Head Unit Kit for the 2006 Prius... FINALLY!

I just went to Kromer Radio here in Toronto to see what my options were for upgrading my audio system. Thus far I've been working under the assumption that I can't neatly change out my radio head unit but when I went there the guy looked it up and apparently very recently there has been a kit made for the 2006 Prius to install aftermarket head units.
He also directed me to an Alpine CDA9857 which was on sale for 299 CAD. It has a port to connect an IPOD and a 3 line display to scroll through albums, song titles, etc... Also you can scroll quickly through the lists with the buttons 1-6 on the head unit, scrolling 10-60% ahead/back. So for a little more than the DICE you can end up with a new head unit with nice ipod features very similar to the dice (charging too), 3 PreOuts, 50W Max x 4/ 18W RMS and CD-R/RW/MP3/WMA playback. Should give you a better quality signal and is much easier if you want to install an amp for your speakers or have nice control of a sub.

What'd you guys think? Pros/Cons?

Also quotes a Boston Acoustic SL60 for $499 CAD... sounds kinda steep? They sounded amazing though compared to everything else there.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JacquesR @ Feb 4 2007, 07:49 PM) [snapback]385259[/snapback]</div>

He's checking that out for me. Hopefully he'll get back to me soon and I'll post his reply.

 

Well, I'm still waiting to hear back about if the MDF or steering wheel would still work for the audio control but if for example just the steering wheel works then I figure it'd still be the way to go. You could have your MDF showing you your milage or temp controls or whatever you want to see and right under that the new head unit would show you all the audio stuff you'd want to see.

The big thing here I would think is the signal that would come out of the aftermarket head unit over the stock one. It should be cleaner and more powerful I'd think and way easier to add aftermarket stuff like amps, subs etc...

I also think the fast scroll ability with the Alpine head unit is nice and you can actually have more than 99 songs listed per playlist. That'd really help me since I've got 6000+ songs on my computer and like to listen to them all at once pretty much. The salesman told me that the unit can only seem to handle playlists of up to 5000 songs. After that apparently it starts acting strangely. I think I can live with a 5000 song cap, but the 99 playlist 99 songs per playlist thing would be annoying.

Would I get a better, cleaner more powerful signal out of the new head unit w/o amp than I would with the stock radio w/o amp?

 

I've got some bad news. Looks like the Alpine head unit doesn't integrate at all with the steering wheel or the screen. It doesn't kill the screen at least so that's good! I would miss the steeringwheel controls... I use them exclusively.... but installing a new head unit that integrates with an IPOD like this one does seems to have some other nice benifits so.... it's pretty much a toss up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(GeoGeek @ Feb 6 2007, 11:52 AM) [snapback]386008[/snapback]</div>

That product looked pretty interesting. Crutchfield is selling it for $70. I didn't even consider this but some of the description about this steeringwheel integration unit made me worry.... would installing a new head unit for my radio affect my steeringwheel controls for things like my defroster and temperature control?