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Which aftermarket stereo?

Discussion in 'Newbie Forum' started by PapaMurphysLaw, Mar 2, 2019.

  1. PapaMurphysLaw

    PapaMurphysLaw Junior Member

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    Hi! I purchased my 2008 Toyota Prius Touring in July of last year and have been looking for a touch screen stereo to replace the current useless one with. As my model doesn’t have an aux output, I have no way of connecting my phone to the speakers. I’m looking for a stereo that I can stream to from my iPhone via bluetooth and aux connectivity. Preferably, I’m also looking for a stereo that provides other features such as navigation and maybe even a DVD option though DVD is not a requirement for me. If anybody could help me figure out what stereos could fit those two main needs, I’d greatly appreciate it. So far some I’ve seen but can’t seem to find stable reviews for are; Pioneer AVH-1330NEX, Pioneer AVH-1300NEX, Sony XAV-AX1000, Sony XAV-AX100, and the Pioneer MVH-1400NEX. Thanks for any help!

    Also, note that I am not mechanically inclined in the slightest so I will be hiring out the installation. My budget for the stereo is $350.
     
  2. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    I put the Sony AX100 in our '18 c. We love it.

    It should be noted that there is no disc player at all, and also no analog aux input. That means it works for AM/FM and anything your phone can do over USB or Bluetooth, so you can do streaming apps or playback of files stored on the phone. You can also plug in USB storage like a flash drive and it will play from that.

    It has no independent navigation system, but does a great job of presenting your phone's navigation apps via Carplay or Android Auto.

    In typical usage my wife plugs her apple phone into the USB line and puts Sirius/xm streaming radio on and simultaneously runs the Waze app for navigation assistance. We have briefly tested it with an Android phone as well and that seemed to be fine.

    Steering wheel controls work perfectly though an external adapter box was required to translate, and the car's native rear vision camera works perfectly through this display also. I also replaced the car's built in microphone with the one that Sony supplied, so the telephone handsfree system sounds great too.

    It didn't cost much, the installation was pretty easy in our car, the sound is fantastic and the phone integration is leaps and bounds better than the way Toyota did it for the factory system. Good luck!
     
  3. egg_salad

    egg_salad Active Member

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    I haven't paid anyone to install a radio in a very long time, but I suspect it isn't cheap, at least if you get the job done right. You'll be paying for a dash kit, a wiring kit, and a JBL integration kit. If your budget is $350, I suspect you need to be looking at $250 radios.
     
  4. PapaMurphysLaw

    PapaMurphysLaw Junior Member

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    Great! Thank you, this is exactly what I’m looking for. How is it in terms of functionality? A lot of other stereos I’ve looked into have had issues with being glitches, lag, the touch screen not working properly, or it taking a very long time to connect to Apple CarPlay. How does the Sony AX100 fair in these areas?
     
  5. PapaMurphysLaw

    PapaMurphysLaw Junior Member

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    Ah I see. My budget is about $100 hiring and $350 for the stereo itself. Though do you have any tips/sources for installation so I could potentially install it myself?
     
  6. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Touchscreen is good, and includes a calibration mode if you find yourself missing the target. Carplay crashes a fair amount when I connect my (very old) Apple phone but works much better with my wife's much newer phone. I have put that down to the difference between old iOS and the current version.

    I can't say it's glitch-free though. We have caught the clock slipping time. This only just started when I applied a firmware update a few weeks ago. But hey the good news is that Sony is providing regular firmware updates for these, and they aren't hard to install. They did a few nice tweaks in the latest one, with the touchscreen getting a little snappier and a few on-screen buttons getting bigger and better defined.
     
  7. PapaMurphysLaw

    PapaMurphysLaw Junior Member

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    Okay great that’s good to know. I have a relatively new iPhone so hopefully I wouldn’t have as many issues. Would you say it was overall worth the price?
     
  8. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    Absolutely worth it. We bought the car knowing we were going to ditch the included stereo for something else. Saved thousands vs. buying the top trim with the good Toyota system, and this Sony is even better than that one.

    And since you got me thinking of it I looked into the clock bug. Turns out the clock is trying to set itself from FM RDS, and somebody near us is transmitting bogus clock info. The RDS auto-set feature had been disabled previously, but many settings got bounced when we did the firmware update. So that's all it was.

    The crutchfield people had an error in their database and didn't send the right accessories the first time around, but they took care of me (they always do) and eventually I had all the right stuff.

    Installing the deck itself was quite easy. The rear vision camera was a minor extra challenge as it required an external voltage regulator, but that was just a few more splices. Steering wheel controls turned out to be falling-off-a-log easy. The translator box was already pre-programmed and just worked, so really it was just the expense of buying it.

    The hardest part was the microphone for the handsfree phone. That took as much work as everything else combined. I could have done it the easy way and just glued the new one onto the dash somewhere, but I wanted to use the factory mic location.
     
  9. ColoradoCrow

    ColoradoCrow Active Member

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    I’m heading down this road myself shortly.
    Pioneer AVH 201EX should fit the bill. I’m hoping the Metra dash kit looks ok and comes with needed resistor.