# Boss Head Units



## Hintzyboy (Mar 31, 2007)

Does anyone have experience with their newer head units? I know that they have been a punching bag of a brand for pretty much the entirety of the ~20 years I've been in the hobby. They have been repeatedly proven to - to be charitable - over-promise and under-deliver. I would never consider buying the vast majority of their products. 

BUT, I recently came back to the hobby after a few years away (had a leased car with a halfway decent stock sound system). I see all sorts of digital-only HUs out there now. I've seen that a lot of people on here use and recommend Joying HUs. Joying, as far as I know, wasn't even on people's radar when I pulled my last system out in 2018. 

So I'm wondering, how much difference can there really be between Joying, a random Chinese company I'd never heard of whose online store looks more like Ali Express than a normal e-store, and traditional swap meet fodder like Boss? I am not trying to knock Joying by any means, but I'm curious as to what they (or even traditionally respected manufacturers like Alpine, Pioneer, etc.) offer to differentiate themselves with a digital-only head unit. 

Take This Boss HU for example. It has a large screen with 4-way tilt and up/down slide adjustments, CarPlay/Android Auto, a volume knob, and 4v RCAs. I wouldn't trust it to do any signal processing or to power anything with the internal amp, but I don't need any of that. If it can send a clean signal out of the RCAs, that's all I really need it to do. 

I'm putting together a budget SQ build for my beater car I bought to drive while I save money for a house. All of my other equipment is decent, but inexpensive. I bought most of it used and have had some of it for years. JL Twk88 DSP, Helix Esprit amps, Image Dynamics OEM10 subs, Seas G18RNX mids, and Rainbow tweets. I picked up the Boss unit linked above on impulse because it was under $300 and included a back up camera. I'm second guessing myself a bit, but I'd like to hear from the forum. Is there really going to be all that much difference between this and other, more popular HUs? I suppose the DAC could be trash, and it would be nice to have an optical output. But is it really worth spending at least twice as much on another brand when I'm letting my good equipment do the heavy lifting?


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## Sounds_Insane (8 mo ago)

They do come out with some innovative ideas for their HUs, like the tilt you mentioned. And as the one five star video, I believe the guy said their HU is the #1 selling HU in the U.S., beating all others combined?

The only thing I can't find is the S/N and THD of it's RCA outputs.


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## Sounds_Insane (8 mo ago)

found this, but who runs a HU at full volume and doesn't expect some distortion?, I would just run your volume closer to 2V out

*BCPA9RC RCA outputs, 1 KHz, 14.4v*
Volume number: Full volume
HP8903B Audio Analyzer: 3.78 Volts RMS per channel, 1.0% distortion.
*BCPA9RC RCA outputs, 40 Hz, 14.4v*
Volume number: Full volume
HP8903B Audio Analyzer: 3.77 Volts RMS per channel, 1.0% distortion.









Boss Audio BCPA9RC Digital Media Receiver with 9" Floating Capacitive Touchscreen, Apple Carplay and Android Auto with Backup Camera


9" Floating Capacitive Touchscreen DisplayIncluded License Plate Backup CameraBuilt in Bluetooth for phone calls and audio streamingSupports Apple Carplay and Android AutoNavigation via Apple Maps, Google Maps or WazeBuilt in AM/FM radio tunerRear USB PortSteering wheel control compatible




www.qualitymobilevideo.com


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## Hintzyboy (Mar 31, 2007)

Sounds_Insane said:


> found this, but who runs a HU at full volume and doesn't expect some distortion?, I would just run your volume closer to 2V out
> 
> *BCPA9RC RCA outputs, 1 KHz, 14.4v*
> Volume number: Full volume
> ...


Thanks for this! I have a membership to a local makerspace and have access to an oscilloscope, so I will definitely be using one to set everything up. Hopefully I can avoid distortion at more reasonable volumes. 

I suppose worst comes to worst, I can probably sell it on Facebook or Craigslist at a mild loss and start over. I do plan on keeping the beater long term for winter use if I can.


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## JI808 (Nov 20, 2013)




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## Hintzyboy (Mar 31, 2007)

JI808 said:


>


Thank you! That is exactly what I needed. I'm not surprised the internal amp is way overrated, nor that the RCA voltage comes up a bit short. But I think I'm just going to run one set of RCAs for a full-range signal to take away the discrepancy between outputs, and let the DSP sort everything out from there.


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