Head unit with red/orange lighting

[bmwdude]

The title kind of sais it all. I had an aftermarket pioneer head unit in my car, but over the years, I found that it became an eyesore. The green/blue/yellow display lighting for one with green lit buttons, and the way the head unit stuck out of the dashboard.

Who makes the best quality/sounding head unit with red/orange (even if it's just red, that's fine.....) lighting out there, that would compliment our E30's dash layout?

[KenC]

Please search!

Nakamichi

[bmwdude]

Please search!

Nakamichi

Yes yes I know! My eyeballs are red from searching.....but in the world of electronics, 6 months is outdated. I want what is fresh out there....

[bmwdude]

Please search!

Nakamichi

Yes yes I know! My eyeballs are red from searching.....but in the world of electronics, 6 months is outdated. I want what is fresh out there....

Nakamichi eh? Thanks!!!

[RCWells]

Alpine 7894, I just installed one today, and it is rockin my face off. Great unit, and can be had on Ebay used for $150 or so. Awesome unit.

[bkelsey86]

I have an aiwa headunit that had red illumination. The front faceplate was stolen though but you can buy a new one off ebay. I'll sell it for $25 shipped. It even has the harness in the back.

[bmwdude]

It seems to be boiling down to the Alpine 7894, Clarion dxz 845mc and perhaps the dxz 745mp then. It will be a tough choice!

[RCWells]

Did I send you a pm? Stay away from the Clarions. I just replaced my 845 with the Alpine and couldn't be happier. Night and day difference between the two.

[royalflush313]

Did I send you a pm? Stay away from the Clarions. I just replaced my 845 with the Alpine and couldn't be happier. Night and day difference between the two.

difference in what ?

imo, Alpine decks do not go with the BMW interior at all. I'm very happy with the Clarion deck I have, matches the interior okay both day and night.

If sound quality is what really matters to someone, he/she would naturally pick Nakamichi, Denon decks - that matches the interior of our cars nicely. It lacks MP3 playback, but if you are an audiophile, that shouldn't matter.

[bmwdude]

It seems to be boiling down to the Alpine 7894, Clarion dxz 845mc and perhaps the dxz 745mp then. It will be a tough choice!

oops..forgot to add Nakamichi to the list

[bmwdude]

Did I send you a pm? Stay away from the Clarions. I just replaced my 845 with the Alpine and couldn't be happier. Night and day difference between the two.

Hi, I did not receive a pm. What do you like about the Alpine that is better than the Clarion? Sound is important to me.....however, I must mention that top of the line Pioneer unit that is presently in my car, has very good sound, but it has become an eyesore over time. I wouldn't want to replace it with something that looks visually better than the Pioneer, but sounds worse!

[RCWells]

c

Sound quality is just one aspect of the deal. The Clarion sucks in so many ways, though I must say, the sound itself I had no complaints with. First off, the fit is awful. It sticks out like 2 inches from the dash(mild exaggeration). The display is the next issue, it is TEH SUCK!!! I could barely see it from the driver's seat and virtually impossible to read from the passenger seat. During the day, and I mean with the roof closed, just normal daylight, even overhead, it washed out and was hard to read. The ONLY way I could read it during the day was IF I changed the color on the display to white. AND you have to be at certain angles to view it right. As for it having 8,621 colors to choose from, so what. The next thing is the buttons, they are microscopic and difficult to read the writing on them, which normally would not be a big deal, except the controls are not very intuitive at all. And If you are an average size guy with average size hands, with average size fingers, those little teeny tiny buttons are hard to find. Now, you do what you like. It makes no difference to me, but that is my real world experience with the Clarion DXZ-835MP. I paid $220 for it shipped from thezeb.com last year (clearance) and regretted it since. Oh yeah, and it has this cheesy black chrome thing going on with it too. Looks like shit. I acutally scuffed my trim piece with sandpaper and painted it flat black, but you can't do that to the faceplate so it still has that nasty black chrome look.

The Alpine does have orange buttons, though they are just a bit brighter than the interior lights. So they are not a perfect match. But I believe anything this side of a Nakamichi is gonna be that way, I mean, not perfectly matched. And from what I hear, Nakamichi has reliability issues that you may have to deal with, not to mention the cost. But again, it is your money to spend as you wish. The Alpine has great sounds, great features, and fairly powerful if you aren't gonna run external amps. You can look up the features and specs if you like. The controls are intuitive and I am already comfortable operating it, and have only had it installed for one day. The Clarion I had for a year, and never could get used to it.

As for sound quality I can say the Alpine has awesome sound, but the Clarion sounded great too. Look at the specs if you want, again, I am no expert. Some say the Alpine sounds cleaner, and I can say it is clean.

Summed up: Alpine>Clarion. Buy the Alpine and you won't have regrets as I did. Buy the Clarion if you like, but I would bet that you wind up selling it as surely as I did. I paid $220 shipped for the Alpine too even though it was used. Got it on Ebay and is like new. IF you do that tho, make sure to get the harness as well. Some include them, some don't, just watch the details. Eric Giles has two of these Alpines, and he had the same Clarion I did. We bought them the same day last year. He is selling his Clarion too as he just put in another Alpine 7894 into his E30 M3. His other Alpine 7894 is in his E36 M3/4dr. So, I think Eric would corraborate everything I have told you here.

Hey, If you wanna go with the Clarion, let me know. I will hook you up with E and you can buy his. :D

ALPINE > clarion

[Rob]

again, I'm perfectly happy with my clarion unit. *shrug*

[bmwdude]

Re: c

Sound quality is just one aspect of the deal. The Clarion sucks in so many ways, though I must say, the sound itself I had no complaints with. First off, the fit is awful. It sticks out like 2 inches from the dash(mild exaggeration). The display is the next issue, it is TEH SUCK!!! I could barely see it from the driver's seat and virtually impossible to read from the passenger seat. During the day, and I mean with the roof closed, just normal daylight, even overhead, it washed out and was hard to read. The ONLY way I could read it during the day was IF I changed the color on the display to white. AND you have to be at certain angles to view it right. As for it having 8,621 colors to choose from, so what. The next thing is the buttons, they are microscopic and difficult to read the writing on them, which normally would not be a big deal, except the controls are not very intuitive at all. And If you are an average size guy with average size hands, with average size fingers, those little teeny tiny buttons are hard to find. Now, you do what you like. It makes no difference to me, but that is my real world experience with the Clarion DXZ-835MP. I paid $220 for it shipped from thezeb.com last year (clearance) and regretted it since. Oh yeah, and it has this cheesy black chrome thing going on with it too. Looks like shit. I acutally scuffed my trim piece with sandpaper and painted it flat black, but you can't do that to the faceplate so it still has that nasty black chrome look.

The Alpine does have orange buttons, though they are just a bit brighter than the interior lights. So they are not a perfect match. But I believe anything this side of a Nakamichi is gonna be that way, I mean, not perfectly matched. And from what I hear, Nakamichi has reliability issues that you may have to deal with, not to mention the cost. But again, it is your money to spend as you wish. The Alpine has great sounds, great features, and fairly powerful if you aren't gonna run external amps. You can look up the features and specs if you like. The controls are intuitive and I am already comfortable operating it, and have only had it installed for one day. The Clarion I had for a year, and never could get used to it.

As for sound quality I can say the Alpine has awesome sound, but the Clarion sounded great too. Look at the specs if you want, again, I am no expert. Some say the Alpine sounds cleaner, and I can say it is clean.

Summed up: Alpine>Clarion. Buy the Alpine and you won't have regrets as I did. Buy the Clarion if you like, but I would bet that you wind up selling it as surely as I did. I paid $220 shipped for the Alpine too even though it was used. Got it on Ebay and is like new. IF you do that tho, make sure to get the harness as well. Some include them, some don't, just watch the details. Eric Giles has two of these Alpines, and he had the same Clarion I did. We bought them the same day last year. He is selling his Clarion too as he just put in another Alpine 7894 into his E30 M3. His other Alpine 7894 is in his E36 M3/4dr. So, I think Eric would corraborate everything I have told you here.

Hey, If you wanna go with the Clarion, let me know. I will hook you up with E and you can buy his. :D

ALPINE > clarion

Now that is one truly convincing "article!" What I'll have to do is, go to the car audio dealers, and with the specific models you guys have recommended or not, make a final decision. This "article", really swung the tide away from Clarion though.

[royalflush313]

bmwdude, i suggest you goto a shop and look at different decks and decide for yousefl.

rcwells, I have no problems what so ever seeing the screen. Second, you bought the 'wrong' Clarion deck for the BMW.

You had the 835 series, what E30 owners want is the 645, 745 or the 845 series.
835 - http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...roductID=13620

The 845:


There are no "cheezy" black chrome stuff anywhere on the 'right' Clarion deck. The color matches almost perfectly, and at least with my deck, it does not stick out that far (for an aftermarket deck). Im assuming that the new Clarion decks have an improved screen, because I do not have any problems. Maybe the other Clarion deck owners will chime in on this issue.

As for the sound quality, as I have said, if you are just running your speakers off of these decks, I would not think that there would be a huge difference in SQ. And as I said before, if you are a true audiophile, you woulnd't be getting any of these MP3 decks, but rather a nice deck without a built-in amp and so on.

I'm sure that the Alpine deck is nice, and has the reputation for being a great deck manufaturer. But Alpine decks, imo, simple do not flow well with the BMW interior, it just looks kinda futuristic I guess. The clarion deck looks really simple, just black and red.