New Clarion head unit

[DSYKES5500 22]

Has anyone got one of these?  It's got all the mod cons but has a subtle nod to the original. 

 

Or you could argue if you're replacing the original get what you want

 

 

 

 

[bacardincoke 42 1 Cars]

Haven't seen this one before... still just a little bit too modern a feeling about it to me, if you're after the original look, but definitely a big improvement on some.

 

Surprised more major names haven't gotten into the retro head unit thing more seriously. The one that currently stands out the most I think is Blaupunkts reincarnation of the Bremen.

 

That one costs big money, but then so do genuine old units, if you can find one and they've obviously no guarantee to be working properly after 3 or 4 decades.

 

Definitely money in retro car hifi.

[DSYKES5500 22]

The new Clarion is £85. I've got the original one, it's mint and still works as it should. I'm using a Belkin tape with headphone jack to my phone to play MP3s. It works perfectly but the sound quality just isn't there.  The previous owner had put some Pioneer speakers in.  I'm past my Alpine amp and Rockford Fosgate subwoofer days

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Good value that at £85!

 

Although my laser green is very standard and original, I got sick of s*it music quality. Buying a wiring adaptor means I can swap back to the original Clarion in minutes if I ever wanted to. Can’t see me doing so. 
 

I’ve got an under seat sub fitted to deal with the bass, this lets the relatively small speaker sizes in the standard position deal with mid and treble so they don’t start farting. Works great tbh.

 

 

[barneys66 123 1 Cars]

If you want to retain the original head unit for looks, what about fitting a small amp with MP3 input and wiring that to your speakers (and upgrading the Pioneers..)

[Atlaskrukvaxt 5]

I'd say put a bluetooth receiver chip to highjack the audio output signal on the casette/cd player of an 80s-90s era stereo. I did this with a kenwood from the 90s and a csr8645 bluetooth receiver off ebay (make sure it is 12V compatible and not 5v to avoid a lot of hazzle). Took me about an evening to wire up and another evening to troubleshoot. Just make sure the headunit you get has ready schematics online and it's easy peasy. There's also plenty of youtube videos on how to do it. Quality is also superb.

If you want to go the extra mile you can buy a programmer for these chips and set a custom name. As of now I only run with the standard name for mine.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Atlaskrukvaxt