The Best Head Unit For Your Car

23rd April 2024 Adam Rayner

These days, cars come with better audio systems than ever. Most new cars’ radios are so deeply embedded into their vehicle’s electronics, that you cannot replace them. The sound can still be upgraded with an OEM interface, though. That is a hidden unit that can enables you to have what ever audio upgrades your heart desires. Earlier cars and and motorhomes have DIN-sized radio apertures in their dash. They are the vehicles that can be in the market for a new, better-featured and better-sounding head unit.

This is a guide to the best head units around, for the owners of those DIN-slot vehicles. DIN is about a set of European standards for cars. It’s about sizes of car radios and the standardisation of the wiring plugs in cars. All you need to know, is what size yours is. If it looks letterboxy, it’s single-DIN. If it looks like a chunky squarish shape, it’s double-DIN.

They start at well under a hundred pounds for a basic model. What we have here, are what we feel are the best value for money head units in each given category. Not the cheapest model, not the most top-end, but the ones from close-by. The ones laden with features and with a spread of product sophistication from awesome for the money, to invincibly potent.

Pioneer SPH-20DAB

This DAB digital radio will work on its own but is primarily about the phone holder. Fitting most phones, it has a removable face plate that conceals the hidden gripper. This is sturdy and integrates your phone to make your head unit more powerful than the price suggests. The truly epic thing is Pioneer’s Smart Sync app. A step that many makers were too scared to make. It is a proprietary interface to provide graphics and control but in a car-safe fashion. Not fiddly tiny icons and a need to focus deeply on the phone screen, but big bold ones. This has been made for iPhone and also Android, so covers it all, back to iPhone5. Plays Mp3, WMA, WAV, FLAC and AAC audio files. You will need a DAB antenna. The holder does not charge your phone wirelessly, so you need a short USB cord. Power is 4x50W @4 Ohms, or 2x50W + 1x70w @2 Ohms for subwoofer.

Single DIN mech-free with smartphone holder
Pioneer Smart Sync App for car use
Rear input for optional parking sensor
Bluetooth and USB inputs

Kenwood DPX-7300DAB

A classic double-DIN deck that can still spin a CD as well as taking a USB filled with digital goodies. For a seemingly mid market unit with no snazzy touch screen, it has some really high end audio features. The DSP and time alignment thing is all about tailoring the sound to your car to start with. Then, it is about tiny delays to the speakers in certain places. This is to convince your ears that the arrival time is the same, creating true stereo sound where you sit. This tech was once really costly and is now filtered-down to a keen price point. The DPX-7300DAB also features two and even three-way digital crossovers. If CD is dead to you, look at the mech-free version, the DPX-M3300BT.

The display is RGB, meaning you can choose from a rainbow, or leave it scrolling through the lot. This is also dimmable in thirty-one steps. Adults might use this feature to blend their display in perfectly with whatever colour dash lighting their car has. MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV and FLAC. Will run iPod and iPhone music. MOSFET power chip rated at 4x50W. Comes with DAB antenna and wired microphone.

Double-DIN CD Radio, with front Aux/USB sockets
App to use your smartphone as a remote control
Amazon Alexa-ready
Digital Signal Processor and Time-Alignment

Double-DIN head unit from Kenwood, with CD

Pioneer AVH-A240DAB

A double-DIN deck comprising a touchscreen with a disc mechanism slot that can play DVDs. These used to cost more than £1,000 and are now about a fifth of that. It has the player slot at the top and the rest of the front is the resistive touch screen. The big naughty thing is to disobey the installation rules to allow you to play video for your passenger while driving. There is a company that supplies a device to to allow moving video in OEM systems. It is about car makers being sued if they sell a car that can distract the driver, by design. If you choose to add a new head unit that can play video while rolling, then it is your responsibility.

Cool digital stuff includes the Weblink feature. This has special apps for car use, via your phone, including WAZE navigation. Also, smartphone screen mirroring, when your connected phone appears on the AVH-A240DAB’s screen, for you to boss totally. Optional extras exist. You can add a reversing camera that just plugs in the back, or get a dedicated remote control. To plug in a Lightning Connector iPhone, you will need a CA-IU.52C USB to Lightning cable. MOSFET power chip rated at 4x50W, 13-band graphic EQ, two-way crossover and subwoofer control.

Double-DIN CD/DVD DAB radio with touch screen
USB connection to smartphone for screen mirroring
Siri and Android compatible
Waze and Spotify via Weblink

SONY DSX-GS80

Mech-free, so no disc mechanism and a single-DIN size. This unit is all about the sheer muscle it has on board, to back up its digital chops. To start with, it has a USB socket on the front that can read MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC and WAV files. There is also a classic 3.5mm jack socket on the front. It can Bluetooth stream from your phone for calls and music and you can buy the optional RM-X8s remote control if you feel the want.

The display has two zones of colour illumination and you can choose from 35 thousand colours – it’s variable… You can even pair two phones and use one for navigation, while the other is for calls or music. Just a small unit but packs a punch. The normal top power for a head unit is described as 4x50W but the true RMS or steady power is between 22 and 24Watts. This unit claims a whopping 4x100W. It has a mass of ferrite heatsinks around a set of Class D power chips on a special circuit board inside. This is way more than normal and you will get a hot unit if you run it hard.

Single-DIN mech-free tuner
3 x 5V pre-outs, with two-way crossovers
Class D onboard power of 4x100W
Microphone included for voice control etc.

Surprising power form this Sony head unit

JVC KD-X561

An absolute cutie pie! This single-DIN radio has no disc mechanism but it does feature a tiny three inch ‘QVGA’ ‘widescreen’ monitor! It will play MP3, WMA, m4a, AAC, WAV, FLAC, Ogg, JPEG, PNG and BMP files. So that’s pretty much all that you can stuff in a USB in music, video and pictures. All the electronics fit inside a shallow chassis, just 111mm deep, rather than the normal 160mm-odd. If your car has limited space behind the DIN slot, or you want a custom location, this helps.

Highly unusual, it won’t be for watching movies upon but it is so cute it hurts, and at a keen price. There is a dedicated input for a rear view camera to plug in. This alone make the unit awesome. It works with all phones, too. You will need a DAB antenna.

On board power is 4x45W (4x16W RMS); high pass and low pass crossovers.

Single-DIN mech-free multimedia player
3-inch 16:9 QVGA Monitor
Three sets of 2.0V pre-outs; front, rear, sub
Short (111mm) body for easy installation in shallow dashboards.

SONY XAV-AX8150

Once upon a time the biggest chain of car radio shops, had central offices with forty people taking calls. These people dealt with car radio theft claims from insurance companies. It all depended upon crime and the company thrived on it. These days, the OEM revolution has won and killed car radio theft as a lucrative crime. Now, ironically, with ‘modern’ keyless start systems, the cars themselves are more vulnerable to rapid theft than any time, ever!

This, then, is the delight of the ‘floating screen’. The size of LCD screen is not limited by what can motorise out of the unit, so it’s way bigger. The single-DIN guts are where it all happens but the touch screen is luxury sized at just under nine inches. A bit more expensive due to that superb screen, this model is still a peak value for money model.

It doesn’t have crossovers or time alignment but it has meaty pre-outs that will drive external amps a treat. A lovely power house of posh new floaty screen. On board power is 4x55W.

Single-DIN 8.95in mech-free floating touch screen head unit
Three-axis mount for screen
HDMI input, rear view camera input
Three sets of high power 5.0V pre-outs; front, rear, sub

Alpine ILX-F905D

A very sexy head unit indeed. This is the second generation of the Alpine ‘Halo9’ units that started the new floaty era for Alpine. A full nine inches supported by the single-DIN main unit, the display is now higher resolution, and can manage Apple Car Play without a wire, while now having two USB ports and some tweaks to the sound quality and tuning options. Android Auto will still require you to plug in your phone, though. You can connect two cameras, for front and rear use, making this very popular for motorhome users. There is even control for a DVR-C320S dash cam, which is high end stuff. A GPS antenna is included.

Alpine still inhabit the top end and attract serious audiophiles. ILX-F905D is rated for Hi Res audio. You get the Alpine tuning stuff called Bass Engine SQ and Bass Engine Pro. You get a 13-channel parametric equaliser (powerful stuff) with four audio channels and four subwoofer channels. The six channel digital time alignment is state of the art and there is a 2-way digital crossover. It’s definitely high-end. On board power is 4x50W class D high power.

Single-DIN 9in mech-free floating touch screen head unit
9-inch Capacitive Touch-Screen WXGA Display (1280 x 720p)
Vehicle Display Interface Ready, for better integration
Three sets of high power 4.0V pre-outs; front, rear, sub