BradTank

In a different car I installed a Clarion unit, and I doubt I will ever buy one of their products again. It was a video DVD touch screen, but it lacked the navigation option. All sorts of bugs, had to constantly restart, would freeze, wouldn't synch with iPod, poor radio reception etc. Clarion used to be a high end manufacturer, one of the best you could buy, but they seem to have devolved into a cut-rate manufacturer now.

I've had really good luck with Pioneer products, that would be the first place I would look for aftermarket.

Fortunately most cars built in the last 10 years have really improved their factory systems (aftermarket car audio is dead now) that I rarely feel the need to go beyond stock in modern luxury cars, it's mainly just for the ability to connect my iPod or maybe navigation.

GoodRevs

I agree with almost all of this. Clarion units as far as I can tell are bottom of the barrel. Cheap and require add on units for functions such as Nav and bluetooth. I'm not sure they were ever high end though.

Pioneer is a great product with a ton of community support. I've used them in two of my cars and have been very happy. Having said that they don't come cheap, but if you install yourself (which I think everyone should do because I believe most people can do a better job on their own car than some teenager at Bestbuy) you can save $100's. Kenwood I would rank slightly better due to their use of Garmin maps for their nav.

I wouldn't say aftermarket audio is dead. Many cars still don't have the nav option, and if they do it's expensive. For people unable to afford it an aftermarket unit is a viable option. and I'm unaware of any manufacturers offering TV's in the hatch or 1000W subs, so for those people aftermarket audio is a must. Aftermarket has always been a step ahead of OEM. I don't see it going anywhere.

BradTank

When I say "dead" I mean in the more mainstream sense. It was just standard procedure if you owned a car in the early 90's to automatically put an aftermarket CD player in your car and/or speakers, only really high end vehicles had a half decent systems, and most of the factory stuff back then was garbage anyway. It was like a 10w cassette headunit with a pair of paper speakers on most cars

For the real enthusiasts, the scene is still there, obviously the factory is not going to fill trunks with subwoofer hatches and enormous amps, but 95% plus of people are fine with what comes in new cars these days, and many of the factory units are no longer easily swapped out with the universal DIN size. The whole aftermarket industry has been devastated from what I've seen because the car makers no longer looked at car audio as an afterthought.

kbearmoney

Aftermarket Navigation System Suggestions is the topic, not whether or not aftermarket audio is dead; Please don't hijack.

I did several comparisons b/t all major brands and found that when I asked in stores the people suggested, of course, whatever they were promoting at the time. When I checked online, I realized that if you looked hard enough there were people that loved or hated Kenwood, Sony, Pioneer, Clarion, etc.

I have plenty of money and never had Clarion so it past models or the price didn't guide my decision. Honestly, I really liked the interface and the physical volume ****. Basically, those two things were the only differences b/t Clarion and all the brands I looked at.

Like I posted before, everything has worked great. Navigation is easy and very accurate, audio sounds good, movies look good, bluetooth connects automatically, phone syncs with no problems for contacts and playlists.