First of let me start of by stating some of the features that are a must.

Double din HU
Plays DVD/CD/MP3 etc
HD radio capability
Sat radio capabilty
Ipod capabilty (Not aux but through headunit itself)

Don't really care for or about Navigation.

With that said this is one I'm looking into. Any thoughts, opinions on better choice?
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-PH0enXi...x?i=130AVHP400

 

Been heavy into car audio for 15 years........ I owned Eclipse headunits the entire time up until last year when I purchased a Pioneer AVIC D3. Its been a great unit with DVD, nav, sat, rear camera, etc. No HD radio though.... which doesn't bother me because I use my Ipod in the car 99.9% of the time. I am not familiar with the specific Pioneer unit that you mention. Also FYI I believe there was a great Eclipse unit in the TMS classifieds here not too long ago.

 

Here is my question....

If I wanted to listen to a CD I would have to remove the DVD and all navigation, right. So if I was using the nav, on a trip, I could not use the CD features and vis-versa. Is that correct.

I've got 40+Gbs on my iPod but I still use CDs and in some ways the CDs have a better sound.... but haven't listened to a unit with real integration (my bias is that going from the headphone jack into the aux the sound isn't that great).

Is it better then to look for one of the HD driven units ?
Also right now there is not any that are HD driven and have a disc changer, right ??

I am dying for nav but want to be able to play cds (unless iPod integration does have cd quality sound)

 

I have the AVIC-D3 too (now a discontinued model, been replaced by new pioneer model). The ipod integration sounds as good, if not better than CD quality. I haven't touched a CD since I got the unit, they are a thing of the past for me. The navigation DVD stays in the drive all the time. I only took it out once, and that was just to try out the DVD movie playback.

I can't comment on the HD units. I don't really know to much about them.

A friend of mine bought the newer pioneer head unit that replaced the D3, and it has a cool feature where you can just say the song you want to hear and it will play it...sweet!!!

 

Personally I would go with one of the F series pioneer units if its in the budget. They have a much nicer interface than the model that you're looking at, and a ton more features. The ipod controls are superb.

Just my opinion!

 

MY .02c is that the F series is also very very hackable. Its basically a pc running windows ce.

The only down side to the f-series is that they take a while to boot. Im looking at the f900bt myself. By the time im ready for it its probably going to be 600bux. You can get a f900bt for about 800-900bux if you shop around.

Also stay clear of refurb units, I have had nothing but problems with refurb stuff.

 

It depends on the unit, but in most cases, no. They do it a few different ways, but they will almost always have a separate transport for your CD and any required navigation DVDs.

Or, in the case of the DNX8120 (Kenwood), the nav data is stored on a small hard drive and updates are fed into it via an SD card. The DVD drive is only used for your media.

I can't speak for the rest, as this is the unit that I have been look at lately.