With slabs of shiny plastic and more blinking lights than a TikTokker’s bedroom, most aftermarket head units of the early 21st century took on a somewhat maximalist aesthetic in the name of futurism. It was the new millennium, sleek consumer electronics design was the next big thing, and everyone was looking to cash in on that vibe.
While brands like Kenwood and Alpine were seeing how much information they could cram onto LCD displays, Pioneer took a different approach by using organic electroluminescence as the basis for its Organic EL displays. The initial marketing materials had some pretty fantastic claims that Pioneer’s new displays were 1,000 times faster than LCD displays, and Pioneer had just the way to show off this new display tech.
See, this was the turn of the millennium and entertainment technology was trying to do a little bit of everything just because it could. Windows offered the famous pipes screensaver, WinAmp had more skins than Tywin Lannister, and Pioneer head units with these Organic EL displays had light shows of their own. While Pioneer was still figuring out what to do on early models, the Organic EL display really hit its mainstream stride in head units like the DEH-P6400 head unit of 2002.
Seeing dolphins while driving is usually a sign that you’re about to file a very big insurance claim, but Pioneer decided to put a little animation of a person swimming with dolphins into each DEH-P6400 head unit. While it’s definitely an unusual concept, that little visual flourish turned into a really big flex. Sure, the resolution was on-par with the screen on a Nokia 3210 mobile telephone, but you weren’t really stunting if you didn’t have dolphins in the dash and two “twelves” in the trunk.
Of course, the famous video of dolphins on the Pioneer DEH-P6400 head unit wasn’t the only animation on tap. In addition to really grainy level meters and some head-bending pipe-style animations, Pioneer also put race cars inside the deck. See, Pioneer sponsored several Indycar drivers including Alex Zanardi, so it was only right to animate the open-wheel cars to show off corporate sponsorship. The animation itself is quite neat as it includes a moving engine cutaway, a first-person view shot, and a proper racetrack setting that was leagues slicker than the cyber-influenced Indycar animation in the previous DEH-P6300 head unit.
Putting the aforementioned animations aside, the DEH-P6400 was still a pretty nifty head unit. Not only did it have preparation for a 3.5 mm auxiliary input, it was also XM satellite radio ready. RMS power of 22 watts according to Crutchfield really wasn’t shabby for the day, and RMS bandwidth went down to a reasonable for the time 50 Hz. If you wanted more thump, four pre-amp output jacks were on offer to support a more serious audio system. In addition, you could control a CD changer through the head unit, critical for shuffling from Limp Bizkit to Ja Rule on the move.
Pioneer also offered a multi-color Organic EL display on its MEH-P9000 and DEH-P9000 head units that could illuminate blue, green, yellow, and orange. As these were both rather high-end head units, they never reached the mass appeal of the DEH-P6400. Even today, the DEH-P6400 is remembered with the same fondness as Dunkaroos and Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. While the shiny silver faceplate and fairly low-resolution display definitely date the head unit, it should be the perfect era-correct head unit to top off a 2000s-style build of a Toyota Matrix XRS or Nissan Sentra SE-R. I truly believe that the car culture of the 2000s will eventually have its day in the sun and when that happens, the Pioneer dolphins should be a hot commodity once again.
Lead photo credit: Pioneer/Boosted 2000
My 94 Pickup still has the dolphin radio installed!
Best…
animation….
EVER!!!!!
Those organic electroluminescent displays were the forerunners of the modern active matrix OLED cellphone displays. Around 2002 I worked for a small Silicon Valley start-up that was developing a flexible transparent barrier coating to replace the glass encapsulation needed to protect the highly water and oxygen sensitive OLED. We worked closely with Pioneer, but neither of us were far enough along or had the resources needed for flexible displays. Around the same time, we started to work with Samsung Display and in 2010, Samsung acquired the barrier technology. I spent 3 years in Korea after the acquisition getting the technology to manufacturing. As my brother says about the curved edge displays, they are just bling. However, I feel that they are a little bit of my bling.
That’s the thing I’ll regret about getting a modern car, is not being able to put in a head unit. I went through multiple units in my 96 Avalon from a Sony-CDXM600r that had a cool motorized drop-down face (but kept breaking, and after multiple warranty repairs I had to replace it with something else), and then a Kenwood and then that Alpine with no CD player in it, it had a square screen and a rotory controller to pair with an iPod. After that got stolen, I went to one of those Pioneers and pretty much stuck with Pioneers since then.
Really, it was all to make fast-food cashiers comment how cool my radios looked. That was my target audience. 😛
“Seeing dolphins while driving is usually a sign that you’re about to file a very big insurance claim”
Doesn’t get more aughts than this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NJmB1F2mdE
I passed the animation by to get a Kenwood with a built-in USB port on the front for my Civic. It was new at the time, but loading up a thumb drive with hours of music was pretty awesome.
Pretty sure my buddy had one of these in a late 80’s Cavalier Z24 with more $$ in the stereo than the car was worth.
I was going to comment the same. I was more of a kenwood guy then and loved my USB music. I’m not going to lie, I still have a USB stick for music in my 2013 Tacoma. CD’s still sound way better, but who wants to carry all those around anymore.
My wife said she had one of those units in her 95 Civic and was the envy of her high school parking lot!
My buddy had one of those and they were great sounding units. The eq was awesome. I had a Sony MDX-M690 which kinda took it to the next level
this brings back memories…I had that replace the stock one in a 92 accord. I never did the dolphins as the screen, but the VU meters, or just the song title. IIRC these were mp3 compatible
I am disappointed that you never mentioned that every head unit of this era came with an IR remote, so you could gangsta’ lean and change the volume or the tracks, or just turn it to the max from outside the car or change tracks.
Then, in the next car, and 05 Legacy, I actually had a Kenwood unit that had navigation in a 1 din unit. It was an NX-something (5000 or 9000, the one with the screen in the middle and controls on each side of the screen)
…Great times
Now i just implanted an Alpine ILX F309 in my 2017 WRX (yes, i like the stuck-on tablet look), and sounds a lot better than the stock clarion unit. no remote though, but this actually has steering wheel controls.
I remember seeing those in a Crutchfield catalog (do they still print those?) but thought it was flippers. I’m much more attracted to the 80s esthetic of brushed aluminum and analog VU meters.
My son just did a bunch of audio work on his,car but he dailies a 2000 Corolla so it has a DIN head unit and the factory speakers were shite. Also the 20 year old Kenwood speakers I gave him didn’t like spending 10 years in a garage so he has 4 Kicker speakers
Oh there were some cool head units back then! I had this one from JVC called “EL Chameleon” that also had the OLEDs. The radio was a completely black panel when the power was off, but when it turned on, a volume dial and a button panel slid out and the whole thing lit up with all these cool visualizations. When you inserted or removed a CD, the buttons slid in and the whole rest of the panel slid down to expose the CD slot.
Oh wow, Crutchfield has some pictures of it! Guess it was spelled “EL Kameleon.”
https://www.crutchfield.com/S-H6qamsGqiKG/p_257KDLX111/JVC-KD-LX111.html
I remembering really hating those things back then….but it was probably because I couldn’t afford anything and my “upgrades” were second hand OEM stuff that was headed to the trash can of my wealthier friends. My dune buggy has something of that vintage with a removable face plate. It no longer has a power connection because it’s constant light show is annoying, it beeps with every button push, and it’s “off” power consumption will quickly drain the battery of an infrequently used vehicle. I guess I still really hate those things.
Really the only way to listen to Kingo Hamada’s Dolphin in Town.
Jeep and McIntosh are bringing back the VU meters.
In the spirit of tinkering with stuff I had laying around, I built a box with a 12V DC power brick, Clarion head unit I had sitting around, and a couple 6×9 speakers and tossed a bluetooth receiver to RCA output inside the box to make use of the radio Aux input. It’s been sitting in the high school robotics classroom for a few years now where I mentor, and we use it to play classic rock when we are building robots. For some reason it’s nearly always classic rock and both the teens and adult mentors seem to always settle on that. It’s actually a pretty good sounding box and it didn’t really cost me anything other than time. I’ve had the kids re-wire it a few times as a training exercise for the electrical group when we didn’t have anything to do.
Sure a bluetooth speaker would be easier and probably cheaper, but running out to the pick and pull to grab a head unit and some speakers can get you a pretty good shop stereo for around $50. Usually I have a few 12V power bricks around from a discarded cable box or laptop. 5A at 12V is usually plenty for a junkyard box unless you are really cranking it up.
I also have a garage couch and rolling chair made out of a very nice backseat and passenger seat of a Range Rover. This was all because I spotted them at the Pick and Pull yard while there for another part and they were in perfect shape. I figured I’d never have a couch that comfortable for the garage for under $200 any other way. And they are so comfortable (and even have a center armrest with cupholders!). Junkyards can be decent places to find items to re-purpose, not just to repair cars.
Not nearly as luxurious, but I kept the center captains chairs and rear bench when I gave up on the 400,00 mile Windstar! Grey leather, still in decent shape. Eventually, they’ll be repurposed as garage furniture.
This article just won Honorable Mention at your local Radwood car show.
I stuffed/installed probably a couple thousand stereos in almost every vehicle (Planes, trains and Automobiles) since 1975 for a living at various times. And still doing it for friends/family etc. But to me these were cool for sure, but I can’t recall if there was a price premium paid by the original purchaser. Like did it cost more to buy where ever? Back then experimental features of detachable face plate units tended to be fragile, and I think I even did a couple swap outs of both of these, including the in the dash head. Seem to recall installing a dozen or two of these models. In my day if there were numbers and a straight line of stations across the face of the stereo we were grateful, as such fancy boy graphics were considered a luxury. Shit I am old. Some speck of memory says I wanted to spend the extra cost of this stereo on a fresh bag of weed, but memory is a funny thing. YMMV.
I had one that with a large brick adapter that connected to the back of the head unit, let me connect my iPod to the stereo and control it from the head unit. It was pretty slick for 2005 or so.
Somewhere deep in the catacombs of my closet, I’ve still got my Pioneer head-unit from 2003. I swapped it into my 1997 ZJ thinking that the OEM unit with only 5 channels of EQ was inferior.
I spent hundreds of dollars for the unit, din slot adaptors, an iPod adapter, and repairs (the cable for the flip-down screen was super fragile). After it broke for the 3rd time, I swapped the OEM unit back in, bought a cassette to 3.5mm adapter and had much better audio – with the benefit that I wasn’t blinded at night by dolphins.
I helped my dad install one in his minivan. I vaguely remember the display being animated, what I remember most about that stereo is someone stole the removable faceplate but left the rest of the stereo… They broke into the car and all they stole was the faceplate. They completely ignored my dads wallet sitting in the cupholder right beneath it.
Sometimes God smiles on our forget full butts. Glad the wallet remained. Was probably a shit experience for him. “Serenity Now!” or some kind of shit like that. Peace.
Honest question, since I’m now fast approaching the age my dad was when I first started driving….are kids and young people still into car audio even a fraction of the way they used to be? I realize the head units are not so easy to swap anymore, but are speakers, amps, and subs still a thing? Or have automakers improved their audio systems enough that it isn’t so necessary?
It’s crazy looking back on how many hours I spent shopping for audio components for my ’94 Grand Prix at Best Buy (remember they used to have the sample buttons where you could listen to tracks through each one of the systems on display?). Picking out sub boxes, changing out 6x9s, etc. I surely spent more money on audio in 2001 than I did on gas, including a Pioneer head similar to the one pictured.
As The Autopian’s resident young person, I have some good news for you. Young people are definitely still interested in car audio, although it’s generally shifted away from whole systems and towards connectivity. A good CarPlay-compatible deck usually brings sound quality up to an acceptable level for most people, and many of my friends and cousins have thrown aftermarket decks in their cars.
Fewer young people I know have gone in on full system upgrades, although those who want better sound often end up going big. I helped my cousin slap a JL W7 subwoofer, JL C3 component front speakers, and JL C1 coaxial rear speakers in his Matrix a few years ago, and my childhood best friend is running JBL component speakers, a beefy subwoofer (I want to say a Skar DDX) and dual amps in his wonderfully weird pro touring-inspired Crown Victoria.
I need to know more about this Crown Vic!
I think most factory systems have reached the point that wholesale replace just isn’t worth it, especially since so much more than audio is bundled together in the infotainment system. About the only things that might be worth replacing are the paper-cone speakers that some systems may still use.
Also, with the popularity of podcasts, I would assume that the demand for 20Hz-20kHz sound reproduction isn’t what it used to be.
“Also, with the popularity of podcasts, I would assume that the demand for 20Hz-20kHz sound reproduction isn’t what it used to be.”
I mean I’m 37 years old and listen mostly to podcasts, but if I was 17 now, I’m not sure I would.
I agree. As for speakers, the paper cone doesn’t matter as much as the cone surround. Polypropylene surrounds just disintegrate. I had a 99 Dakota R/T that had a nice sound system with speaker surrounds that turned to dust
I think you mixed some of that up. Polypropylene is essentially plastic, it doesn’t readily degrade unless maybe you soak it in gasoline or something.
And the surrounds are the part that flex, they’re normally made of paper, foam, or rubber, not a rigid material.
But yes, many factory and aftermarket speakers with foam surrounds turn to dust. The paper surrounds were actually pretty durable assuming they didn’t get wet. I always preferred rubber surrounds, but they weren’t as efficient, so you usually needed a little more amp power to unlock them.
Depends where you frequent I guess. Where I live there’s almost no one who seems to be into car audio. At least I don’t hear booming sound systems. It’s actually kind of nice for my morning runs. But where I work and my lady’s place there are a lot of people into it because man they’ll rattle your teeth.
I remember having 2 Sony Xplod 12″ subs in individualand very heavy boxes in the back of a 95 Camry and God help you if you ever got a flat. I had to basically remove my entire setup to get to the spare tire.
In the northeast, car audio “upgrades” 90% of the time are large bookshelf or small tower speakers sitting in the rear seat booming reggaeton out the windows at ear bleed levels. They face the speakers out the window.
There are some guys, few and far between, in my city of 250k that go the full audio route in 10+ year old cars.
I’d assume the phone as dominant media has done for most car and home audio enthusiasm. Portable Bluetooth speakers and headphones plus streaming services on one hand, stock system improvement and difficulty of modifying car infotainment on the other. I’m not at all saying kids aren’t into music anymore or whatever “things are different and therefore bad and/or wrong” take makes the rounds periodically, but I think it is probably true to say kids’ relationship to music culture does look a lot different than it did for people who largely grew up pre-millennium.
The kids just want to connect via Bluetooth. (So reliable said no one ever). Most stock systems aren’t all that bad. Better than the 6x9s we used to stick in cars back in the 70s and 80s.
Earlier Bluetooth hardware does, in fact, stink, but I’ve legitimately had seamless experiences with more recent devices. Just as we’re gradually moving away from USB-A to USB-C, we’re moving to Bluetooth 5.0 with various improvements.
But yeah, between better stock speakers and more integration, it’s harder (but not impossible) to upgrade.
The cheapest head unit on Crutchfield that I could swap into my Prius and retain factory controls is a 7″ touchscreen north of $500 + $250 for iDataLink interface and install kit.
Tough pill to swallow compared to the ~$80 I spent for a single-DIN replacement for my old ’97 conversion E-150. Pulled the factory head unit out gently with four flathead screwdrivers and didn’t even leave a scratch.
I miss the two 10s I had in the van, but they didn’t take up much usable space sitting under the bed. In a Prius they’d take up valuable interior space no matter where I put them, never mind installation/integration difficulties.
I had a friend who put two 12″ subs in the back of his Dodge Dynasty and actually shook all of the trim off. You could hear him coming from miles away.
But I think mods are getting less prolific because they’re less necessary. If you’re really into having the biggest boom on the block, you can still do it – and I definitely know people who do so – but you don’t need to do an upgrade to listen to modern audio, speakers are generally pretty decent all around, and you can get some clear and precise audio. It’s not worth the effort for most people. I needed a new head unit and speakers in my ’84 Civic – the speakers were trash and I couldn’t play CDs in it. If I picked up a 16 year old Civic today? I could probably live with everything in there.
And parents have gotten all lame and want their kids to buy something “safe” instead of letting them go off and buy some crapbox for under $1,000 so you don’t have the same level of necessary modifications. Like you drive an early ’80s Mercury Lynx with no back seat? Well you can’t listen to hot jams with any of the stock components, gotta toss all that out, and in theory you can transfer all that equipment to something less terrible. But now kids are getting cars with “safety equipment” which aren’t “one large bump away to cracking in half from rust” and it’s all stuff that has value where you’d feel less comfortable ripping stuff out, and it’s less yours because your parents bought it so they might get mad. Pfft, safety, we need fewer teenagers anyway.
The rise of the integrated stereo and the disappearance of DIN size head is also a factor. It’s no longer a matter of releasing clips and swapping a harness like an early 90s Ford.
“The rise of the integrated stereo and the disappearance of DIN size head is also a factor. It’s no longer a matter of releasing clips and swapping a harness like an early 90s Ford.”
I guess YMMV. I replaced the head unit in my 2010 Mazda5 with a 7″ double DIN Sat Nav touchscreen by doing not much more than that. The only added steps were an interface for the steering wheel controls and an aftermarket bezel. The sound is WAY better even with stock speakers and IMHO it also looks much better, even better than the factory touchscreen upgrade. Total cost was a bit over $200.
The same is true for the 2003-07 Honda Accord. You can go up to a Teslalike 12″ vertical touchscreen in those. They come with the bezel and climate controls as well.
I know the ’05 Honda Pilot has a regular Double Din stereo so that shouldn’t be too challenging The ’06 Odessey is an easy upgrade too.
I can’t speak to more recent cars though.
They’re still easy/cheap and feasible into the late aughts for many manufacturers. But the difference between my old ’97 E-150 and my ’12 Prius is quite stark.
(On the other hand, I think even with a 2022 E-series chassis it’d still be easy, so maybe not the best example…but for average consumer vehicles, yeah, I imagine there’s a sharp uptake in difficulty around 2010ish.)
Haha! My best friend in high school had to drop his back seat in his 91 Civic hatch to get more volume out of his 6x9s! We (I – he was and still is rubbish with tools) couldn’t get the speaker boxes to fit on the parcel shelf so we went with the next best thing. Only problem was if he wanted to use the boot he had to leave the speakers at home. I miss the “oughts”
Self-referential racecars and low-res dolphin sex. Apple never gave you that.
I miss the heyday of Japanese electronics.
Yes.
God I thought these things were the coolest. At the time though I had a car with a 1.5 din opening and hated the way the single din HUs looked in them. By the time I got another car it was double din so I got a touchscreen LCD Kenwood HU instead (DVDs, yo).
Oof. I’ve got vertigo from how hard the nostalgia hit.
This entire article sounds like Creed, wears a button-down shirt with flames on the sleeves.
Totally had one of these in my ’95 T-bird and transferred it my ’00 SVT Focus that sadly got totalled. Now I’m old and lame and don’t really care about mobile audio anymore.
I had one of these in my 1990 Thunderbird SC. I moved it from car to car for like 15 years after that.
Mine had a sweet animation of an eagle flying, and a feather fell gently from the air at the end. It was perfect.