I need a good SIMPLE head unit.

I know car audio is highly subjective, but I will ask for advice and opinions anyway.

My 94 RMW has the factory concert sound setup with a cassette deck. Had it been fully functional and had the CD player I would not bother upgrading it.

I know it is a 1.5 din opening so any 1 or 1.5 din will fit. The choices are staggering to say the least.

I would like you to make advice based on the following:

Pretend I am a 90 year old man and don’t like a ton of bells and whistles.

My budget is small to say the least.

The only requirement is that it MUST have an SD slot for mp3 music.

I would like a CD player that plays mp3 format.

I would prefer larger buttons like a factory radio.
lots of FM presets would be nice. (only 3 out of 4 work on the factory one and the seek only goes up not down.)

I do not own an IPad, or even a cell phone, my teeth are white or gold not blue. (yes I do not own a cell phone)

My soldering skills are awesome but ease of installation would be a plus.

Any one or one and one half din will fit with the proper adapter/mount. Some will mount easily with a few simple screws. They will all require a patch cable that can be soldered up with the kits available. I have a Pioneer DEH-P77DH, but it does not have an SD slot. It plays CDs. I do not know if it plays MP3s. It does have 3 FM channels with 6 presets each, and an AM band with 6 presets. It can control multi CD players. They have an aux input that you could wire an SD socket to if you want to use one.

They also have models from DEH-PXXDH where XX is 45, 47, 55, 57, 65, 67, and 75. The ones that end in 5 are electronic tuning, and the ones that end in 7 are manual knob tuning. I have purchased them on ebay used for as little as $60, and found one at a junk yard for $25.

I found the JVC stereos offered a lot of bang for the buck. Adjustable colors, lots of inputs, 18 radio stations, etc. Decent interface.

Alipine tends to have nice interfaces.

Take a look at Chrutchfield, they do a nice job with their search and you can see what they look like and if they have the inputs you want.

1.5 DIN will get you bigger buttons, but likely more features and higher prices.

Alpine, Clarion, Sony, JVC, Pionoeer, Kenwood and more are good. I don't know much about DUAL or some other cheaper brands.

autoarcheologist wrote:

I found the JVC stereos offered a lot of bang for the buck.  Adjustable colors, lots of inputs, 18 radio stations, etc.  Decent interface.

Alipine tends to have nice interfaces.

Take a look at Chrutchfield, they do a nice job with their search and you can see what they look like and if they have the inputs you want.

1.5 DIN will get you bigger buttons, but likely more features and higher prices.

Alpine, Clarion, Sony, JVC, Pionoeer, Kenwood and more are good.  I don't know much about DUAL or some other cheaper brands.

I had a really nice online chat with CJ at Chrutchfield. for a while we were hung up on semantics, but what I came out with is that a DVD player will indeed play CD's (books on tape) and they had a no brand stereo that would do everything I want for $120.

he had mentioned mounting depth issues and that it would stick out from the current location a bit but this is not really objectionable. I would like so see one mounted though.

along with the RMW I have a 75 LeSabre convertible and a 77 LeSabre I will want to put tunes in as well. I have committed to traveling to a neighboring state to pic up a 455 BBB to drop into one of them and the RMW is going to be parked for the winter so I may just wait till spring to do all three at once.

I did ask about reliability of the cheaper units and his major issue was that they sometimes have problems from lack of activity, which is an issue for me. it is not uncommon for vehicles to sit for a while. and they are all stored for the winter.