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Ok so I have a 2003 Civic Sedan and I am looking to finally upgrade my stereo. I hear it is best to go for a good head unit first so I was wondering what I should look for. I'm willing to spend $200-300. The only thing I absolutely want is the ability to play my ipod touch. I figure after I get a good head unit I can then start looking at amps, components, etc. Any help would be great.

 
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One more thing. I know absolutely nothing about installation and whatnot, so would it just be better to get it done at best buy or a local audio store. I hear there's one a few minutes from my house that does everything I could want. Thanks again

 
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Head units have gotten cheaper over the years. You can pick up a really nice non-dvd head unit pretty well anywhere nowadays for 300 dollars or less. Install on our cars is a bit more challenging but there are a few GREAT DIY's on this forum here.

I suggest getting an Alpine myself as it seems to have the best sound quality. It's one of the better brand names. If you want to go with a flashier unit for a bit less money you can get a Pioneer. I don't think Pioneer has the sound quality that Alpine has though. It's completly up to you. I'd shop around until you find a head unit that matches your car and your personal preference.

You can do the install yourself if you take your time and do it right. The other advantage to it is, if you do it yourself you save money and you learn about your car, which has its own benefits. Oh right and most newer decks come with the ability to hook up ipods, although most of them require the need for an additional cable which ranges from 20 to 50 dollars.

Best of luck!!! Post pics after it's in!!

P.S. - I haven't had much good experience from install shops. They are messy and don't care what the end results look like as long as the deck works. If you do it yourself you can do it carefully and have the final result that you want!

 
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kenwood,alpine.blaupunkt,eclipse,clarion, ive personally have always liked clarion sound quality alpine second. but for 300 you could get a lower end flip out .

 
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I'm actually selling a Clarion DXZ-855mp. I have everything but the remote. Looking to get around 250 americal so around 250 cad. Its in great condition, just a few scratches on the **** for volume.

 
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i just helped my firend with his corolla and he had the same desire you have conectivty with his ipod touch. i talked him into this http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1216424781227 i installed it for him and it works perfect. your right in thinking a head unit is where to start sometimes all it takes is a good head unit to get good sound. this head unit also came with a remote and i belive it had 3 sub outputs. and sony head units are always good quality and thats all i have used this also wolnt break the bank now if you want something more flashy leme know cuz i could find something just for that

 
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I'm not the biggest fan of Sony Xplod. I mean 150 dollars is a great price but you can get a lower end Alpine for 200 dollars that I think would have better sound quality.

JVC also makes some fantastic decks.

 
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I've been doing some research and it appears that Alpine is a pretty good choice. My question is how do I know whether or not it will fit my car? I have looked at some of best buy's receivers and it doesn't look like any of their Alpine sets will work with my car, or at least it says they can't install it themselves. Crutchfield looks like it has some great sets, but I would hate to buy one that I couldn't figure out how to make work.

 
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Here, use this link to see what stereos fit in your car. Crutchfield

If you are mechanically inclined, a stereo install shouldn't be too hard. If you order from crutchfield you will get some pretty good instructions which will help you on your way.

But if you are not mechanically inclined and haven't touched a tool in your life...get someone else to do it.

 
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Do the opposite of this, Sony is overpriced garbage that should never be sold anywhere near a car audio shop. Their amplifiers are always something like 800 watts peak and 200 watts RMS, they're class A/B and aren't really worth the metal they're stamped in. They don't make good televisions, stereos, radios, headphones, hell they don't make anything good. Even their mp3 players suck. Do not buy Sony.

To answer some of your questions, you can buy headunits now that don't have a CD slot, they just have a USB hookup in the back. So you run the USB to your glovebox and keep your iPod in there. Then when you turn on your car, the stereo actually plays the songs from your iPod, displays the track/album titles from your iPod and you can also control the whole thing from the headunit itself. And since there's no CD slot, there's a much larger area for a screen to display the titles. I just installed one in my friend's car, they're nice.

To know if it'll fit, headunits are designed in 2 main sizes, they're DIN and double DIN. The 7th generation Civic has a larger headunit opening which is double DIN so therefore any DIN or double DIN headunit will fit. If I've confused you, just know that any mainstream headunit will fit in your car and bolt in without problems.

To install it, I hate telling people to go to Best Buy or anywhere actually. There are picture walkthroughs of how to do it on this forum, plus you can ask any of us and we'll help you out with it. If I lived close enough I'd come do it for a few beer. But I highly suggest getting in there and doing it yourself so you can change it or remove it in the future if you need to. Buy some tools with the $50 you'd normally pay and you'll have them and the knowledge for life.

Now when buying a headunit, people have already mentioned the good brands like Clarion, Alpine, I don't think Focal was mentioned. Get one of these, even if they don't look as good, they sell because they sound better and sound is more important than aesthetics. Then make sure it has enough pre-amps in the back. These are RCA output jacks that go to amplifiers so if you're thinking of adding a subwoofer to this in the future, you need a subwoofer preout. If you're thinking of adding 1 set of components and an amplifier to power them, you'll need another set of preouts for that. And if you're going with 4 components powered by 2 amps you'll need a third set of pre outs, it's usually listed in the specifications how many preouts the headunit has.

 
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focal is fairly new to the head unit market but if they make there's as good as there speakers then there probably better then alpine but i would stick with the tried and tru brands get a alpine. and sony head units deserve more credit than that they have good units for the price. as for the install all you need is a din adapter and a wire harness and your good its really easy to do yourself as long as your not color blind.

 
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dex its too long to quote but its 150 bucks and its one of the only under 300 head units that does connect to ipod touch alot of current head units will only connect to first gens not second gens and some were designed with the 1.1.3 identifaction so there useless now the sony is the newiest it DOES produce great audio for 150 bucks and its upgradable to handle blue tooth and hd radio.... and it looks decent

 
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stick with alpine, sony is garbage.

 
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ill admit sony speakers are garbage but i havent seen any problems with the head units

 
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Lots of good advice, and some not so good.

Alpine has never been known for GREAT sound quality, just good features, flashy and pretty good sound from the internal amp. Pioneer on the other hand has much better SQ imo, and their HU are not as flashy, and you can get Pioneer Premier which will blow the SQ of an Alpine away.

Clarion is decent

Eclipse is hit or miss, some of their head units are AMAZING, while others not so much.



Right now, I haven't seen too many tempting offerings from any company and hate the flashy direction they are all moving towards. I have a pioneer 4900 and aside from having to use up/down buttons to browse through the ipod.. I think it was a great purchase.

 
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Sorry for everyone that disagrees. I'm a firm believer that Alpine has a perfect sound/aesthetics/features mix. I think Pioneer has so many different models of decks they just flood the market and hope people buy. I've had Pioneer, Clarion, Sony, and Alpine with Alpine sounding the best. Mind you its one of Alpine's highests models.

I'd say Alpine sounds the best, followed by Clarion, followed by Pioneer, followed by Sony.

 
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Lots of good stuff here. Thanks guys. One more thing. When I start looking at components, subs, amps and whatnot how many outputs should I look for. Ideally I would like to get rid of all of my stock speakers with components and probably add a sub in the back as well. Would that mean I need something with 3 outputs? I've seen some that have 6 and don't know what I should be looking for. Thanks again.

 
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3 Should be plenty. If you run 4 speakers with 2 amps and 2 subs off one amp thats lots.

You can get away with 2 if you run a 4 channel amp to power your speakers and then a 2 channel mono to run 2 subs

I'd aim for 3 outs.

 
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ive had kenwood, sony, alpine, and pioneer decks. sony is trash in every way, even if you forget about the fact that it skips over every pebble in the road and sounds like a record player. my low end kenwood deck from 10 yrs ago (when their decks were actually quality) had very nice sound for just a headunit. i then ended up with a very high end pioneer premier ($800, the best model available), which was very flashy and had more sound settings than i knew what to do with. after months of playing with 10 band eq, sound shaping and staging menus and watching the neat graphics of the OEL display, i decided this wasnt the deck for me. too flashy, no substance, and just okay sound quality. my last unit which ive had for 4 yrs and counting in the alpine 9847, an entry level sub $200 deck with a plain white segment display and nice amber backlighting. i plugged it in and after spending 5 minutes adjusting only the simple bass and treble controls, the sound quality was amazing. i never heard anything like it. eventually i ended up amping the speakers and running the tweeters off deck power which are very nice and loud. its one of the best looking and non-flashy decks ive ever used and hope it lasts me as long as i have the car. i will only buy alpine.

 
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the best ive ever heard and probably ever will was from a very non flashy head unit made from a company called Mclntosh the sound reproduction from this thing was unbelievable thow id imagine it would cost more then 300 bucks look into it.

 
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oh yeah since i didnt mention this already, the install will make or break your system. even with good equipment, if you dont take the time to properly install everything with the correct power/ground wires, amp ratings, sound deadening, etc then you wasted your money.

 
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i wouldn't go that far without all the dampening and ground wires it will still sound alot better then stock no matter which way you slice it.but yea don't cheap out on the amp and wires .

 
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for purely SQ, go nakamichi

 
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ive read alot of bad reviews on those units. search around different forums.

 
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Ok I went with the Kenwood kdc x693 set. Already sounds better than the stock set did with minor tweaking. Anyways, I need to replace my stock speakers now, so I was wondering what I should look for. Again I have absolutely no clue what is good and what isn't. All I know is I'm looking for something that bangs! How much would be a decent price for a set of speakers?

I'm looking to replace the stock ones and after that is finished I'll start looking for an amp, and some subs for the back. I just want to make sure I get something different. A few of my friends have systems and their systems just don't sound very good. The subs overpower everything else, and while I want something that bangs, I want to be able to hear everything as crisp and clean as possible obviously.

Sorry for not knowing too much detail about all of this, but you guys seem to know your stuff, so any help on this would be great.

 
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i would if on a budget get some type r components from best buy. but if your serious about qualty go with a higher end like focal or diamond audio. i personally use all MB QUART components i love them.

 
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Mono means it's only 1 channel, not 2.

 
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OOps.. thanks for correcting me Dex. Mono amps are 1 channel but when it comes to subs you can just bridge your 2 subs on the 1 channel. It's a cheaper alternative then getting a multi channel amp.

 
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A friend of mine had a Sony deck, it was garbage.
He said he liked it, until he went over some train tracks one day and it started skipping for every pebble on the road after that, and then it stopped reading CDs altogether.

I've only ever used Pioneer decks in my car but I'm content with them. Just a matter of finding a model that does what you want it to. Also, pretty much every Pioneer deck has the option to add a cable to it for headphone or RCA input (Laptop, iPod, mp3 player, anything with a headphones jack or rca output)

This won't charge your player, but at least it's guaranteed to work with any model of anything

Most decks these days though do have USB inputs and will support most if not all models of iPods.

Look around, find something that does what you want, and then ask about that deck either here or (Depending on the store you're in) one of the employees. Far as I'm concerned the deck is the most important part of any installation so don't settle for something you won't be happy with down the road.

 
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Im currently using a Clarion and highly recommend it =) got mine for 130 on ebay