Car stereo

So from my last post i have decided to just buy a new head unit. Now my dad used to put after market stereos in cars all the time so i asked him what would work. I want to get a head unit around 200 dollars but my dad says you want one that is at least 400-500$. In short my questions are, what radios (1DIN or 2DIN) will fit in my pontiac Bonneville and is there any benefit of getting a 400$-500$ head unit over a 200$ one? Also if you have any recommendations just post a link in the comment to the unit.

you will almost never get enough use or value out of a head unit to spend more than $300 on it

BOOM BOOM ba BOOM

Any recommendations then?

Any recommendations?

if you want a decent head unit then look at Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood.

Alpine is basicly top notch.

what im concerned with is what will fit. my car head unit is really whack. i think its like a 1.5 din and all the websites i go to says almost nothing will fit.

what year is your bonneville and does it have a 4 or 8 speaker setup. Visit crutchfield.com they will tell you exactly what will fit and what you need for installation. I purchased a kenwood kdc hd455u for my pontiac grand am from them for ~$150 and they included all necessary adapters, the dash kit, and instructions at no extra charge. You don't need to spend $400 to get decent sound. That head unit sounded a lot better than most oem premium sound systems. 

You can fit single din units in a 1.5 din slot. You will just need a dash adapter. My grand am had a double din dash but I swapped the stock unit for a single din one. Believe me there are hundreds if not thousands of headunits that will fit your car. It may just look like this.

 

2005 bonneville. 2 tweeters on the upper doors, 2 in the doors and 2 "subs" in the back. so just the stock system.

I was just on crutchfield and they all say nothing from alpine fits in my car. I was looking and this one http://www.crutchfield.com/p_500HD148BT/Alpine-CDE-HD148BT.html?tp=5684

but it says it wont fit

here's a pic of my dash http://imgur.com/JretBER

Do you know if it is the monsoon sound system? If so that's what I had in my grand am. It sounds like your speaker arrangement is the same, but I also had an amp in the trunk (which I had to bypass when I replaced my rear speakers).

im assuming  it doesnt because when i looked up pictures online none of them looked like mine

That's a double din unit, but after a little research the limiting factor seems to be the amount of usable space in the dash depth wise. You have more than an inch less space in your bonneville than my grand am did. Going by crutchfield, this may be your best bet. http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130X560BT/Pioneer-MVH-X560BT.html?tp=5684

It would be a massive upgrade over what you have now. I'm not sure where your dad got the $400 figure, but almost anything aftermarket will sound worlds better than the factory head unit in your car. 

is there any way i could make something bigger fit in any way? I would like to put in a double DIN but if nothing fits there is nothing i can do

You can't just create more space behind the head unit. That's where you are short on room. You have plenty of height and width, your just short on depth. Double din and single din aren't the issue. 

 

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_333ASTRDSM/Parrot-ASTEROID-Smart.html?tp=5684

 

This is the only double din unit that crutchfield says will fit but I'm not sure it's worth it. Do you want a double din unit for the big screen or because you're afraid a single din unit won't look great with in the bigger space? The picture I posted earlier looked really bad because of the wood grain imitation dash panel. Here is what my pontiac looks like until I scrap it in the next few days.

 

i like double din because of the bigger screen size, and the reason i don't want any of the one that fit is because they don't have a lot of the nicer features of the more expensive ones. i will eventually be replacing the entire sound system and i don't want to have to get a new head unit if i don't have to.

As far as I know you will never be able to get more depth to work with unless you are willing to have the head unit protrude out of the dash (which would look aweful). I don't think you are going to have many more options down the road so you might as well get what fits now. Honestly that pioneer I linked you too is not a bad unit. If you pair that with a decent amp and speakers you will have a fantastic sounding car.

well, at any rate, thanks for the help. and nice pc btw. it looks like the one i wanna build