Just got one of those cheapy £50 car radios from Aldi which has aux, usb, sd inputs and bluetooth. A mate of a mate recommended them and with a 3 year warranty hard to quibble. I haven't put it in the car yet. With all those options, I made an indoor lashup to make sure everything worked as per the instructions.

You can have a data cd, usb and sd slots all filled simultaneously and select between them. The display automatically cycles through time, folder, file, title, artist and album (assuming ID3 tagged files). The 'random' searches all folders, on the usb and sd, haven't checked the cd yet. It only does mp3 and wma, no aac. There's an 'intro' and 'name' search and up/down x 10 buttons.

The bluetooth works as expected and a backseat driver can make a call using the supplied IR remote control. AFSIK it only remembers which track it was playing at switchoff not where in the track it was, which the 'Swing' can do with data cd. The display brightness seems to be fixed. The buttons are a bit on the small side, but par for single DIN units. I get the impression *all* car radios are designed for RH drive cars, as most used controls are on the left.

The ISO connector (the radio has its own connector type) is.........well I've seen neater inside a washing machine. It does a basic job but there are so many other connections now needed, the whole thing is due a rethink.

Makes you wonder if a supermarket can bung these out for £50, how come VAG can't install something similar, even in base models. Do they think everyone is going to buy more car spec than they need just to get a better radio?

Makes you wonder if a supermarket can bung these out for £50, how come VAG can't install something similar, even in base models. Do they think everyone is going to buy more car spec than they need just to get a better radio?

In every model other than the most basic S, you now get the Bolero as standard. Doesn't look a bad radio by any means and I can't imagine many private buyers opting for the most basic spec (mainly fleets/hires/taxi's etc).

I tried a cheap Aldi one in my last mk1 Octavia, Tevion iirc. It was badly built and the button which held the removable face broke, which I fixed with a screw. The sound quality was also quite poor and radio reception was bad, even with a booster. I wouldn't buy cheap again, I put the OE one back in.

i got my mrs a cheapie from lidl it was all singing all dancing on the box, but in the car i might as well stuck my ear phones in the side of the door and tried to hear it, really quiet and badly built, how ever my mate got one and his is spot on. risk u take.

Makes you wonder if a supermarket can bung these out for £50, how come VAG can't install something similar

Because in the main they're **** :rotz:

i got my mrs a cheapie from lidl it was all singing all dancing on the box, but in the car i might as well stuck my ear phones in the side of the door and tried to hear it, really quiet and badly built, how ever my mate got one and his is spot on. risk u take.

I wasn't sure given the price, but the guy recommending knows his stuff and I've checked it using my indoor 'lashup' so I know everything works and sounds ok. I bought a Kenwood about 20 years ago which was much better than the provided radio but even that went for a processor 'sulk' after the warranty had expired then burst back into life a few weeks later.

In every model other than the most basic S, you now get the Bolero as standard. Doesn't look a bad radio by any means and I can't imagine many private buyers opting for the most basic spec (mainly fleets/hires/taxi's etc).

I actually prefer the display on the Swing to that on the Bolero. The basic spec is pretty good on the Octavia. There wasn't really anything I 'needed' in the next spec and other makes compete more in that price point.

Makes you wonder if a supermarket can bung these out for £50, how come VAG can't install something similar, even in base models. Do they think everyone is going to buy more car spec than they need just to get a better radio?

Probably because VW would rather fit a £150 radio that sounds ok, will not break and wasn't built by children in a sweat shop in the far east........

About a year ago I was asked to fit a cheap 'Lidl' radio for a friend. IIRC it was 'Medion' branded and had Bluetooth, USB etc etc. I was a bit sceptical given that it only cost about £60, but fitted it for him. The performance was surprisingly good (better than the Sony I took out!) and its still working OK to this day.

I think the likes of Aldi and Lidl buy these units from a variety of big Far Eastern suppliers (such as Foxconn) - so quality and performance can vary a lot from one model to another, depending on the origin of the product.

Sainsbury's used to sell cheap home stereo units a couple of years back. They stopped seling them due to the high returns rate and p**s poor sound quality. I bought a little vertical unit for the bedroom to partner the LCD. It was woeful - wouldn't drive a pair of Minipods and the front end of the FM section overloaded to like 20% distortion even with the ribbon antenna. I returned it to Sainsburys and the guy in the electrical dept said they were fed up getting them and others back all the time.

Seriously. you pays your money and takes your choice. Do you honestly think a £50 car stereo is going to have anything like the build quality, alignment and attention to sound quality of an OEM or decent aftermarket one?

People mistake stupidly high sensitivity and a wide open front end for "excellent FM reception". In general the man in the street wouldn't know good sound quality if it came up and wiggled on his nose hence the reason Dixons have done so well for a number of years selling ****e and the specialist hi-fi retailers struggle to justify their prices despite the fact that the sound quality is in another league to your average mini system (denon, onkyo min's excepted!).

Hey if a £50 stereo does the job for you then good on you. Personally I am a little more discerning when it comes to my stereo equipment and know good sound quality and high build value when I hear/see it. I would never however rubbish another persons choice just because it was cheap. Cheap items ARE getting better all the time but I still wouldn't buy a £50 stero and fit it in my £16K vehicle!

There is also the fact that you have no chance whatsoever of support from Aldi / Lidl and should therefore regard said cheap equipment as disposable.

Edited 12 October, 200916 yr by wardth

There is also the fact that you have no chance whatsoever of support from Aldi / Lidl and should therefore regard said cheap equipment as disposable.

My point exactly. For £50 it's a wonder it works at all. You can spend a lot on ICE but if the car's not as quiet as a big limo then you'll only get the advantage stationary with the engine off. I'm mainly listening to timeshifted radio, recorded from satellite as mp2, converted to mp3, so limited Fi to begin with and don't have HiFi ears any more so medium quality is fine for me in the car.

Like most things in ICE a lot of it is OTT for me, and more thief tempting. I don't think adding aux, usb and sd would have cost much on the price of a Swing or Bolero, in fact more likely to find those things as standard on the little 'fun' cars. We all know why it's done that way, so you'll choose the higher spec model and spend more, even if you only need a couple of items in that spec.

Some cheap and chearful stuff works and some doesn't but it's often the same for expensive gear. High price doesn't necessarily mean reliable.

I installed a Lidl head unit in a van I used regularly and have been very impressed. It's an 07 Sprinter, which was shipped with a Blaupunkt radio that the CD player to my knowledge never worked on even new straight from the dealer (Which seems to be a feature from Blaupunkt it's so prevalent).

I especially like the bluetooth stereo transmission from the phone and given I drove about 5 hours yesterday with 4 other people in the van (It has a crew cab) and the sound was both loud enough to drown out the not very well sound insulated engine and the quality was good enough not to annoy me I can't complain.

Older model Skodas all came with cheap nasty Blaupunkt radios. I have never in my life seen car radios with such consistently bad CD players. I think pretty much everyone I know who had a Blaupunkt radio in their car has either replaced it because the CD player doesn't work or leaves it on radio all the time. One more amusing fault a Blaupunkt in a friend's sister's car developed was in the volume knob, which would turn the volume up when you turned the knob in either direction.

The new Octy II integrated head units are much better than what Octy I's came with and I see no reason to consider replacing the Stream in my car, though I had to jury rig an MP3 connection as it has no Aux in option. The sound quality impresses compared to the Octy I anyway - though that probably has a more to do with the speakers than the radio.