in writing, i just found the owner manual..wasnt much help.

i dont want the deck to arrive and be stuck with an expensive sub par aux unit as a only option

dedlyjedly · Post by **dedlyjedly** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:24 pm

http://www.xplodsony.com/article/Sony+N ... +Receivers
Scroll down to "Rear Panel "AUX LITE" Input" section

Sony has always used a unilink (control cable) and a set of rcas to connect to an external changer. Since the audio was transfered thru the rcas it makes it easy to use this system to input other audio sources. The problem (before Aux Lite) was that the "bus-in" rcas on the back of the deck weren't active unless a uni-link was also hooked up. So, some third party manufacturer developed these to activate the unilink and trick the deck...
http://www.amazon.com/PAC-Unilink-adapt ... B000H3PPNM
I've got one of those that you're welcome to if you need it, but you won't!

You really didn't need to know any of this as "Aux Lite" has remedied the whole situation, but I'm feeling like being a smart ass today and thought I'd share anyhow. No really, Sony has always made things more complicated than they really are by creating their own terms and jargon and such as you just experienced by trying to find a simple answer in the manual. I hated having to know all of this when I sold Sony and now I think I purged it all one last time.

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:26 pm

sweet...sold

ima post my kenwood for sale

billyrohm · Post by **billyrohm** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:07 pm

Bfowler wrote:sweet...sold

ima post my kenwood for sale

Sweet, I finally came up with a good Idea......

Ha, Ha

I've got my 605 waiting to go in, I got mine from Amazon, cheapest shipped that I could find. If I get mine in before yours I'll post about it. I think that there is a review over on diyma.