Anyone have any experience with the new Kenwood Excelon or Aiwa MP3 head units, what do you think, anyother brands to consider? I am looking to purchase one in the next week or so, any help would be appreiciated.

Dustin

 

I thought about some of the replacement headunits and decided to keep the one I had and use the NEO from carplayer.com.

It is easy to set up and manage.

Tripp

 

for the price the Aiwa is the better deal. I just bought a Blaupunkt Alaska and plug my Creative Nomad into it. I like the MP3 CD players but unless you have a CD writer it wont work. I also sometimes just take my laptop along and plug it in to the Blaupunkt.
Dave

http://www.davesmonsterpit.com

 

Dave have you seen or heard the Aiwa? I have looked at the Kenwood Excelon but it is not removable face or MASK. Any idea if the Aiwa is? I have been unable to locate an Aiwa car audio dealer in Calgary,AB.

 

The Aiwa does have a detachable fold down face. I havent seen or hear one, but crutchfield has them. http://www.crutchfield.com Dont know if they ship to canada or not. There service is great and I highly recommend them. I read in the catalog that the Kenwood has a retractable fold down face. I think this link will take you straight to the page about the Aiwa---> http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-g2BWxI74ziB/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=3&g=300&I=570CDCMP3&o=M&a=0
Dave

http://www.davesmonsterpit.com

 

If you havent seen it yet there is a company called Visteon that makes a drop in replacement MP3 head unit for the F150. It pretty much looks exactly like the stock unit (except it comes in all kinds of funky colors) and still uses the factory connections. Here is a link to their site...

http://www.evisteon.com/b2c/mach_mp3c.htm

Check them out ..

 

In my opinion, do NOT buy the AIWA MP3 head unit. I bought one a few months ago and it has been nothing but a headache. The CD player is about as lousy as they come, even the slightest scratch on a disc will cause it to skip, or worse yet, not play at all. Just forget about even playing a CD-R or RW that has a hairline scratch, it will not work. The anti-shock protection is the worst I have ever experienced, even normal stress relief lines in the road have made CD's and MP3's skip. There is only about a 3 second buffer on the MP3 player, which is useless since it takes 10 seconds to find the track again when the radio skips. I have tried everything from supporting with foam to bracing to the frame and nothing will keep this radio from skipping on the slightest bump. I don't know if the savings over the Kenwood model even make it worth the frustration as your music skips just too much.

 

I agree about Awia not being high quality.

About MP3, I have heard that MP3 will probbably be repalced with a newer format in a short period of time, if that is true then a lot of money was just wasted on an old fashioned player.

If you don't mind not being the top tech., a regular CD deck is perfect. Besides, is 1 10+ hour long CD worth the cost of the player and all the trouble(searching through tracks)? I have about an hours worth of music that I take with me on the road.

Logan