Cheap vs Expensive Car Stereos - TESTED 

50 dollar unit: weighs nothing People who remove their back seats and carpet to lower weight: WRITE THAT DOWN!

came here for the stereo comparison, left with the desire to purchase a miata

Just upgraded my own car's stereo, literally the first ever modification I've ever made to a car and it was surprisingly easy.

I worked in car audio for over a decade. I left the field in 2011. It’s amazing how much double din video units have dropped in price since then. In 2011, a $500 unit would’ve been a trash heap and the top of the line Kenwood, Pioneer or Alpine was $2000.

Donut: spends over $1000 on radios Me: shopping on FB marketplace for 500 dollar cars.

0:38 Zach: let's make some noise... 3:12 Birds: no problem 🐦

That 1000-yard stare when the birds started squawking killed me. Another banger of a video; I always learn so much from these ones. Luh u Donut and Zach

Speaker loudness could also be associated with the speakers designed to be used with the unit. If the $700 unit is designed to work with different speakers, the $300 unit might sound louder with the same speakers, but potentially reduce speaker life or give the opportunity to blow them at max volume.

I love how every episode always starts in the morning and ends late at night

So much has changed technology wise since I was putting stereos in cars in highschool, but what apparently hasn't changed is Kenwood charges way too much for too little 😆

Went with the pioneer from the video a couple months ago when I got sick of not having Apple CarPlay in my truck (my work vehicle spoiled me, when you use it regularly it’s so hard to go back) and man I couldn’t be happier. The sound quality is great, never had an issue with calls, and it’a super responsive. It sucks that most vehicles made in the past decade or so ditched the din system, it looks kind of ugly but that ability to upgrade every once in a while is awesome

Installed 2 pioneers radio`s. One was a single din where a display would pop out with android auto support. Thing still works, now I have a double din pioneer radio. And works like a charm. Never had any problem and even when I had a question there was always a nice answer from their support page.

3:20 Zach is boutta take the head-unit off some mfing birds

Zach: Blasting music Birds 🐦 : YOU THINK YOU CAN MAKE MORE NOISE THAN US?

I've been binge-watching Money Pit in preparation for buying a 2011 Crown Vic P71, and I am learning a ton and making decisions about what I want to upgrade. Thanks for the awesome content!

I’m definitely not a fan of touch screens. But in my car I have a pioneer DEH-X6600BS and I love it! It sounds amazing and I have never cranked it to max power because it pushes my speakers too far. I have spent many hours making tiny adjustments to the ridiculous amount of sound settings to get the exact sound I’m looking for. That combined with a 10” sub, makes for an epic sound system.

Money pit is my new favorite series since Hi-Low is over, I’m pretty sure this is the only thing getting my through quarantine

My mans out here spending 500$ on a head unit with stock cardboard speakers

I put a midpriced double din headunit in my '01 F250, gave me the same features as the Sync system the newer Ford trucks had. (Bluetooth, GPS, USB, hands free calling, reverse camera, etc.) Worked pretty good.

The MAIN grievance I’ve always had with stereos is the U.I. It’s almost as if none of them have enough “RAM” and they always lag or aren’t as responsive if they’re touchscreen.

at 11:55 "took a little bit of figuring out" it was daylight when he started and got dark by the time his phone connected lol

"IS HE DOING IT AGAIN HONEY?" "YESS, HE TALKS TO HIMSELF AT HIS GARAGE AT THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT"

"There goes the stool" got me lol.

the stool escaping was probably one of my favorite parts of this video ngl.

it's weird that the cheapest one has the ONE thing I want the most in a head unit(other than the obvious)...a manual knob to turn for volume/channel etc. I hate not having a physical way to change volume/channel/song select, and I think it makes driving just a bit more dangerous, since you have to look AT the head unit, at least until you get used to it, in order to do anything at all. I liked the Pioneer the best, there's no reason to spend more than $300 for a car stereo, the rest of that money could be spent on speakers, insulation, better wiring, amp, etc.

“The only thing left to do is...” see how the return process is with these companies !

I put a Double DIN Android Auto head unit from, Boss Audio (Audiovox, one of the oldest, yet cheapest/affordable stereos around) to replace the Pioneer single DIN that was in my car. And for the price, it sounds great. I found with a lot of stuff nowadays, you're only paying for a name over quality.

I like these comparison videos. They're really helping me better figure out what to buy for my car to keep it running and to make it more useful.

This series is dangerous for me. Every episode I just think "I could use a new one of that for my car". And I'm still saving up for wheels and tires!!

I love how Zach starts every money pit thinking "hey this gonna be quick" and then films until midnight

I was big into Pioneer back in high school. My best buddy and I got the same DEH-P3000IB installed in our cars at circuit city right when they came out. Kenwood makes a fantastic unit. Alpine is the best in every sense. You do get what you pay for. I've been installing car audio for 16 years. I have to have a CD player in mine, because yes we are in 2021, but I own hundreds of cds and I still buy cds.

I was installing Pioneer back in the 70s (anybody remember Supertuners?). Was always the best bang for the buck. Their home stereos back then were great as well...kind of went to shit--along with practically everything else--in the 80s; although I think their car stereos were still superior even then.

this show is legendary

Until the end of this series, this *Miata* will become a legend...

I had that pioneer 1500nex for months and I freaking love that head unit. I've had alot of different brands over the years and that one was excellent for the price.

This video is awesome, thank you! Especially the making the phone call part. I have Miata and this helped me.

The mid-tier brand is always the best brand, everyone knows that.

I DEMAND IT TO BE WEDNESDAY EVERYDAY!

This video provides a helpful comparison between cheap and expensive car stereos. It's great to see both options tested side by side so viewers can make informed decisions about their audio needs.

$50 Stero. No money in budget for spell checking.

Imagine having a stereo system. Real OGs have a boom box duct taped to the side of the door

Kenwoods have always been difficult to navigate. Pioneer has always been the undisputed champ in this department. 💁‍♂️

This test is a game changer for anyone shopping for a new car stereo! I never knew there was so much difference between cheap and expensive options. Thanks for sharing your findings!

This is freaking fantastic. The most honest review I have seen in a long while. I love the birds making noise

7:55 he recognized it by the sound without looking. That must have happens so many times in his lifetime

Zach-Buys 1000$ miata Also Zach - spends 1050$ on radios

@15:55, the Kenwood is still labeled as the DMH-1500NEX which was the Pioneer. I use to always put Kenwoods in my cars back when I was using single DIN. When I first went with the double DIN I followed suit with the Kenwood, but tried a friend's Alpine which I thought was nicer. But the big thing thats I've noticed is going away and it frustrates me is the lack of physical buttons. They should all have a preferably a knob for volume but and up and down button is fine, a back and forward button for radio channels/skipping tracks, and a mute button. The other button I think is a super important to have as a hard button is a screen off/black out button. I know most of them have a setting on screen but there should be a quick button to be able to push instead of going thru menus. Good video, probably end up with a Pioneer next time. That was the best screen response I've seen on aftermarket.

I'm 60 yrs of age teenager & it's been Pioneer every time since 1980 and I got the NEW auto reverse cassette deck ! Lol Every upgrade since then has lasted 10+ yrs in my off road vehicle. (Avid stream fisherman) The deck I've had in 4 different trucks since 2001 has a 6 pack CD changer & everything still works flawlessly. I'll say it again, Pioneer every time !

"Do not use the unit in standard mode there goes the stool" *shows stool making a break for it* Comedy at it's finest

0:38: Zack:"let's me some noise" Birds:**ohh baby I been making noise before you were even Born**

Great comparison between cheap and expensive car stereos! I learned a lot from this test.

Thanks for putting this up. Bought the pioneer and installed in my car. This video inspired me to say “yea I could probably do that”. Donut’s the best

next episode "is an ls swap worth it?"

Zach maybe my favorite of the new hosts, he didn't make me skip a second of this video because I was really interested. Cam score on this episode is def a 9.5-10

I have BOSS stereo equipment from Autozone in my truck, it's not bad, pretty clear and can be heard from 100' roughly away. Doesn't crackle at high volumes. 6" door speakers and 6x9 in the extended cab.

your money pit miata videos have walked me through fixing my first miata!!

Money pit is one of the high points of my week! I love working and having it on, thanks for the great videos guys, Zach explains things in a fantastic understandable way

Even though they’re expensive Kenwood and pioneer are some of the best out there

I own the kenwood and it is amazing, alot of features were left out, i love the wireless screen mirroring and the 13 band eq

best test in tube ever ! great work dude !

In my experience pioneer has always been a quality/affordable brand, so I'm not surprised with the results

Next episode: my roof was cut open and head unit was stolen - hardtop roof install

really helpful, thanks bro

Great and informative video!

i love the smell of new electric equipment, Sometimes you can smell when something is seriously cheap.

Damn harbor freight stools, always trying to escape

7:50 love the stool running away lol

Well done mate going with The Pioneer thanks for the wonderful video this is going in my 2004 mercedes clk 320c

"By the way, I figured out what the mule function was..." Me: Does it make mule noises? "Mute." Me: oh GOD D-

7:59 lol even the stool is bored of quarantine 😂😂

Man you guys are the best. Great video

I bought the budget Kenwood head unit about 7 years ago for around $450. It's moved through 3 vehicles and I've used it everyday. The calls are still clear and the Bluetooth works flawlessly. It's slow to react to touch, but that's expected from back then. 10/10 would recommend.

Kenwood head units have been "MEH" for about 10 years now, not a shock the pioneer was the "best performer" here.

Do A Mod That Lets You Wink The Headlights.

I have a $60 stereo from Amazon. Mine came with a microphone, apple car play, and a backup camera. It plays fine on the Home Screen. The touch screen works great and sounds great. I had to go with a cheap one because I did not have much depth to work with.

The pan over to the stool absolutely sent me 😂😂 I’m buying a celica soon and I’m so excited to install a new head unit :)

*Music is sounding incredible dirtorted and shitty Zach: WOW THIS SOUND GOOD

I literally installed the pioneer DMH-1500NEX a week ago into one of my cars, all I can say that it it totally worth $300. It has so much features and the android auto and apple carplay really makes the interior look modern. All in all I would highly recommend that unit.

03:15 - in Brazil, we call those birds as "Maritacas"! They are very cute! Ok, back to the video!

Pioneer for life man they always are great

I’m far from a pro, but I’ve been installing radios since roughly 2013 and feel slightly qualified discussing them. I’ve had boss, sound stream, SSL, pioneer, kenwood, jvc, and even the cheap o. IMO, kenwood was my least favorite. It had decent sound quality, but was a total pain to navigate. I’ve never had a pioneer let me down and even with their cheaper Walmart touch screen, the quality is great! The touch is responsive, call quality is great, very sturdy, and very simple. I love the audio quality of it, it can even make a low buck set of scosche speakers sound ok. Hands down my favorite head unit of all which I would love to see you try is the Sony XAV series. I’ve bought 2 and have ZERO issues with either. Simple interface, great layout, matte rubber bezel which matches OEM dashes really well as opposed to the glossy black bezel around the screen. Bluetooth connects immediately after initial pairing. It is a CarPlay/ android auto unit for under $250, and works perfect in that department. My only complaint(not a big deal at all) is when your listening to RU-vid, there’s a slight disconnect when pausing a song and the radio catching that pause. It has a volume knob, it’s a single din with a double screen, and my most favorite feature which I have yet to see on anything else is the option to import your own wallpaper. For under $250, I don’t think your going to find a better unit with the same features. There’s a CarPlay dual for $200 which looks nice, but after 6 months in my daily the screen started to have issues going black. With a backup camera attached, it started to go black after the camera triggered off and the car had to be shut off to restart the unit.

"Mom can we have hi-low at home?" "We already have hi-low at home." Hi-low at home :

I throughly enjoyed watching this video 😂

I have the avh2330nex pioneer and I love mine. Good review.

I used to just have a cassette tape with an aux cord connected so i can play music from my phone through the cassette player lol

Next time they are doing speakers I’m calling it.

Earlier in the summer (late spring actually) I had a new head unit installed in my Honda Odyssey Touring. Since I wanted all the rear cam, steering controls etc, I had a car stereo place so the job. Thankfully I did b/c the Nav system which intertwines with at least five separate components (the main 6disk changer, which has a screen that folds into itself to load CDs, a separate actual primary controller (looks like the average stereo), DVD player, a second ‘dvd’ player under drivers seat (was labeled DVD, but instead was a strange insertable cartridge that was NAV), an external amp (way over alongside and behind glove box) and a couple other doohickeys I can’t recall. The first attempt was a JVC HU, that was in fact a Kenwood, and looked to be almost the same GUI. It was hard as hell to figure out. But sounded killer with my JL audio C2 (x4) speakers, but the user interface and phone stuff was so irritating I had the shop exchange for the same Pioneer HU you are using. Which I’m thinking must’ve been a 2020 product sold in ‘22. The Pioneer is user friendly, controls actually 3 phones ( 2 simultaneously) b my as an very user friendly GUI, but unfortunately doesn’t sound as good as the JVC/Kenwood. That’s something that really bummed me out. The EQ in the JVC was fantastic. I could play a particular CD that when I bought it back in the 90s I couldn’t play (it was stuff I liked) because it was so “loud” every stereo I tried to play it on sounded f’ing awful. Too low bass notes. But on the JVC I could crank it and the JL speakers could handle it. The same CD in the pioneer (actually a lossless file via iPod) needs to be EQd way different. Killer video however. I’m running thru a couple of your vids tonight.

thank you. i went in to a stereo place yesterday, and i had questions about the 3 different prices. and i didnt want to get ripped off, thank you for your service.

TBH Pioneer is an absurdly well known and good Japanese brand. Still have my Pioneer headphones working perfectly.

In my first car I couldn't afford good speakers so I wired in a big pair of home stereo speakers in the back seat. Held in with the seat belts. Sounded pretty good in the 80's.

I installed a Boss audio be7acp-c in my 2005 Lincoln town car. I was pondering more expensive head units, but I had $100 Walmart gift card so I figured hey I'll try this one. I was actually really surprised at how many features it has for the price. The built an amplifier wasn't all that great but my Lincoln's got its own amplifier which works through the factory harness. It also has two subwoofer lfe out which I pump both output straight into my kicker amplifier. Touch screen responsiveness is perfect, and there's still a lot of features in it that I haven't hooked up yet. $250, got it for 150, I can't complain.

Still wished the pioneer had a vol knob. I just installed a generic 100 dollar double din multimedia player in my truck and I'm living it. Touch is fine, sound is great, it has a vol knob, none of the subcription crap, and it plays DVD's. It may be the Crosley of multimedia players, but it's awesome to me. I will do some research and picking a radio for my challenger.

Day 20 of asking donut to do an b2b on their cars or maybe an up to speed

I'm getting the $50 headunit so i'll have the last laugh when a crackhead goes to steal it

got my headunit 2 week ago its a pioneer but a cheaper version of what you have in the video ( basicly the same but with out applecar play ) and its great also help my sound in the car since the old dident have eq or cut off so i couldent set it so the sub plays lows and rest play mids and highs so it really destryed the sound of the otherwise great speaker setup. although i have smaller car ( suzuki ignis) so when i say sub i really mean under seat subs (1 under driver and 1 under passenger seat) but that is only because my car is so small that a full sizes sub would be to much space to give away, but for under seat subs they really do sound great, not as great as a proper subs but much better then just the normal car speakers that is otherwise in the car :D

I've got a Benji Box 1989 EPI SLR-45 with an automatic cassette deck that i bought for $25. It has sub outputs already from the factory. It's fully wired complete with a Kenwood sub and amp inside a 1991 Geo Prizm. I'm happy 😊

Hell yeah, Jobe's listening to Justice!

Worst thing in more expensive head units is the absence of a volume knob...

Worth mentioning, my Kenwood DVD/CD, Bluetooth head unit crapped put within a year. I replaced it with a Pioneer and have had no issues and have had it for about 5 years now. When looking for equal features, the Kenwood and Pioneer were much closer in price

It’s annoying me that when testing they didn’t go all the way in they just sat there 😂😂