Receiver recommendations?

Hey guys,

getting an 05 tacoma, just curious what receivers you guys recommend? What’s so great about alpine? I was looking at the pioneer or jvc? But also kind of wanted one where I could charge my phone and play music at the same time, but if not I could just get a car charger. AppleCar play is a must! Thanks for all the help!

 

I feel like Alpine has been resting on their laurels for the last year or two with regard to stereos. All the Pioneers are popular for good reason. For me though, I feel like Kenwood Excelon is where it's at right now in terms of features and audio quality.

 

Can you tell me more about why you like the quality and features of Kenwood? Thanks! Good to know, i guess I didn’t really have it on my radar!

 

Best thing you can do is call or chat online w/ cruthfield. Tell them what you want out of it and your price. They won't steer you in the wrong direction. 120% amazing customer service. No, I don't work there. Just really had good experiences with them.

 

Yeah I’ve been lookin on their website for a while now! I’ll call em up today! Thanks!!

 

I've been shopping for a replacement stereo for more than a year. I was interested in Carplay because I felt like that would allow me to skip built in navigation (which can get outdated and expensive to keep current or becomes unsupported). I was also looking for something with a nicer screen than the Clarion I purchased in 2010. Mostly I wanted to be able to play FLAC files.

What I ended up with was wireless Carplay, NTFS compatibility, FLAC, capacitive screen, idatalink (and all the great features that come with it), home screen flexibility (what you want it to display including custom slideshow), a very nice suite of DSP functions, dual USB inputs, HD Radio, and more that I didn't even use like 3 camera inputs.

 

Wow! That’s amazing!!

 

Alpine has been resting on its butt. They are extremely reliable.

Pioneer is the only car stereo company that uses true MOSFET output transistors which means the stereo itself can be bridged for a subwoofer. They are extremely reliable.

Most of the parts in a JVC car stereo aren't made by JVC. JVC uses Sony parts and parts from lesser companies you've probably never heard of.

Kenwood makes a quality piece as well.

I can not stand Sony and they aren't as reliable as the rest of the major brands. I'm not suggesting anything about Sony other than exactly what I wrote.