Honda Car Forum

My old radio for my 98 Honda CRV finally went bad. I started shopping
around on the web. I am retired, on a fixed income (read low) and wanted
the best value.

I first discovered a big disparity in cost between radios with a cd
player and those without. I knew I would not need a cd player. I did
want to play my favourite tunes from digital media.

I wound up buying a Boss Audio Systems 612UA. It plays SD cards and of
course AM and FM.

It is rated at a total of 200 watts through 4 channels. I do not believe
that specification. However, the power is perfectly sufficient to play
some of my favourite rock and roll (read Jimmy Hendrix) at a rather loud
level. It has all the tone and other controls I want. Very importantly,
it remembers where I was listening to a tune when I turned off the car.
Some of the cheaper radios do not do this.

I spent a total of 35 dollars for the radio from Walmart. I did not buy
an adapter cable because of added cost. I simply wired the cable that
came with the radio to my existing jumper cable that was already
installed in the car. This cable was removable and I just took it to my
work bench and carefully soldered and shrink wrapped each connection.
Needless to say I was quite careful about which wire connected to each
other.

So, my recommendation for those on a budget is just buy a radio without
a cd player but has an SD player. There is a big price difference. Check
Amazon for reviews before purchasing. Reviewers on Amazon claim this
Boss radio will play SDHC cards. I have not tried that yet. I am using
old 2GB SD cards. I shuffle between 3 cards. I plan to get an 8 GB SDHC
card to hold all of the music I want to hear on the road.