Kenwood6539/Hamburg/Kingston/Alpine 9884e/6, I'm totally confused. F1. F1.. F1... It's been time to put the old warrior(Blaupunkt Bahamas MP34) to rest and go for something new,. My main need is iPod/USB connectivity and also obvious thing is that I want good sound quality. yeah I know it depends on person to person but I'm kind of satisfied with the sound quality of my old Blaupunkt. But it's becoming pain to rip music and burning CD's again and again.
Now I'm in search for a good HU which can gel well with my existing setup.
Current Setup : JBL GTO607c, JBL GT5-604,GT5-1204 and CS co-axials. I've kind of thought about the following HU's (not in any particular order though)
1. Kenwood MP6539U. This is the best value for money HU it seems. Heard that the sound quality is good and experienced it in one of my friend's car. Good sounding but I found the interface is not that great. I loved the simple yet effective interface of Blau. e.g. in the Kenwood if I want to select a different source then I'll need to press two buttons and I'll need to even look into the display. That I found for a car HU is bit inconvenient. In the Blau(or even in Pio) I just need to keep on pressing the SRC button to select Radio from CD or something like that. Again to select a radio station I'll need to again surf the menu. Actually I wanted to go for this HU but these drawbacks are holding me.
Also there is a 2009 model called 6043, have anyone had a chance to have a look into it? How does it fare with the 6539?
2. Blaupunkt Hamburg MP68 - this unit is in my mind is because it's a blau unit and I'm expecting similar or better sound then my existing one. Plus I can use the steering remote that I already have. I found the steering remote very very convenient and would want to have this convenience. This unit have bluetooth also but not sure how useful bluetooth would be. But this one is bit too pricey and I can go for Alpines instead. Also I haven't heard this HU playing so I would really need you people's input here.
3. Blaupunkt Kingston MP47 - Plays USB pen drives but don;t have support for iPod?? Also I haven't heard this HU playing so I would really need you people's input here. But price wise(afaik it's <10k) this is a good option.
4. Alpine 9884e or 9886. Can anyone tell me the differences between these two players? I checked the Net but I'm not able to see much difference between these two players but the price difference is huge(atleast US price, it's 120$ different). Seems like 9884 can't read USB mass storage devices although it can read iPod. Is this the case? Most other things remains very same. Can someone please tell me the prices of these two players and also their review. These units uses a different DAC then the 9887, so can I assume that they are not as good as the 9887? But even though how do they compare with the other options that I have?
Would really appreciate your opinions about the HU's and their pro's and con's. Also please let me know if there is anything else I can look into. I always look forward to TBHP whenever I'm in doubt like this. Please help me out here. BTW the car in question is a Baleno.
Regards,
Kaushik |