Primo HU's without internal amps

[PrecisionAudio]

Hi. I cannot recall who told me in a previous thread that he uses ultra quality HU's that do NOT have internal amplifiers. As I'm going the full external amplifier way, could someone give me a list of brands/models to study for replacing my HU? An extremely good 'tons of bands' equalizer would be helpful to dial-in the best sound, heh.

I would greatly appreciate help on this.

I don't think any Pioneer HU's offer this option of zero internal amps and instead a ton of RCA signal inputs from various sources and then many outputs to external amps (for future surround sound, I would guess, but that's way in the future for me). I've sticked to Pioneer over the years and with their decks in the $500 to $700 range as they performed great but I don't want wasted money spent on internal amps that I choose not to use. I'd like the see the money spent on a quality unit that does what I mentioned above.

Thanks!!!
Joe

 

[jol50]

I'd recommend the high end Alpine, Pioneer (the old 880 is good low dollar one), the best Eclipses, and Clarion has a nice copper clad one with a separate power supply. I don't have the model numbers handy but there are not many. There are a few even nicer ones that are very expensive, one made in Russia.

Looked some up:
About the cheapest Pioneer with x-overs and EQ, DSP is the DEH-P880PRS. There is a new top line pioneer coming out. The Clarion DRZ9255 is a nice one too. Eclipse 8053/8554/8443, Alpine 9835 and the one with the controller forget number, Pioneer P9 combo. It depends on what features you need, not sure all of these have no amp. Some like Denon and Nakamichi too. Think I will get the clarion 9255 if I can swing it, otherwise the 880.

 

[PrecisionAudio]

I'd recommend the high end Alpine, Pioneer (the old 880 is good low dollar one), the best Eclipses, and Clarion has a nice copper clad one with a separate power supply. I don't have the model numbers handy but there are not many. There are a few even nicer ones that are very expensive, one made in Russia.

Looked some up:
About the cheapest Pioneer with x-overs and EQ, DSP is the DEH-P880PRS. There is a new top line pioneer coming out. The Clarion DRZ9255 is a nice one too. Eclipse 8053/8554/8443, Alpine 9835 and the one with the controller forget number, Pioneer P9 combo. It depends on what features you need, not sure all of these have no amp. Some like Denon and Nakamichi too. Think I will get the clarion 9255 if I can swing it, otherwise the 880.

Hi! Thanks for the great leads on analysing what my next HU will be able to do. I'll definitely check them all out!

Thanks again. Sincerely,
Joe

 

[69CamaroSS396]

I have a Clarion HX-D10 that is currently in a system with some old school Hifonics amps and a/d/s components.
SQ is unreal.

Here is a link to a Pioneer DEX-P78 refurbed by Pioneer. Sold for about $400 a few years back. I had one years ago. Nice deck.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=150116108342&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=005

Keep in mind that both of these mentioned are CD only.

 

[Travis Clarke]

I used to use Clarion and once owned an old DRX-9255 (very clear sound) I think it was until I finally moved up to Alpine.

You can get great sound quality and DVD/MP3 playback with a DVA-7996 like I have now.

It has an external regulated supply to maintain an excellent S/N ratio and sounds as good somewhat better than my older Clarion.

It's intended to be a higher-end unit but with DVD/MP3 ability.

Also has time correction (time delay) built in.

Unfortunately I've only really seen multi-band EQs in head units that are low-to-mid quality levels (aimed for the "ricer" teen market/average consumer). But I could be wrong about that.

Also the Alpine can be connected via TOSLINK to external DSPs or whatever DAC you want to use (I have the PXA-H710 for 5.1 D.Digital/DTS decoding). Also it gives me 6 31-band EQs (a 31-band EQ for each channel!).

The F1 series by Alpine I think is pretty much the top of any unit available (really expensive too).