I just bought a W-reg VW Caravelle with no stereo in it, and need to fill the gap asap, or my kids will start taking it out on me.

I basically listen to Radio 4, or plug my iPod in using one of those charger/play-it-through-the-radio cables. The thing is, I always had trouble getting radio reception outside of the immediate vicinity of a big city, and also got constant interference when listening to my iPod.

Beyond getting something that works and sounds relatively good when driving on the motorways, I have about as much interest in electronic gadgets and stereo stuff as I do in cutting my nails.

Would something like this be alright? I honestly have no idea.

Any suggestions, lessons in why I should care about the quality of my car stereo, and/or what features matter, would be appreciated.

That would do, but I’d get an Alpine IDA series head unit over that any day of the week. Being an Alpine, the sound quality will be better, but not only that the IDA series units control an iPod in a much more logical way, you get a big knob on the front which you turn… Just like an iPod!

Something like this…

I can also recommend Car Audio Direct as a shop very highly too, I knew the owners and my mate used to work there whilst we were at uni, they know their stuff and prices are always ultra competitive and service is always great.

That looks cool, but I’m afraid I would need a CD player. I forgot to mention that. I perused that site, though, and all the sets that have a CD player look exactly the same to me!

This seems to combine what I need. Any thoughts?

Ah ok, if you still need a CD player too, that one you’ve linked to is probably as good as you’ll get for the budget.

I have one of these, well the model just before it, and it’s very nice.

had my alpine 9853 for about 5 years now and is a superb unit i belive the 9855 had a direct ipod interface but also had the usability of the original alpine menus with the funky glide touch setup. also good for expanding external amps ext as u have allot of space to fill with sound 😉

edit- as mentioned the one u linked will be fine cad is a very good site iv spent thousands on there in my past when i competed in spl comps and fully recomend them.