I need to know about head units

[IBleedMusick]

The problem is at my store only 3 head units actually play out of the speakers. The others just have power and ground running to them. I'll talk to management about fixing that. Until then I'll have to buy 20 of the same cds to be able to listen to them all and compare.

Well yeah I'd go ahead and make sure they are all hooked up to speakers and you only need one cd try each unit one buy one and then make your decision from there.

*EDIT* Preferably all running the same brand and model speaker.

My experience is with a $100 Kenwood that I run to amps for both speakers and subs. If a customer came in looking for high sq, how can I not reccomend an amp?

Well first off no customer walking into bestbuy is looking for High SQ...Throw that out the window right now.

[Jdon13]

To elaborate, I bought my Kenwood because it had 6 ch preout. Kenwoods are the only brand on our wall CURRENTLY that give specific eq settings. If you use a pioneer, it's gives you Ew settings like flat bass boost vocal boost etc and Sony will say xplod or gravity. Which doesn't make sense. Kenwoods list bass +/- 10 mids +/- 10 etc. Another reason I bought mine. But I truly find it hard to believe that any entry level head unit can't be tunes to sound exactly like another brand entry level head unit. Furthermore, no one has been able to give me a list of engineered differences between units, so either that list is not public and there would be no way for me to know anyway, or its because the differences are so minimal that it's better to save the $10 and get the Kenwood on sale and tune it to your liking.

[Jdon13]

Ibleedmusick, I 100% agree that sq won't be found at best buy. I do not use my discount to buy anything audio wise besides kicker power kits. This further supports my theory that the customer was just a jackass

[dolarbilz]

So you bought the Kenwood for better eq with a eq comes better sound right? So there is a difference in sound

[Jdon13]

I bought it for better eq control, but I firmly believe I could've bought a pioneer with 6ch preout and tuned my Kenwood to sound exactly the same. The Pioneer probably just wasn't on sale at the time. Eq control and eq are two different things. Out of the box they may sound different. But I'd bet any of you that I can tune any of those entry level models to sound the same. Maybe not distort as quickly, but none of you seem to know the specific differences on amplification anyway. So there's that.

[Robert8252]

Even ran through the same amplifier I noticed a difference in the sound from a nice $200+ Kenwood unit to a similar Pioneer deck. Both had EQs set to flat and settings the same with the same source. The sound just had a different warmth to it. You also have the D/A converters and power supply components that will have a huge impact on sound. Now, no offense to anyone... And to your only defense, anyone going to bestbuy for car audio probably won't know or hear a difference and will get similar results. There's just no real choice there anymore, brands keep gettin cut back and the lines carried of each brand keep getting smaller as well which really limits the customers choice.

[Jdon13]

If you can show me that Pioneer uses something in their crossover or in their amp or in their God Damn vacuum tub McIntosh preouts I will GLADLY take this as a learning experience and use my experience to better accommodate my customers. All I've heard so far is "they're different just because"

[Jdon13]

Robert, do you believe that you could have tuned both head units to perform the same? To get the warmth out of the other head unit? If not, great! I'd love to know what differences there are In the preamp processing between units.

[dolarbilz]

Why don't you contact the mfg or go to school on electronics to better your career at best buy..why don't you tell us in detail what makes them the same besides saying its the same MOSFETs

[Call Me Dubstep]

All head units are not going to sound the same... Each head unit has different quality parts, different EQ's, Ect. Something as small as a resistor which might have a loose tolerance on one company, and another company holds a resistor to tighter thresholds, may not make a noticeable difference, but it will make a difference. That goes for every part in a head unit. But what truly sets them apart is head units which have all the bells and whistles ... , but you also got to consider... that not everyone is running the same speakers, or same amplifier powering the speakers, almost everything in a car audio system, can or will effect your quality of sound.