I've been prowling Bensbargains.net for deals since 2000 and I noticed huge liquidation-like deals on Dual head units last summer. Luckily I had already purchased the Pioneer DEH-6300UB - it's chocked-full of bells, whistles and an unnecessary/over-the-top abundance of flashy lighting but, otherwise, it has everything I was looking for.

Anyways; I've installed three Dual head units (I solder EVERYTHING) for a few of my friends and they all had that same basic issue. I went as far as swapping-out speakers but no change for the better. Also; as an experiment, I plugged my Pioneer into a previous Pioneer head unit harness for one of the installs and the sound was night & day. This is just one person's opinion but it's evident to me that Dual head units are sub-par. To each his own - I'm not trying to push the brand name that worked for me - but three out of the three Duals that I installed were disappointing to the extent that they were returned.

Do you have another aftermarket head unit that you could throw in as a comparison?

 

yeah it was a hard choice going with sony or poineer because the guys at school were telling me sony is garbage, yet sony makes kickers so that had me a bit confused. i concluded they had no clue what the were talking about and shot the gun on sony.

oh and dodgeramguy, i was messing a little with it last night and i just wanted to change the treb and bass, but there is a bunch of other stuff that was just confusing me. i took a glimpse over the manual and figured since you have pretty much the same headunit, i was wondering how you set up your sound settings?

 

I've owned sony stuff for couple years as my dad has over his lifetime. I never had problem with it. It kinda depends how you want your music to sound. Mine isnt this new style but same family so should be the same. You have you high,mids and lows for bass. You best bet is listen to some songs and just go into custom and play around with the settings. Thats how I have mine set up. You wont mess anything up so dont worry.

 

Well I mean Dual is more or less like Audiovox's "Rampage" they used to sell at wally world and Target; Jenson and such..

it's not utter crap like Legacy, boss and pyramid but its still cheap.. your probally gonna get alot of interference alot more from improper grounding condition in the truck; "motor noise" feed back from the alt and coil.. that a better brand can help filter out as most have some level of noise/power filters on them to try and eliminate them.

JVC's are good "bang for your buck" I think they lack in the realm of Sound Quality a bit and take a lot more effort to try and get it sounding right.. but they are not bad. I personally run an older Arsenal HD Radio JVC.. have not had any problems and its been in 2 cars and now my truck.. Still works/sounds like new.

 

i was just playing around with the settings on my way home from work. i found that turning loudness on really helped out, i just gotta play with some other things. overall im pretty satisfied especially with the stations that can tell what the song is and etc, i find that pretty cool.
my speakers sound pretty good as it is. i dont know if i should just put new speakers in while im at it, what do you guys think?

 

Depends how loud you like to go. Sometime I really jam out like to the point where I can even hear myself talk so having good speakers is a big thing to me.

 

IF you have aftermarket speakers you probably need a small amp to provide the power they need and clean up the signal; running speakers off the head unit really are not good; the tiny amps inside can fry easy from excess heat trying to drive something more than it can; an amp will supply the power needed; allow fine tuning of the signal; cross overs and such.. and will stop the clipping of the signal that occurs when the source trys to push more power than it can produce.

 

thanks for the info guys!