A good friend of my father in law has asked me to help him put together a "little stereo" for his '53 Studebaker pickup. The truck is a bit of a "rat rod" sitting on a 90s Chevy fullsize chassis, powered by a 4.8L V8 with a heavily patina'd finish. There are no stock speaker locations, but a previous owner cut 5" holes at the bottom front of the doors to install speakers in the past. Mounting depth looks like about 3" without baffles and the openings are currently empty.
This isn't a photo of his truck, but it has a similar interior. As you can see there is a door card on the upper half of the door, and the lower half is exposed sheet metal. Visuals are for context for equipment selections aesthetics.
I wasn't given a budget, but I think he is wanting to keep it quite low cost. He mentioned that he does still use CDs, but also uses BT from an android smart phone. My thought was to start with a simple head unit install with a pair of coaxials in the door locations. Depending on how it turned out and if wanted more, we could look at adding a subwoofer and amp down the line. For the head unit + coaxials I told him it would probably be around $400 all in (wiring, CLD, etc.) and I would help him out with the install and tuning.
I've been looking at the following head units. Which would you choose, or would you go for something else entirely?
Kenwood KDC-X304 - $120
Pros
Fairly clean look
CD Player
13 band paragraphic EQ
Per channel time alignment & level adjustment
L/R independent tweeter shelf filter
Flexible crossovers
Numbered presets on face
Cons
Bordering on "disco" lighting
"22W" head unit power
Front USB only
JVC KD-T915BTS - $130
Pros
CD Player
Front/Rear USB
13 band paragraphic EQ
Per channel time alignment & level adjustment
L/R independent tweeter shelf filter
3-way active crossover available
Numbered presets on face
Cons
Busy look / "disco" lighting
"22W" head unit power
Kenwood KDC-X998 - $171
Pros
Clean look
Former single DIN flagship
CD Player
Front/Rear USB
13 band paragraphic EQ
Per channel time alignment & level adjustment
L/R independent tweeter shelf filter
Flexible crossovers
Cons
Outlet - Scratch & Dent
Getting Old/Out of Date
"22W" head unit power
No numbered presets on face
Sony DSX-GS80 - $178
Pros
Cleanest look
Front/Rear USB
45W channel (+3 deebees!)
Tuning App
Per channel time alignment
Numbered presets on face
Cons
No CD player
10 band graphic EQ
Less flexible crossovers
No independent channel level adjustments
No tweeter shelf filters
On the coax side of things, I was leaning toward the Kenwood KFX-X174. If budget allows, I would probably also look at the JBL GTO620 or Audiofrog GS62.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Especially if you have personal experience with any of the products listed. I'm also open to any suggestions for a different plan of attack.