Car Stereo Buying Guide: Tips for Choosing the Perfect Audio

• Android Auto: Brings the Android platform to your Android Auto compatible car stereo. Designed to reduce distractions while driving, Android Auto enables you to manage your messaging, send/receive calls, cellular based maps/navigation and play or stream music via simple touch screen input or voice commands, all while  allowing you keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel.

• Apple CarPlay: Enables your Apple CarPlay compatible receiver to communicate with your Apple smartphone allowing you to access Apple maps, send/receive calls and texts, as well as listen to music. All of this is accomplished by a touch on the receiver's touchscreen or through Siri voice commands allowing you to focus on the road and comply with local hands-free laws.

CD/DVD: If this is your preferred method of audio enjoyment, you’re in luck. Many receivers support additional file formats such as MP3, WMA and AAC. This means that you can burn a CD from your computer and have 100s of songs on one disk as opposed to 10 - 20 songs on one standard CD.

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FM Radio: A standard on almost every car stereo, there are certain specifications that you may want to look into if this is your primary choice of entertainment. Units that have an FM sensitivity of 9 - 11 dBf have better reception. The lower the number, the better the reception.

HD Radio: With High Definition Radio you can listen to FM radio in CD quality and AM radio in FM quality.

Satellite Radio: Audio programming broadcast via satellite means a wider coverage area than AM/FM and cellular based broadcasts. The subscription-based service provided by SiriusXM offers over 140 channels of audio entertainment. Some tuners may not be SiriusXM compatible and may need additional hardware (sold separately) in order to receive SiriusXM
content.

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• CD (Only) Receiver: Necessary if you would like the ability to play CD’s. The majority of these units offer bluetooth/wireless or USB connectivity, giving you the capability to connect your smartphone for additional entertainment and convenience.

• CD/DVD Receiver: Similar to the CD Receiver with the added ability of playing DVDs. This type of receiver is needed if you have rear entertainment in your vehicle.

• Digital Media Player (Mech-less) Receiver: These decks do not contain a disc mechanism and therefore lack the ability to play CDs or DVDs. They still contain a radio receiver and are capable of connecting to a smart device, USB or SD Card inputs, meaning the majority of your entertainment and information will be provided by your smartphone or digital media storage device.

Additional Options:

Below is a list of options that are not so mainstream, but you might find come in handy. Please note, some of these options are proprietary and may not be available on all receivers.

• Android Rapid Charge: A quick charger built-in to the receiver USB port that allows you to rapidly charge your Android device. Amperage of charger may vary depending on the receiver model.
• AppRadio Live: Pioneer's proprietary AppRadio Live offers quick and easy access to personalized information needed in the in-vehicle environment including: Maps, Media, News and Calendar. In addition it has the capability to pull information from apps that you have selected and display it in the AppRadioLive interface.
• Backup Camera Ready: Back-up camera input enables you to add a reverse (rear facing) camera that can assist with rear visibility, towing, or parking.
• Capacitive Touchscreen: A type of touchscreen that is very responsive, like the screen on modern smartphones.
• Clear Resistive Touchscreen: A type of display panel that features a high contrast ratio for brighter and sharper graphics/text.
• Dash Cam Ready: Video Input for a dash camera. The video is stored on your receiver typically in 3 minute incremental blocks, the new video block continuously replaces the oldest video block. The number of video blocks stored on your receiver is determined by the amount of storage that the unit has.  Additional safety features such as crash avoidance are offered depending on the manufacturer of the receiver.
• Display Mode Off: The ability to shut off your receiver's display to reduce glare, this is useful when driving in extremely dark conditions.
• Drive EQ: Adjusts the volume of specific frequencies with the audio signal to compensate for road noise.
• Dual Camera Input: Two Camera inputs for Front and Rear cameras.
• Dual Connection: Enables 2 phones to be simultaneously connected. Each has the same capabilities such as, streaming music, managing calls/messaging etc. These capabilities are dependent on the receiver.
• Dual USB: 2 USB ports available to connect your smart device or a flash drive/memory stick/thumb drive.
• Dual Zone Entertainment: Enables rear passengers to have their own audio/video entertainment such as rear seat monitors or headphones while the front driver/passenger can listen to audio, access messaging etc.
• Graphic EQ: A Graphic Equalizer allows you to adjust your audio system to your liking by boosting or cutting predetermined frequency ranges.
• High Resolution Audio (Hi-Res): Allows playback of up to 192kHz/24bit resolution files such as FLAC, WAV, DSD and ALAC. Supported file formats may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
• LED Backlight: The light that allows a flat screen or display to create an image.
• Mix Trax: Creates a non stop mix of user-provided music while displaying a dynamic dance club-like lighting effect on the receiver's display.

As you can tell, there are dozens of options for you to choose from. Make a list of which options matter most to you and that will help narrow your search down to a more manageable size. Using the filters within our Car Stereo pages will help you choose right the car stereo that is just for you. If you need further assistance you can always drop by your local Car Toys store, our staff of Product Experts and Professional Installers are happy to help you with all of your mobile entertainment needs.

Acronyms: As mentioned at the beginning of this article there are a whole lot of acronyms associated with mobile audio, see below for some of the most commonly used in the industry.

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• 24-Bit DAC: 24-Bit Digital to Audio Conversion. Allows for higher quality audio.
• A2DP: Advanced Audio Distribution Profile - The protocol that allows audio to be streamed via a Bluetooth connection.
• AAC: Advanced Audio Coding - A compressed audio file used by iTunes.
• AIFF: Audio Interchange File Format - A compressed audio file format.
• ALAC: Apple Lossless Audio Codec - A High Resolution file format.
• AVI: Audio Video Interleave - A video file format created by Microsoft.
• CD/CD-R/RW: Compact Disc ReWritable.
• D/A Converter: Digital to Analog Converter - Converts the digital signal from your media to an analog signal to send to your speakers.
• DivX: A Video Player
• DSD: Direct Stream Digital. A hi-res audio file format developed by Sony and Philips.
• FLAC: A high resolution, lossless audio file encoded at up to 192kHz/24 bits. Allows CD quality playback with a smaller file size.
• HPF: High Pass Filter - An electronic filter that allows frequencies above a specified point to be audible, and mutes all signals below that point. Used for sending select signal to different speakers such as a tweeter.
• LPF: Low Pass Filter - An electronic filter that allows all signals below a specified point to pass, and mutes all signals above that point. Used for sending select signals to different speakers such as a woofer.

• Mini-jack: Auxilary input for 3.5mm or 1/8" jack.
• MP3: Compressed Audio File.
• MPEG-1: A lossy compressed A/V (Audio Video) file.
• MPEG-2: A lossy compressed A/V (Audio Video) file.
• MPEG-4: A lossy compressed A/V (Audio Video) file.
• NFC: Near-Field Communication allows two devices to establish communication when they are in close proximity (about 1.6"). Commonly used as a syncing method in car stereos.
• Preout: A volume controlled output signal. This option is needed if you intend to connect additional amplifiers to your receiver.
• Presets: Stored information within the receiver such as radio stations or EQ settings.
• RCA: Type of connector that is commonly used for Pre Output signals on a receiver.
• TMPS: Tire Pressure Monitoring System
• WAV: High Resolution uncompressed audio file.
• WiFi: Wireless connection established between a device and the receiver for transmission of information such as audio and navigation.
• WMA: Windows Media Audio - Compressed audio file.
• WMV: Windows Media Video - Compressed video file.

BHPian  
Join Date: Jul Location: Pune|Vijayawada Posts: 57 Thanked: 23 Times Re: The Android Head-Unit buying guide Quote: Originally Posted by Abhi_abarth I would suggest reach them directly which is what I did. Do they have their network of technicians in all cities including Hyderabad ( in Gachibowli).


Good Luck
Thank you so much. I have done so. I'm looking at this as just another purchase and hence not being alarmed by the price. Just as I'd want better processor and ram in my for lasting longer, I'm thinking of the Xtreme 3.0 with either 4 or 6 gb ram. 4gb one is coming for 37.5k and 6gb for 45k with free rear camera. Youtube videos of this model look really good and it looks to be very snappy and responsive (which is a must for me, I really have less patience with slow tech )

SO i'd otherwise not have thought of spending so much on a head unit, and preferred to go for expensive components and amp or something, this will deplete a ton of my budget. I don't want to skimp on it because without responsiveness getting this device is a waste, so will try and max out. 360 degree is not important for me so will avoid getting it, unless they throw in some deal at the same price.

I hope I'm thinking about this the right way. Please let me know if others have suggestions on an upgrade pathway for this in terms of damping, and especially good component speakers. I'm going to keep this car till the legal limit of so Looking to spruce it up bit by bit to make the journey more enjoyable. It is just 86k kms young BHPian  
Join Date: Mar Location: Bangalore / Boise Posts: 945 Thanked: 1,554 Times Re: The Android Head-Unit buying guide Quote: Originally Posted by sultanofswing I hope I'm thinking about this the right way. Please let me know if others have suggestions on an upgrade pathway for this in terms of damping, and especially good component speakers. I'm going to keep this car till the legal limit of so Looking to spruce it up bit by bit to make the journey more enjoyable. It is just 86k kms young I recently installed woodman play series on my xuv500. Let me explain my thoughts. There are 3 ways you can use the system:
1. Use the android system as your main system and play things right off the main OS. Like you have your music apps and navigation etc right from the headunit.
2. Use wired android auto or carplay and treat the unit more or less as a dumb unit and let your do the heavy lifting.
3. Use wireless android auto for a seamless experience.

On my unit, (1) is too slow and painful and in that respects going for the extreme model will help. However, how would the unit get internet access? That means you would have to either get a model with a sim card and maintain a subscription for it or use your as a hotspot. If you use your as a hotspot, it will discharge fast, which means that you will need to have the plugged in all the time. Imagine, you get into the car and you cannot just click on navigate and get going - you need to have ritual to switch on hotspot, connect the to the charger, then open the right app on the HU and only then you are good to go. On top of all this, it's slow.

Contrastingly, with option (2) the is doing all the heavy lifting and so the performance is superb even with basic models. So, your use case would be, you get into the car, plug your , open the Zeta app, and you are good to start playing music or navigate. Since your is not exposing the hotspot, it would not drain the battery heavily. However, remember one thing here, since the is plugged in to the HUz the charging rate may be slow. On my setup it's so slow that it just is almost useless from the charging perspective. It only helps that android auto works seamlessly.

Now coming to the best of both worlds, using wireless auto, where the HU becomes a wireless hotspot and the connects to it, this use case means that you can plug in the to its native charger or even wireless chargers as you see fit, and it would just work. My current use case is, I enter the car and just start the car and start driving. I open the Zeta app and it takes about 10 seconds to establish the connection and I can simply start navigation after that. I have a choice to leave the in my pocket or plug it in for charging.

So if option 3 works well, it's the best. However, with a lot of mix and match of phones it may or may not work well. For me it is working well.

So, whether you buy extreme or not should ideally depend on the sound quality and whether you get better sound with the higher end system than due to a better ram/cpu. Whatever you buy, remember that your will tend to get updates 2 to 3 times in the next 6 to 8 years but it's likely that the android music system stays at the same OS level. So using your as your main system is also future proof.

There is some complexity if 2 people drive often. In my case my wife and I both use the car and if both of us get into the car, the car pairs to one , and it's not clear which it will pair to. This use case adds a little complexity but it's manageable if you get a hang of how the connection works and it will add one more step to ensure it always connects as you want it to. Last edited by deep_bang : 9th August at 06:44. Senior - BHPian  
Join Date: Nov Location: India Posts: 1,034 Thanked: 2,624 Times Re: The Android Head-Unit buying guide Quote: Originally Posted by scorpion_blore I'm looking for an infotainment system to replace the OEM setup. My main requirements are FM, audio playback from songs stored in USB, Google Maps, Amazon Music and such audio streaming apps.

I saw some reviews in YouTube where users mentioned that Google Maps is extremely laggy. Is this a common issue? Isn't a 2GB system enough to handle Google Maps? If you want to play the music from USB then look for the headunit with dual USB ports.

After trying out 3 different Android HUs in my car for few days, I switched onto conventional Android Auto/Carplay headunit due to the unacceptably poor audio quality and poor user experience while accessing the routine driving related tasks like navigation and all. It was so much distracting and risky to use in a car.

Apart from the audio quality and user friendly simple interface, another good thing with the conventional navigation units is that the performance depends on your . For eg when I got the system in early , I was using a mid-ranger mobile bought back in . it was doing the job and I had no complaints. Performance was predictably consistent.

But then I got the Pixel 6 and the user experience improved drastically. Its got much more responsive. Pixels 6 has some dedicated hardware for AI based voice assistance so now the system quickly captures my voice commands without missing anything. This is the most important factor while choosing the right infotainment system for car since the voice assistance is supposed to be the primary mode of interaction due to the obvious safety concerns.

Also tried my cousin's iPhone with Apple maps and Siri and experienced same smooth performance with that as well.

If you are planning to do some tinkering with the car's features via the Canbus interface then definitely go with the Android systems along with the appropriate Canbus adapter, otherwise the conventional systems are better choice to make your routine drives easier. Last edited by tbppjpr : 11th August at 09:27.