The head unit is the centerpiece and control center of any car stereo system. It’s the brains and connects to the muscle, which consists of amplifiers and loudspeakers. Many people refer to the unit as the deck, receiver or CD player. This term indicates what type of input you would expect to use the head unit with. Decks are holdovers from the days of tape decks in cars. Receivers imply the listener favors radio formats, whereas CD Players tend to play other formats like MP3s in addition to CD Audio.
Most people choose their car stereo head units from the options offered by the car manufacturer. Many car dealers offer a variety of options in terms of equipping your car with audio. These can sometimes be quite a bit better than the dismal equipment car manufacturers have a reputation for including. Some car manufacturers rely on reputable manufacturers of car audio components such as Alpine or Infinity. Many also include satellite radio as standard equipment on their factory car stereos. Still, the best stuff is only found on the best, most expensive cars. However, If you are the sort of person who sees your car as a way to get from point A to point B, but really cares about the music you’re listening to, then you are probably going to have to add your car stereo after you buy the car.
The Apple iPod, which has been at the epicenter of the MP3 and media player revolution, and many people are finding ways to include an iPod interface in their car stereo head units. Love them or hate them, when considering digital media players, one has to acknowledge that. The apple iPod accounts for three out of every four MP3 players sold. Hardware alone doesn’t account for their dominance. While iPods test well, so do the music players from other manufacturers. Many even offer features the iPod lacks. However, Apple has created a self-contained system, which includes hardware and a combination of music player software with a music-purchasing environment. Apple has by far the largest library of online video content, which supplements iTunes’ dominance over online music sales. iTunes also offer many free downloads, including pod casts from sources like NPR. Everything works in concert with IPod.
When choosing car stereo head units, you may want to consider other format options you include in your car stereo. You will want your car stereo to work with all standard formats, such as CD and MP3, but also work with high-resolution audio formats, like DVD Audio and Sony’s SACD. Sony have established SACD as a contender and started a format war. They are the only corporation on Earth that can do that; they own half the music on earth and can manufacture players too. Sony started a format war simply by only allowing their vast music catalogue to be released on SACD, never on DVD Audio.
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