Head Unit choice

Alpine x305s or Alpine cda 117. Or Kenwood x994 or KIV 700.

 

wanna buy mine?

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/buy-sell-trade/99074-fs-alpine-cde-9874-a.html

 

Go with the Kenwood. The alpines are great, don't get me wrong. But there's just not enough options.

That Kenwood has aux built in, ipod built in, USB built in, CD built in.

If you don't care about CD's, and all you use is your iPod, go with the Alpine.

If you feel the need to have Auxiliary ready for some stupid teenage girl who wants to put a song on from her MP3 player you've never heard of, go for the Kenwood.

The Alpine CDA will drive you insane if you plan on using your iPod, because there's not enough lines of text to succesfully navigate the unit, and the Alpine X series is great, but just not enough options.

And one of those Kenwood units has bluetooth built in I believe... However both of those Alpine unites will require the Alpine KCE-400BT unit to make phone calls, and that's 200 dollars or so.

Look into these things I've said to ensure their legitimacy, but overall I'd go with one of the Kenwoods for more features, easier to use interface and aesthetics, too. The Kenwood interface is simple because the buttons are laid out the same as on an iPod, and that's how it works. The Alpine is close, but not quite there.

(I had an Alpine x300 last year, and this year I have a Kenwood KDC X794, so I know my way around both interfaces.)

 

I have an alpine. It came with ipod, i hooked up an aux input, i agree the blue tooth is extra, which sucks but im still very pleased wjth it

 

Which Kenwood then? The KIV 700 or x994

 

Pioneer AVH P3200dvd I put it in my truck 2 years ago and love it. You can find brand new ones on ebay for around $300. You can hook up Sirius(or xm) hd radio, has a built in usb, built in aux input, dvd/cd player, and its touch screen. Im sure it can do more but i just dont feel like buying all of the little extra things to make it do what it can. oh yeah and if you have music on a usb jump drive you can play music off of that.

 

Well this is the stupid part. The KIV 700, is beautiful. It's got a wicked display. The 994 has the same size display, but it's a one color LCD.

So, naturally you'd want the one with the full color display.

But, the one with the nice display doesn't have bluetooth built in, you have to buy the Kenwood BT module.

So, good display, no phone out of the box, less good display, phone out of the box.

That's a sucky toss up. I would go with the better display and then wait to see if you want the phone or not. You could probably get the BT module online for a decent price. 100ish?