Marine stereos have seemed to me to be a bit of a gimmick. Take a five year old car stereo design, inject some white plastic, and make some vague promises about being “marine grade,” and call it good. Of course some are actually made for exterior mounting, and are designed to be weatherproof, but I doubt they’d hold up for extended cruising in the cockpit. A lot of folks just opt to install a car stereo at the navstation. Similarly, Sweet Destiny had a Sony stereo and a JBL amp that had both succumbed to the marine environment. I’ve been keeping an eye out for something to replace the sound system, and have found the latest stereos with their flashy designs and lightshow graphics a bit much. So, I was happy to see that Clarion has a new “marine” stereo that looks good, but simple. It’s one of those double height ones, which makes sense for a unit that doesn’t have to be jammed in the little slot in a car dash. It also has knobs! Yay! There’s really no better mechanism for adjusting the volume and settings than a real knob. It also has dedicated inputs for a CD changer, satellite radio, and an auxiliary for hooking up your iPod or computer. And it’s reasonably priced at about $350. I think I’ve found my next boat stereo.
3 responses so far ↓
Bill Kearney // Feb 8, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Be aware that the EA1251 iPod adapter has issues with how you have to setup your playlists. Basically, it requires you put anything you want to hear into 5 playlists, specifically named clarion1-clarion5. It also completely dummies-up the iPod click wheel so you can’t even use it to select tracks. Not a very good solution. As yet I’ve not found an interface that’ll work with the Clarion CeNet proprietary connections. The aux input is less than ideal as you can’t use the nifty wired remotes that Clarion offers for these head units. Really, bad design on the bad of Clarion here, shame really.
Gary // Jan 2, 2007 at 1:26 pm
I have this same stereo on my 4wheeler with the ipod interface and you get use to the radio controling the ipod . This stereo is one of the best for marine use as well as 4wheeler use . I ride alot of water on my 4wheeler and took a bad spill one afternoon and the whole bike was upside down in the water . i took the bike home and dried it out and if you can beleave it….two days later the radio starts working again and has been working for over a year now . Clarion has outdone themselfs with this unit and others should take notice .
katie // Jul 17, 2008 at 7:08 am
We have this stereo in our boat. It has only been used a handful of times, and now doesn’t work. Two radio techs have looked at it and said it has water damage. NOT SO WATERPROOF ? ? They want upwards of $380-$560 to replace it.
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