Originally Posted by NA1NSXR,Oct 24 2010, 07:56 AM

I am currently shopping roughly the same market as you and for me the deal killer on the Pioneer was the front USB. I wouldn't want the radio door open and having to plug and unplug the cable all the time. This would be okay if I put my 'car music' on a SD card, but unfortunately the Pioneer has limitations on SD card size that is pretty small (2GB i think). In this price range you should also require a premium DAC so the Kenwood is out, but this is more or less important depending on the rest of your setup. The better your system the bigger your need for DAC bypass and quality DAC in the head unit. The Alpine looks good feature wise but I think the face is ugly and the 305S is priced at a premium considering it does not have any more advanced sound control features than other digital media units from Alpine out of the box. The EQ and preouts are basically the same as their cheaper units.

Personally I am now leaning towards a CD equipped unit like the CDA 117.

Does anyone who knows more about car audio know when companies usually introduce new model year products? IE when will 2011 lineup details arrive for most car audio companies?

Originally Posted by Claus,Oct 21 2010, 04:09 PM

I believe only the 305s has the capability of displaying Chinese characters(not all though).