When it comes to choosing the best double din car stereo, we are faced with not only an almost endless supply of choices, but so many different opinions about what is the best that it can be a royal pain in the you know what to sort through and make our own decision. I know when I first started looking for a stereo to buy (my first one was quite a number of years ago now), I had so much trouble making adecision I ended up just getting that seemed good enough.
Since those days, I’ve come up with something a a solution that has helped me to make an informed choice without relying to heavily on what others think.
The first thing I now look at is my budget, how much am I willing and able to spend on the stereo and/or system? I remember going to shows and dreaming about getting one of those show systems, but it quickly became apparent to me that the prices, of no doubt very high-end equipment, can and do run into not just thousands of dollars, but tens of thousands, which in general are not just outside my budget but also outside my requirements. Who really needs a sound system that can be heard three states away?
Once I know how much money I am willing to spend, I then look at what functions I want (or need as the case may be). Do I just want something that has radio and plays CDs/DVDs? Okay stop laughing now, I admit I could never get such a simple stereo now, but if I was really strapped for cash I might settle for it, at least for a while. What about HD radio? Is it even available where I am? What about connecting to an iDevice? If I don’t have one, I don’t really need it. What about other phones or mp3 players? Can I connect them? The there’s GPS, do I need it for GPS or do I have a seperate GPS that I can use and so don’t need it to be in the stereo as well? I have a lot of songs in mp3 format that I’ve already burnt to disk, can I use those disks in the player? Or will I have to put them onto some other media, like an mp3 player or usb drive?
After going through this list, and whatever I can think of at the time (I should really write down a full list of everything modern car stereos can do) I can then proceed to looking at available stereos that meet these requirements.
Of course you can’t just take the manufacturers word for how good the stereo is or whether it can really do what it says. So where do I find reviews that I can trust? Unfortunately that’s not as easy to answer as it appears. So many sites today are just out to make a buck and not provide good information (hopefully I’m doing a better job than that). The place I usually look is Amazon, the reviews there tend to be of a higher quality than other websites and forums. You also know that the people who have written the reviews own the stereos since they have to have purchased from there before they can write the review. Click on the link to thr right and have a read through some of the reviews and let me know whether you agree with me, or if you know of a better place to get reviews from.