car stereo recommendations

I hate the sound of the stereo in my 2012 Honda so fucking much. Honestly even the stereo in my 98 corolla sounded way better. It's like all deeb bass and tinny treble, no middle. I've played with the EQs. And it sounds very "digital" for lack of a better word. It reminds me of the shitty all-in-one stereos you demo in a Target or something that have some kind of bullshitty "SXB" super-sextra bass setting to make up for crap speakers.

So what should I do?

buy a new car

should I throw away this one or keep it as a beater?

I highly recommend that you go to place where you can touch/feel the actual stereos -- Best Buy, i suppose. Being an analog-kinda-guy, i like a tactile volume knob that has a bit of resistance (and NEVER volume buttons). I also found a bunch of the units had displays that were trying desperately to impress with "moving" LCD lightshows. By the time i looked through all the models, only one was close to being acceptable for my purposes and tastes.

My needs where a MP3 CD player, a front aux input, an actual volume KNOB, and an understated interface. Ended up with a Sony model for less than $100.

I also don't know if the speakers are part of the problem, although maybe the "digital"ness of the sound I hear is coming more from the receiver/amp.

I'd never buy another stereo (in the foreseeable future) without a USB port. Fuck an iPod at this point. I just dump mp3s on a flash drive and I'm good to go for weeks at a time.

Ditto on the usb port for a new unit (although the 3.5mm jack on mine is very serviceable).

Stock speakers in mid-level vehicles are usually poor quality; upgrading the speakers can sometimes get involved, but a good place for DIY'ers to shop is Crutchfield as you can enter your vehicle year and model and it will show you all the speakers that will fit your car (along with any additional mounting kits).

Already have the usb port fwiw. That's not the problem. The radio sounds terrible too.

yeah i would get new speakers as well as a new head unit

....oh, and if you want it sound REALLY good, you're gonna need an amplifier -- which can make the system considerably more expensive.

What would I need to spend for decent speakers + unit + amplifier? Like not impress my friends level but just sounds good to a guy who likes music a lot level.

$350-$500

bummed that my 2006 matrix just probably one year too short for an aux input. sick of burning damn cdrs so i can listen to new music. need to get this fixed

I also found a bunch of the units had displays that were trying desperately to impress with "moving" LCD lightshows.

ha, yea i took a look at best buy recently and seemed like the main feature of these units were the damn lightshow

Four speakers of quality are going to set you back about $200. Head unit and amplifier another $100 apiece; but some head units may give you enough power without need for the amp. Remember -- you'll need a place to put the amp and thick gauge wiring to hook up to it - especially if you decide to also go with a sub.

yeah, those "lightshows" on car stereos and shelf units are hideous -- shitty product design to the nth power.

every honda i've been has terrible sound imo

*in

honda stock systems are bad its true

i'm no audiophile by any means, but i've been pretty happy w/ my 06 toyota, apart from having no aux jack

I really loved the way cassettes sounded in my old corolla. IDK if it was just the romance of the age I was at or what, but I had some great listening times in that car. The new one is so thuddy and miserable, I barely even want to listen to music on it.

$300-500 seems not ridiculous, I assumed more.

Thats pretty average gear of course (but still WAY better than stock). You can spend obv much much more.

http://www.avit-audio.co.uk/user/cimage/deh-8400BT.jpg

This works for me (Pioneer deh-8400bt). It's about 150 quid in the UK and has a ridiculous amount of connectivity if you need it (SD slot, 2x usb, bluetooth etc.) I tend to stick to cd's however.