Head unit help , suggestions

Slowly adding to my boat system, piece by piece and have decided to change out the stock kenwood head unit for something more user friendly. Wanted to ask what different head units you guys have in your boats and why? We mainly play off of Ipods, and some CD's.
What head unit is the most user friendly for an ipod? Right now, the kenwood I have, the sound quality is kind if bad. I asked a stereo shop and he told me it was more than likely because the unit output volts? were too low? to run an ipod? I have no idea what that means, but he suggested me buying a newer unit that was more adaptable to an Ipod.
So, let me know what you run and the pros and cons of your stereo. thanks in advance.

I installed this Kenwood in my V212 Marc. http://kenwoodusa.com/Car_Entertainment/Marine/KMR-700U

I'm in the same situation as you, Marc. I'm looking for a head unit too. I was hoping to find a unit with at least 4V preamp outs for front, rear and sub, but haven't been too successful. I did find this article regarding preamp outs which sounded more correct than a lot of other stuff I have read and heard. I am looking at the Sony CDXM60UI for about $150 shipped at Amazon. It has 6 preouts, but they are 2V. Have you looked at it? I'd love to know if there is something better out there for around the same or a little more money. Oh yeah, here the link to the article.

http://carstereoforum.net/showthread...n-Setting-quot

Jman

I installed the Kenwood 700U marine. It is soley for the Ipod. It does not have a cd player. The front face folds down so you can put the ipod inside the head unit for protection from water.

I like the overall concept of the 700U but can you connect the iPhone externally? The little glovebox for it seems like a good idea at first but the more I think about it the more I think it wouldn't work well for me. I have good data service at our normal wakeboarding spot and would prefer to use Pandora instead of the "iPod" function. I would imagine this cannot be controlled through the receiver controls and I'd have to pull it out each time I want to skip or change the channel. Also, Adaptunes is pretty slick for controlling the volume automatically based on GPS speed. I would assume that since the 700u is using the dock port on the bottom it would be a constant "line out" volume that Adaptunes would have no control over. I'd probably end up always using the plain ole RCA AUX input with the iPhone in a suction cup windshield mount which I could do with a much cheaper receiver.

I was just thinking more on the 700U. Does it navigate a flash drive full of music pretty nicely? If so I could have a big flash drive that I could keep updated with some MP3s and use that when we're tired of Pandora or have a specific request/playlist that somebody wants to setup. Then just plug the iPhone in the old fashioned way from the headphone jack to the RCA Aux input.

Yes it also has a seprate USB plug in the enclosure.

Thanks guys!
I've been looking at the Kenwood 700U, which I think would be a great head unit, but what do you do about controlling it? It does not sound like it comes with a wireless remote, and I'd prefer something that a passenger can control so I dont have to worry about it.
I got on the website, and it appears they make a couple different remote controls, but they are wired. one of them, the RC-107MR looks to be a mountable control, and the other KMR330, looks like it might be a transom remote? Do any of you have one of these or both in your boat? I'm thinking I might add the 700U headunit, then mount the RC-107MR somewhere on the boat so a passenger can run the stereo. If the KMR330 would mount on the transom, I might even add one of those as well to controll from the water.......
Does anyone have any knowledge of these units? If you can have both wired? where would you mount the wired remote in your boat? thanks

For what its worth, I went through this same thing 2 weeks ago and went with a JVC KDA-815. It has dual USB, Aux, I-pod/phone controls, Advanced Bluetooth, 4v pre-outs,Wireless remote, limitless display color options in 2 zones. I'm going to run mostly a 16Gb Flash drive and stream Pandora. I see that it even has Bluetooth song control so I'm hoping to be able to skip songs on Pandora. My only complaint after receiving is the display is a little smaller than what I expected, but I kept reading reviews that the Kenwood Excelon screens were hard to read in the sun. I paid $180.

I sure wish I had seen the JVC HU above before I went ahead and purchased the Sony CDX-M60ui. The Sony is at least a marine radio, not that it probably matters.

Thanks,
Jman

I bought a wireless remote from ideasthatfloat.com. It is a key fob size remote that has 150' range and floats. It will control volume and forward and back. It has a transciever that plugs into the back of the HU's inline wired remote port. Works pretty slick.

Does anyone ever buy Alpine's head units? I cannot speak for their marine stuff, but I have always had good luck with their car stuff. Their integration with apple products seems to be a step ahead, or at least used to be...