I've had my S2000 for about 8 months now and the only thing that bothers me is the poor quality of the stock radio. I'm not a big audiophile and I like to track my car so I didn't really want to spend the money on a nice system or add the additional weight. So I wanted to spend the money on a high end deck... and that's it.

I was really liking the Alpine DVA-9860 single-DIN dvd player. It looks like one of the cheaper models but can play MP3 DVDs. Also Alpine has always had a pretty good reputation for their head units. Recent feedback of the model I've seen are less then stellar. People complain about the poor cycling speed through the dvds and average sound quality. So I'm now back searching again.

Lots of people on this forum have lots of knowledge of audio and of course install complete systems (headunit, amp, speakers, sub) but all I want to know is what would be a good headunit upgrade without anything else.

I understand that any aftermarket headunit will be marked improvement but what brands and models do you guys prefer? Here are a couple I was looking at... let me know what you think.

Pioneer DEH-P860MP
Eclipse CD8455 or Eclipse CD8445
Kenwood KDC-MP928

 

while everyone will agree that the stock headunit is lousy, it's probably worth
clarifying what your goals are before swapping it out - do you want a better
feature set (MP3 support), louder sound, cleaner sound, or some combination?
A simple headunit swap will provide somewhat louder and cleaner sound, but
will not likely seem like a magic bullet - you'll still be pushing a very limited
amount of power through the OEM speakers, which in my 2001 were awful
(I understand the newer ones are better).
Comments on this site suggest that the higher-powered Alpine head units
produce noticably more power than some other brands, FWIW. Note
that if you want the dashboard controls to work with the new headunit,
you'll need to spend an extra $100+ on an interface, and the headunit
needs to be remote-control capable.
Adding a set of rear speakers will substantially increase the volume of
either the stock or aftermarket headunit at a comparatively low cost.
As for the specific headunits you mentioned, if you're not planning on
continuing on the upgrade path (speakers, amp, etc), I'd go with
whichever one provides the features you want along with the most power.

 

Thanks for the info. I know that the new 2005 alpines have the ability with an adaptor to work with the steering wheel functions. I'm going to search that ability in the other units. I forgot about that.

My overall goals is greater clarity and volume with MP3 functionality without having to go with aftermarket speakers or amplifiers.

I understand that people have differing opinions on what type of clarity and sound quality is acceptable so I'm mostly looking for the greatest amount of gain for the least amount of modification. Is the sweet spot a great headunit with good power or does getting new speakers add an exponential increase in quality?

 

If you just want a good HU why are you looking at a DVD player HU? You can get a CD MP3 player for a lot less, and if you are going to hook an iPod up to it, you'll probably rarely use CD mp3's, and DVD mp3's seems redundant.

To add to what's been said, if all you are going to do is replace the stock HU, pretty much anything will be better, but I'd look for a high rms rating.

All I needed was a better HU, so I got an Alpine 9847, amped it, and wired in iPod and dash controls. I like the HU - very clean, but it is amped.