The best car radios of 2019 in the top

High-qual­i­ty sound is pro­vid­ed not only by acoustics, but also by the car radio (head unit). The choice of such devices is very large, and man­u­fac­tur­ers present their prod­ucts in a vari­ety of price ranges. But, as prac­tice shows, a high price is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a sign of good sound and reli­a­bil­i­ty of the car radio. In most cas­es, the buy­er over­pays a sig­nif­i­cant amount just for the brand.

Well, this rat­ing will help you decide which car radio to choose inex­pen­sive and good for high-qual­i­ty sound in a car.

Content

Top 10 Inexpensive Car Radios of 2019

10. SWAT MEX-3007UBW

The large mono­chrome dis­play shows all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion, while the let­ters and num­bers are large and easy to read.

The radio tape recorder allows you to lis­ten to the radio in the FM band, as well as play songs from USB flash dri­ves, microSD mem­o­ry cards and con­nect exter­nal devices via the 3.5 mm AUX input.

One of the best bud­get car radios right now. For those who need a sim­ple play­er with­out unnec­es­sary bells and whis­tles, for exam­ple, in a work­ing car — just right.

pros

• Afford­able cost;
• Big screen;
• Intu­itive con­trol;
• Pleas­ant appear­ance;
• Stan­dard set of the most nec­es­sary func­tions;
• Enough sound qual­i­ty for a device in this price range.

Minuses

• When play­ing from devices via the AUX input, switch­ing between tracks will not work;
• The USB and microSD stub is not very con­ve­nient­ly imple­ment­ed;
• At min­i­mum vol­ume, a slight hiss is heard.

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Size	1 DIN
Equal­iz­er	Yes (3 pre­sets)
Ampli­fi­er	Yes
For­mats	MP3, WMA
Radio bands	FM

Feed­back from Oleg:

A sim­ple, inex­pen­sive and at the same time high-qual­i­ty radio tape recorder with an accept­able sound. You can lis­ten from a flash dri­ve, from a phone, it nor­mal­ly catch­es the radio. I did not notice any errors or fail­ures dur­ing oper­a­tion. Installed in a work­ing machine, so far I’m hap­py with every­thing.

9. SUPRA SFD-111U

For the mon­ey, the mod­el is more than wor­thy. It reads Euro­pean tags with­out prob­lems and works with fold­ers. Comes with a remote con­trol, the oper­a­tion of which has not been noticed fail­ures. It is also worth not­ing the styl­ish design in a min­i­mal­ist style. At the same time, the radio pro­duces quite accept­able sound.

The assem­bly is of high qual­i­ty, the parts do not creak, do not crunch. Flash dri­ves even large vol­ume reads with­out prob­lems. Let­ters and num­bers on the screen are read­able in any light. There is a mem­o­ry func­tion, that is, even if you pull out the flash dri­ve, after the next instal­la­tion, the radio will start play­ing from the inter­rupt­ed place.

pros

• Low price;
• Excel­lent radio recep­tion
• Accept­able sound;
• Qual­i­ty assem­bly;
• Remov­able pan­el;
• Remote con­trol;
• Easy to install and oper­ate.

Minuses

• There is no way to cus­tomize the equal­iz­er to your lik­ing;
• Not very con­ve­nient con­trols;

Feed­back from Valenti­na:

For a long time I was look­ing for an inex­pen­sive, sim­ple and no-frills car radio with good sound. To read from flash dri­ves, catch the radio and there was no CD / DVD. After a long search, the choice fell on the SUPRA SFD-111U. Of the minus­es: indis­tinct bass, the front pan­el is dif­fi­cult to remove, there is no man­u­al adjust­ment of the equal­iz­er. I’ll take it to the plus­es: con­fi­dent recep­tion of FM radio sta­tions, reads Euro­pean ID tags, there is a con­trol pan­el, you can search for tracks by fold­ers and by num­ber.

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
dig­i­tal tuner	VHF+FM/AM
Audio For­mat	MP3/ WMA
Size	1 DIN
USB input	Yes
SD card slot	Yes
Equal­iz­er pre­sets	3

8. Mystery MCD-665MPU

The radio tape recorder is equipped with a built-in ampli­fi­er, an equal­iz­er, and an infor­ma­tive mono­chrome dis­play. Sup­port­ed bands: FM, VHF, MW. Recep­tion of radio sta­tions is con­fi­dent (up to 30 sta­tions can be stored), the search is both auto­mat­ic and man­u­al. There is also a line out­put for the ampli­fi­er. The front pan­el has USB and AUX inputs.

pros

• Styl­ish appear­ance;
• ID3 tags in Euro­pean;
• Con­ve­nient man­age­ment;
• Easy instal­la­tion;
• Search for tracks in fold­ers.

Minuses

• Indis­tinct bass.

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Pan­el	remov­able
Pow­er	50W x 4 (Max)
Watch	There is
Front pan­el USB	There is
Audio for­mats	CD-Audio, MP3, WMA
car­ri­ers	CD‑R, CD-RW

Feed­back from Alexan­der:

Sim­ple and inex­pen­sive recorder. All stan­dard fea­tures are there. Picks up radio well. The sound is good, there are out­puts for the ampli­fi­er and sub­woofer. Con­ve­nient back­lit but­tons. If some­one needs a good radio with play­ing CDs, then I rec­om­mend this mod­el

7. Sony DSX-A30E

The device has a high-qual­i­ty anten­na for long-range recep­tion. Auto tun­ing allows you to quick­ly find radio sta­tions and store them in mem­o­ry. Con­ve­nient con­trols are sup­ple­ment­ed with a remote con­trol for more com­fort­able oper­a­tion of the radio. Infor­ma­tion is dis­played on a bright mono­chrome dis­play.

You can lis­ten to music from exter­nal devices; for this, the device pro­vides USB and audio inputs. At the same time, they are pro­tect­ed by a hinged lid.

pros

• Afford­able price;
• Rich func­tion­al­i­ty;
• Remem­bers the last played track;
• Com­pact size;
• Qual­i­ty sound;
• Remote con­trol;
• Remov­able pan­el;
• Styl­ish design, illu­mi­nat­ed con­trols.

Minuses

• There is no cov­er for a remov­able pan­el;
• Does not read flash dri­ves in NTFS for­mat;
• After pro­longed use, the pan­el may fly out on bumps.

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Size	1 DIN
Equal­iz­er	There is
Audio for­mats	MP3, WMA, AAC
Bul­let remote con­trol	There is
Front pan­el inputs	Audio and USB
Radio bands	FM, VHF, MW, LW

Feed­back from Ana­toly:

This car radio is per­fect for me. The only thing I encoun­tered was the fol­low­ing prob­lem: with pro­longed use, prob­lems with sound, wheez­ing and incom­pre­hen­si­ble nois­es begin. As it turned out, the cool­ing radi­a­tor on the back wall does not cope with its main task. And since the radio tape recorder is short, I solved the prob­lem quite sim­ply — I added an addi­tion­al radi­a­tor. Now it works as it should. And as for the depar­ture of the pan­el, I remove it very rarely, so there was no such prob­lem (this is the sec­ond same radio tape recorder, on the first pan­el it failed pre­cise­ly because of the fre­quent pulling out).

6. JVC KD-X342BT

The mod­el is equipped with a bright LCD dis­play with a length of 13 char­ac­ters. At the same time, read­abil­i­ty is excel­lent in any light thanks to a matrix made using mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy. Screen bright­ness is adjustable.

In addi­tion to the main audio for­mats, the car radio plays FLAC files. The device imple­ments the Bass-Boost ampli­fi­ca­tion sys­tem, which allows you to ampli­fy low fre­quen­cies and make them more real­is­tic.

Anoth­er inter­est­ing fea­ture is the Accent Key but­ton, which allows you to quick­ly switch to a pre­set suit­able for ener­getic music.

The front pan­el of the radio is remov­able and has a min­i­mal­is­tic appear­ance. The con­trol ele­ments are back­lit, which makes using the device even more com­fort­able, espe­cial­ly in low light.

pros

• Qual­i­ty sound;
• Two-line screen;
• Flac sup­port;
• Exter­nal micro­phone includ­ed;
• Lots of dif­fer­ent set­tings.

Minuses

• Illu­mi­na­tion only in red;
• Slow read­ing from USB flash dri­ves;

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Size	1 DIN
iPod/iPhone sup­port	There is
Sup­port­ed audio for­mats	MP3, WMA, FLAC
Sub­woofer out­put	There is
Blue­tooth	There is
Radio bands	FM, VHF, MW, LW

Feed­back from Timur

For lit­tle mon­ey I got a very func­tion­al radio. Very cool equal­iz­er, there are pre­sets to improve the sound, sev­er­al fil­ters. You can con­trol the radio from your smart­phone via Blue­tooth. Great head unit. That’s just to unlock the full poten­tial you need good acoustics.

5. KENWOOD KMM-361SD

The car radio has the func­tion of syn­chro­niza­tion with iPod and iPhone. The device plays MP3/WMA/WAV/FLAC audio files. The col­or of the back­light can be changed, so you can match the col­or of your car’s dash­board.

The con­trol pan­el is equipped with func­tion­al, con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed ele­ments. At the same time, the front part is locat­ed slight­ly at an angle to the dri­ver, which makes using the radio even more com­fort­able.

Of the bud­get options, KENWOOD KMM-361SD is a very decent mod­el with good sound and a set of all nec­es­sary func­tions.

pros

• Clear, high-qual­i­ty sound;
• Reli­able assem­bly;
• Styl­ish appear­ance;
• Play­back from var­i­ous media and almost all pop­u­lar audio for­mats;
• Ease of use, but­tons are pressed tight­ly, do not hang out;
• The back­light changes col­or.

Minuses

• Many users com­plain about strong heat­ing;
• It is dif­fi­cult to see the infor­ma­tion on the dis­play, espe­cial­ly in the sun.

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Size	1 DIN
iPod/iPhone sup­port	There is
Audio for­mats	MP3/WMA/WAV/FLAC
Tuner bands	FM, SW, LW
ID3 tag sup­port	There is

Feed­back from Dmit­ry

In oper­a­tion 2 years. Plays in the car almost every day in sum­mer and win­ter. Dur­ing this time there were no prob­lems. The sound is quite pleas­ant. The col­or of the back­light changes and can be matched to the dash­board of the car. A good and inex­pen­sive radio tape recorder that suits every­one.

4. Sony CDX-G1100UE

There are sev­er­al sound pre­sets, but you can cus­tomize the equal­iz­er 5‑channel equal­iz­er for your­self. The radio has a built-in ampli­fi­er and a sub­woofer out­put, so you can eas­i­ly assem­ble a com­plete­ly decent audio sys­tem in your car with­out an addi­tion­al ampli­fi­er.

There is a rather pleas­ant tri­fle — the back­light can be adjust­ed to pul­sate to the beat of the music. In gen­er­al, the radio tape recorder has a rich func­tion­al­i­ty, nice appear­ance, high-qual­i­ty sound and a very afford­able price. So in the top bud­get car radios it deserved­ly takes 4th place.

pros

• Built-in ampli­fi­er, you can con­nect the sub­woofer direct­ly;
• Func­tion­al equal­iz­er;
• Con­ve­nient con­trols;
• The back­light can blink to the beat of the music;
• Sim­ple and intu­itive menu;
• Excel­lent com­bi­na­tion of price / qual­i­ty;
• Deep bass, clear sound.

Minuses

• Not found … (You can spec­i­fy in the com­ments)

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Equal­iz­er	Yes (5 lanes)
Ampli­fi­er	There is
Size	1 DIN
Audio for­mats	CD-Audio, MP3, WMA
Tuner bands	FM, SW

Feed­back from Olga

I got this radio a cou­ple of weeks ago. At first, I fig­ured out the but­tons for a long time, but still I fig­ured it out, it turns out to be noth­ing com­pli­cat­ed. The sound is very pleas­ant, clean and clear, adjustable func­tion­al equal­iz­er. There are no com­plaints about the sound qual­i­ty at all. I used dif­fer­ent flash dri­ves, includ­ing a 64 GB one — it los­es with­out prob­lems, it eas­i­ly search­es for tracks in fold­ers. Of the short­com­ings — a small screen, but not crit­i­cal, I think.

3. Pioneer DEH-150MP

The device does not have a USB input, but is equipped with an Aux jack, which allows you to play music from your phone or MP3 play­er, as well as a dri­ve for play­ing CD-RW and CD / CD‑R discs.

The car radio with a styl­ish design will become a real dec­o­ra­tion of your car, and amaz­ing sound will make you get new, unfor­get­table sen­sa­tions from your favorite tracks.

pros

• High qual­i­ty sound;
• The sound of an incom­ing call on the phone is mut­ed;
• Pre­amp out­put;
• Reli­able and high-qual­i­ty assem­bly;
• Styl­ish appear­ance;
• Good tuner.

Minuses

• Lack of USB (not crit­i­cal for many).

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Size	1 DIN
Audio for­mats	CD-Audio, MP3, WMA
Tuner bands	FM, SW
Equal­iz­er	Yes (5 lanes)
Menu in Euro­pean	There is
aux input	There is

Feed­back from Andrey

Great radio, great sound. The main dis­ad­van­tage is the lack of USB, but for me it’s not scary, because I main­ly use an mp3 play­er. You can play CD‑R/RW discs, which, I think, the sound qual­i­ty becomes even high­er. An excel­lent com­bi­na­tion of price and qual­i­ty, ide­al for those who are not crit­i­cal to the pres­ence of USB, but impor­tant rich and soft sound.

2 Alpine CDE-173BT

The radio is equipped with USB and AUX inputs, as well as a CD receiv­er, so you can play your favorite songs from a vari­ety of media in MP3, WMA or AAC for­mats, includ­ing iPod and iPhone. In addi­tion, the device is equipped with a Blue­tooth func­tion, so you can talk on the phone through the micro­phone (sup­plied) or play music wire­less­ly.

It is also worth not­ing the high-qual­i­ty radio recep­tion, the cor­rect read­ing of Euro­pean tags, the high speed of read­ing from exter­nal media, as well as a rather con­ve­nient func­tion — auto-off, for exam­ple, dur­ing park­ing.

pros

• Clear, volu­mi­nous, rich sound;
• Blue­tooth speak­er­phone;
• Con­fi­dent radio recep­tion;
• Infor­ma­tive dis­play;
• Con­ve­nient con­trols.

Minuses

• Some­times the con­nec­tion with the phone via Blue­tooth is lost (very rarely).

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Size	1 DIN
CD play­er	There is
Ampli­fi­er	There is
Equal­iz­er	Yes (3 bands, 10 pre­sets)
Tuner bands	FM, SW, LW
Remov­able pan­el	There is
Inputs	USB, AUX
Blue­tooth	There is

Feed­back from Kon­stan­tin

Very pleased with this recorder. Def­i­nite­ly worth your mon­ey. When I went to the ser­vice for instal­la­tion, the spe­cial­ists said that this is the best sound­ing car radio. The speak­ers had to be updat­ed, as the old ones did not pro­duce nor­mal sound. In gen­er­al, as a result, I got an excel­lent sound, for which an ampli­fi­er and a sub­woofer were not need­ed.

1. Pioneer MVH-S100UB

The radio tape recorder plays audio in the most pop­u­lar MP3, WAV, WMA for­mats, as well as high qual­i­ty files — FLAC. The device has a built-in 5‑band equal­iz­er, so that the sound can be adjust­ed to your lik­ing.

Pio­neer MVH-S100UB is the best DIN 1 form fac­tor radio to date, which has a bunch of set­tings and all the nec­es­sary func­tions. If you want to get high-qual­i­ty sound in your car for lit­tle mon­ey, then we rec­om­mend this par­tic­u­lar mod­el.

pros

• Styl­ish design;
• Com­pat­i­ble with Android;
• FLAC sup­port;
• Con­trol via app on Android device;
• Spa­cious, clear sound;
• Easy to install;
• Com­fort­able use;

Minuses

• Not found… (You can add in the com­ments)

Main char­ac­ter­is­tics
Size	1 DIN
Audio for­mats	MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC
Tuner bands	FM, SW
Equal­iz­er	Yes (5 lanes)
Tech­nol­o­gy	Advanced Remote Con­trol, Media App Con­trol, MOS-FET, Sub­woofer Con­trol
Inputs	AUX, USB

Feed­back from Mikhail

Before that, I used three radio tape recorders from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers, and so this par­tic­u­lar mod­el pro­duces such a sound that I have not heard before. More­over, the tracks that I lis­tened to sev­er­al times sound some­how new. The sound is rich, the high fre­quen­cies are crys­tal clear, the bass is deep and volu­mi­nous. Plays all for­mats, includ­ing Flak. There is sup­port for Android. Radio recep­tion is sol­id. In short, an ide­al radio for such mon­ey.