- You've probably found yourself shopping for car stereos
maybe browsing Amazon or Best Buy.
And you may have noticed that there are some
that are super expensive,
some that are super cheap
and there are plenty right in the middle
and they all kind of offer the same thing.
So how much is the right amount of money to spend?
Well, I don't really know.
So today, I bought three different stereos
that offer pretty much the same options
and wildly different price points.
And we're gonna install them in the Miata and figure out
how much is the right amount of money to spend.
We'll look at user interface, features, sound
and how they feel overall to determine
how our money is best spent.
I'm Zach and this is Money Pit.
Let's make some noise.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so when I bought the Miata it came with this
very terrible head unit, it doesn't work,
the screen doesn't turn on.
And it turns off completely after about 15 minutes.
So hopefully today we're gonna find
a new good replacement for it.
So we're gonna be looking into three head units today,
starting with this cheap one.
But while we look at them,
we're gonna be kind of grading them on a few things,
how they feel, in general, like kind of build quality,
the features that each of them have,
the usability, how the user interface is,
sound and how each of these sounds compared to one another.
Then we'll just kind of do an overall summary
and an overall kind of confusion level with each.
So without further ado, let's open up the first one.
I got it on eBay and it was $50,
expectations are kind of low.
Oh, we got a whole list of features.
Look at this, seven-inch touchscreen, 1080p video format,
MOSFET amplifier, FM radio, mule function.
Mule function, what does that mean?
This thing weighs like, nothing.
It feels like it costs 50 bucks.
It gets a big fat F in the in the field category so far,
but let's, you know, let's go install this thing
and see if it works,
see if we can figure it out
and if it makes any music.
Alright, so the first thing we're gonna do
to get this $50 head unit installed
is remove our $23 head unit.
And then we've got to figure out how to make this work
with our new stuff.
So if you just got a head unit,
whether it's a $50 one or a $2,000 one or whatever you got,
it's gonna come with some sort of pig tail,
or pig tails like these.
And what these do is connect to the back of the head unit.
So here you can see in the Miata,
what we've got going on here is the wiring harness,
the pigtail that came with the head unit
is then spliced into this vehicle specific wiring harness,
which is actually these two pieces
that connect straight into my factory Mazda connectors here.
We're gonna re-use this Mazda connector portion
of this wiring harness
because it's still good.
All we need to do, cut this old harness off,
and then we'll reconnect to our new stuff.
Then I'm gonna cut all of these right here, okay,
so that I'm just saying With the OEM connector style harness
on this side, 'cause I need to re-use these,
all day I need to re-use these.
Alright, so we got the harness for the first,
the cheap head unit.
(birds chirping)
Alright, so we've got the.
(birds chirping)
We've got the harness for the first head unit
all ready to go.
So far, the confusion level is pretty low.
The only thing is that they never told me
what this brown wire was for.
So I don't know,
lets plug it and see what happens.
Okay, so right now I'm just making some connections,
we're connecting the speaker wires at the moment.
So now the only thing we got to do is connect our ground,
sweet, and now we should be able to plug it in
and turn this puppy on.
Welcome, it's the most satisfying part of all,
are you ready?
Hey, you know what, at first glance
this screen doesn't look like complete trash, I mean,
it's pretty clear.
Okay, let's see here, Bluetooth.
I want to connect my Bluetooth phone,
how do I go back home?
It is slow to the uptake on the clicks that's for sure.
Damn, this is annoying.
Plenty of typos in this thing.
Actually speaking of which,
I figured out what the mule setting was, mute.
Confusion level increasing.
Maybe it's already attempting to pair
and I just don't know it.
Let's see what's going on here.
Car BT baby, there she is.
You know what,
sometimes the device knows better than you.
Clicked it, paired immediately, sweet.
Now it's time to see what it sounds like.
Christ,
(upbeat music)
Okay, so we've been messing with this thing
for a few minutes now and here's our findings.
So it definitely feels cheap.
The knob when you turn the volume up feels very cheap.
When you click the touchscreen,
it takes a minute for it to register
and sometimes it doesn't at all,
The font is ridiculous,
It looks like Times New Roman on here,
which, honestly, it would just drive me crazy.
The only way it could be worse is if it was Comic Sans.
But, you know what, the fact is, it was 50 Dollars
and it does turn on, the screen work, so,
in that sense, it's sort of an upgrade from this old one,
which the screen didn't work at all.
But there was one weird quirk with the music thing,
which is that, you have to be on the Bluetooth screen
for it to be playing music.
So we're here, now we go to the home screen.
You're home and it stopped playing your music.
But then you go back,
and it starts again.
How annoying is that?
The next thing I think we should do as far as testing this
is try to give somebody a call.
See how the hands free calling works
'cause that's kind of important.
(upbeat music)
All right let's give ol' Nolan a call.
Hey, can you hear me now?
- [Nolan] Yeah, I could,
I could definitely tell you're having to yell,
oh, lot of engine noise.
- Yeah a lot of engine noise, can you still hear me?
- [Nolan] Not super clearly actually.
- Can I get a rating?
- [Nolan] Well, I would certainly give it a seven.
- Oh all right, all right, all right, cool.
Well, hey, we'll take a seven for sure.
I'm sure whoever made this thing would be happy
to have received a seven from Nolan.
So that's cool, that gives us a benchmark.
Yeah, I guess that's the last test really for this one.
We're gonna go back to the house now.
And give the second one a rip.
(upbeat music)
Okay, for our second head unit,
the middle of the road one.
This is from Pioneer, it's called the DMH 1500 NEX.
Right off the bat, this thing lists some features
that the last head unit didn't have,
of course, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto,
last head unit didn't have those, this one does.
An extra set of pre outs compared to the other one.
We got three sets here.
This is ready to be controlled by your steering wheel.
That's the kind of stuff that I probably wouldn't hook up
but yeah, it's cool in case you want to,
otherwise you can connect two phones to this head unit.
Alright, let's pull this thing out.
Oh my God, instructions,
I forgot what those look like right off the bat,
as far as features go,
it seems to have a pretty long list compared to the last one
and feel, it definitely feels a lot better,
it feels like a much nicer piece of equipment.
So, that all bodes well.
What'd you say we say we install it,
see if we get a nice click here,
and I'm pretty sure we will,
yeah, nice click, sweet.
All right, let's see if she turns on.
Shut up, so the first screen up,
choose our language let's go with, English.
Speaker mode settings, do not use the unit in standard mode.
There goes the stool.
All right, well, so right off the rip
the screen looks a little brighter,
it looks a little crispier, it looks a little clearer.
A little more high definition, if you will.
Okay, Oh no, not French, please.
I'll never know how to go back.
Okay, there's our home-screen.
Hey, that looks pretty nice.
What we got here?
All right, the first thing let's try to connect a phone.
Damn, there she is, ready to grow.
Just starts playing.
(upbeat music)
That's way louder than the last one,
so loud, in fact, I didn't dare to turn it all the way up.
Oh my God, yeah, I didn't even think about
how the sensitivity on the screen is
which is exactly what you want.
I didn't have to think about it.
When I click it knows it and it does something.
Let's do CarPlay lets see what's going on there.
See if it just works when I plug in.
Ah, hey, now there we go.
Sweet, well, CarPlay pulls up
and then you got the old map so I can use some nav
which is nice for going places
and getting where you're trying to go.
Alright, let's go to Bluetooth, we'll play some music.
All right, now let's go to the home-screen
and see if music keeps playing.
Oh, that's cool.
You can go away from the Bluetooth screen
and it keeps playing music
just like exactly like what you would want it to do.
In other terms of sound.
I don't know how it sounds on a phone call yet.
So why don't I drive around the block
and bug Nolan some more.
Thank you.
So it's probably worth mentioning
that the Pioneer head unit
does come with a Bluetooth microphone
that you can put wherever you want,
but that's what you get when you spend more money.
- [Nolan] Oh, I think it sounds so much better.
- Heck yeah!
So that said, can you give me a rating?
- [Nolan] I'm gonna give this a nine dude.
- Nine.
- [Nolan] Say 8.5.
- Okay, all right, I'll take it.
Nolan said he could not believe
how much better I sounded.
He gave me an 8.5 out of 10.
He started with a nine and I said
nine, where do we go from here?
(upbeat music)
We are on to our final.
Our third and final, our most expensive head unit.
So, this is made by Kenwood.
It cost me over $700.
And it does have pretty long list of features it looks like.
Namely, the first thing I noticed is that
you can do CarPlay and Android Auto wirelessly.
So this one actually does have a CD player and a DVD player.
So I mean honestly in 2020,
I don't really care about that
but I guess if you do then this has that so there you go.
Let's open it up,
let's see what we got going on inside the box.
This is the heaviest box by far.
(whistles in amazement)
All right.
Okay, cool, well, that's about
all we're gonna be able to tell
by looking at it.
Now let's install it, see how she does.
Ah, a nice click.
We've got some spaghetti going on back here.
This makes me.
Alright, she's powered up, let's see what's going on.
First off just looking at it.
And honestly it looks,
well it looks similar in screen quality to the,
to the Pioneer, but the font is a little less
pleasing to my eye so far.
So first thing we're going to try to do
is try to get my phone paired up to the head unit,
get the wireless CarPlay working
and then we'll see how it sounds.
Bluetooth, maybe that.
Add the phone.
Well so far this is the most confusing
to get my phone hooked up to, which isn't saying much
because the other two are so easy, but
this one seems to be giving me a little trouble.
Alright, so it took a little bit of figuring out,
this so far has been kind of the clunkiest user interface,
in my opinion it's been kind of difficult to figure out
how to get everything connected just right.
But it is connected now,
we've got our wireless CarPlay working,
which is pretty cool.
That's a pretty cool feature.
No plugging it in, and CarPlay is up there.
So now we've got that working, let's see how it sounds.
(upbeat music)
Damn, sounds pretty good.
Although, and honestly, that was max volume.
And that was not as loud as the Pioneer.
Sound quality at a normal volume
is equally good to the others.
So in terms of feel and the way
the touchscreen works and feels, it's pretty good.
I mean, it is definitely on par with the Pioneer
which is what you'd expect for a more expensive unit
but it's definitely not better than the Pioneer
in any appreciable way.
It feels the same actually, I have less luck with my swiping
than I did on the Pioneer, it takes a few tries sometimes.
Now the last thing that we need to do
is give my boy Nolan a call
and see if this thing sounds like 700 bucks.
So Nolan, how do I sound?
- [Nolan] There seems to be more buffeting
this time than the last time.
- More buffeting, oh, and I can't hear you.
I have the volume all the way up.
- [Nolan] There's a lot of buffeting now.
How fast are you going?
- Now I'm going 30,
last time I was going faster than this,
and you could hear me better,
I could hear you better.
I have the volume all the way up now
and that's all I got.
So can I get a final judgment?
- [Nolan] Yeah, I'll give it a score,
I'd give this like a 6.5.
- 6.5 Okay, so--
- [Nolan] The buffeting is just too much, too much.
- All right, so you heard it from Nolan,
it gets a 6.5 or maybe a seven.
That's not very good for a $700 unit.
So let's go back to the garage,
tally it all up, we'll stack these things up
against each other and make a decision.
Okay, so we've spent the day
comparing three different head units
at three very different price points.
So let's talk about the cheap one first.
The cheap one cost $50.
And in terms of feel, it feels like it costs $50.
This screen doesn't look great.
And the clickability of the screen is pretty bad.
On to features,
it has next to none, so that's nice.
It does have Bluetooth
and that's the biggest feature I was looking for.
Because I wanna be able to Bluetooth music
from my phone to my car while I'm driving.
The user interface on the cheap one was pretty bad,
although we still hooked up our phone pretty quickly
and if you know what you're doing,
it's just kinda ugly to do it.
It was the quietest of the three
by a pretty big margin though
and that's not okay for me
because I need this thing to be as loud as I can
to combat all the wind noise.
And lastly, in terms of Bluetooth call quality,
the quality was pretty good.
It just has a built in microphone, wherever it is on there.
You heard it, I think Nolan gave me what?
A six or a six and a half.
He was pretty pleased with it
and for 50 bucks, that's not bad.
All right, moving onward
to our middle of the road price point,
$300 for this pioneer head unit.
In terms of feel, this was a huge leap
from the 50 dollar unit.
The screen looks nice, the resolution is very good.
And the click ability was great.
Actually, the clickability on the $300 piece
was probably the best throughout.
Let's talk about features.
So we do have Bluetooth here.
This also has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wired,
you know, you got to be plugged into your phone,
in my opinion, that's the biggest leap.
User interface on the head unit overall, was also very good.
It was very easy to use connecting my phone was very easy.
Everything was pretty intuitive.
This one, this $300 unit was the loudest of the three
and that's really what I'm looking for.
I want as much noise out of the speakers as I can get
so I can hear them over all the wind.
So I think Nolan gave me what an 8.5 on call quality on this
and I gotta tell you, 8.5, that's pretty good.
Now let's talk about the big daddy, the 700 plus dollar
head unit from Kenwood.
The screen looks very nice that clickability is very good,
you know, swiping I had some issues every now and then
but overall it was pretty good.
However, there wasn't much of a leap upwards
over the middle of the road one in terms of feel.
So now, features, this thing is pretty loaded.
I honestly didn't even know how many features
I had when I bought it
because I was still combing through features
when I'm swiping through the menus,
stuff that's not even listed on the box or the website.
Like you can add gauges to this somehow,
you can add a radar detector to this thing somehow.
The biggest feature in my opinion
is that you get to move up to wireless Apple CarPlay
and wireless Android Auto, which is really cool.
It's a little bit fiddly to get it figured out.
But once it's figured out, it's done
and that's very convenient.
Now lets talk about sound.
Sounded great at a normal listening level.
At max volume it was a little bit quieter than the Pioneer.
So the last thing that we got to talk about on this
was the Bluetooth sound quality.
And I went out, I drove, I called Nolan
and he said it sounded worse
than the middle of the road one,
said he heard more buffeting.
And this one also has a Bluetooth microphone
that you can put wherever you want it.
And I put it in the same exact spot as this one.
And I drove the same route at the same speeds.
So with all that said,
all that taken into account for me and the Miata,
the head unit that it's going to have to be
is of course, the middle one.
It does what I want for the cheapest amount of money.
That's exactly what I'm looking for.
Okay, so now that we finally got our decision,
and I mean, come on, let's be honest,
we knew it was gonna be this one all along.
But now that we've actually made the decision,
we've done the work we've made the decision,
the only thing left to do
is to permanently install it in the car,
but you've seen me do that.
And if you don't remember how to solder,
check that video out in the link,
wherever it decides to put it.
If you wanna know more about how we ended up
with music in our cars,
then go check out this,
my favorite episode of wheelhouse of all time, trust me,
you will not regret doing it.
Thank you so much for watching.
Make sure you subscribe to the channel
and you have the notification bell rung
'cause we're putting out shows every single day.
If you want more meat, you can get it @zachjobe on Instagram
and make sure you're following Donut, @Donutmedia.
I almost forgot to say,
you know the sweet, awesome song I've been playing all day.
Did you love it?
Of course you did.
We're also making a full length music video.
So if you have any footage
that you think belongs in a pop-up,
up and down the headlights music video,
then send it to us and we'll put it in.