Medion/Tevion support is a little patchy at times. This should not be of concern to a simple purchase like a car radio, where Aldi offer a very good money back policy.
I looked at this radio. My concern would be about fitting, not sure what wiring standard it uses, if a conversion harness is available, and wether or not a home made wiring solution up would be required.
No idea what it sounds like of course.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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It would most likely have an ISO connector (two 8-pin connectors - one for the power etc. and one for the speakers). It will come with a fitting collar for European cars (will be a standard size). A lot of Japanese cars need the stereo bolting into the dashboard, and there are usually holes in the sides of aftermarket stereos.
It's no different buying a Tevion stereo from Aldi to buying a Goodmans one from Argos.
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Valid point TVM. I will try and nip in at weekend and see if they still have any and try and get a look at the fittings at the rear.
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You can buy the same thing on Ebay with a different makers badge.Aldi £80 in the UK 99euros in Germany
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If I remember rightly, Which? did a test/report on a Tevion digital radio. In summary, it was not very good, albeit cheap.
You pays your monaey and takes your choice. Tevion are not Pioneer or Blaupunkt. Cheap electronics components never last as long as good quality ones.
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Cheap electronics components never last as long as good quality ones.
You say that, but having dabbled in electronic repairs, you'd be surprised at how few manufacturers of *certain* components there actually are. I've previously had the lid off of Kenwood stereos to find Sony components inside; Sony stereo's with Phillips components inside, etc.
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Fitted an Argos-only (AFAIK) brand CD to SWMBO's Vectra a few years back. There was a note in the installation instructions saying to take care that the on/off/volume control could become warm in use. Sounds odd, but "warm" was an understatement. Most unpleasant to adjust the radio after a few hour's use.
Moral of the story: if buying an unknown make of car stereo, read the small print in the instructions carefully for unexpected snags and return it prompty if you find any. To their credit, Aldi (and Argos) accept returns without quibble if you decide an item doesn't suit you.
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>>I've previously had the lid off of Kenwood stereos to find Sony components inside; Sony stereo's with Phillips components inside, etc.>>
Quite true. Most Japanese companies have inter-related activities, especially as many specialised in certain areas of electronics components manufacture; in fact many are offshoots of very large businesses such as Epson being a division of the Seiko, Lorus and Plusar watch manufacturing company.
In the case of Sony and Philips, they have collaborated for 30 years or more on developing new technology and it was Philips, for example, who turned to Sony to assist in bringing the audio CD to fruition after the Dutch company realised the huge potential of the sound side of its 1970s Laservision disk.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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My current job is as process engineer in aircraft electronics where I have had experience of the problems that cheap components can cause.
Cross-use of electronics parts is very common across all electronics industries. Where quality begins to make a difference is in the testing prior to shipping of the parts and how close this testing is to the maximum rated performance characteristics of the device.
In the case of mass-market electronics everything goes on yield in order to make any money and so the manufacturers will pare the costs to the absolute minimum that the market sector will allow. Sony just will overall have better quality components and better circuit design than someone like, say, Goodmans or Tevion. You only have to sample the kind of stuff available at the high-end hifi market to experience the difference that design and quality makes.
Circuits with fewer 'protection' devices will fail sooner than those that do have them. Whilst an Integrated Circuit (IC) can be a fairly straight-forward device, it is highly sensitive to extraneous currents and noise. If it is not adequately protected and managed then a., it will fail sooner and b., the sound quality will be poorer.
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you have put what i would have wrote red baron,i take the lids off all my electrical brown goods and to say just because a manufacturer uses product 'y' semiconducters their product will be as good is not the case.
everything is built to a price but also longevity plays a role,ive put this before but will reiterate you get what you pay for (in most cases) all my hifi tv etc is branded goods as everytime i have tried to deviate from this line the products mysterially stop working not long after the warranty runs out............(ha and no names mentioned..........im a good man......)
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I fitted a Medion CD/MP3/SD-card player into a car about a year ago (not my own car). The sound quality wasn't brilliant, but it was acceptable to the owner and as far as I know it still works fine.
Most of these cheaper stereos are made by big 'OEM' corporations (e.g. Foxconn, Orion) in the Far East and then badged up for distributors in the West. The one I fitted seemed solid enough in its external construction and stated that it had short-circuit protection etc.
Personally I've stuck with branded products and never had a problem.
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i have recently bought a tevion 4187 cd radio it came with no connector block to iso iv tried every where to gt one ,tevion don't sell them none on ebay its a 16 pin in two lines of 8 help needed
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mmm that sounds strange. Every radio I have bought have had the block connecter even the one from Aldi I have recenly bought. I can only suggest contacting fascin8 who provide technical support for aldi tevion products
www.fascin8.co.uk
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I haven't seen the stereo in question, but for £80 theres a range of branded (Panasonic etc) units for £75-£90 on places such as www.caraudiodirect.co.uk. (I have no link with them, just used them in the past, along with www.caraudiocentre.co.uk)
Personally I'd go for something like that over a tevion. Panasonic units at the cheaper end (<£100) seem to give good performance for their price.
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i knew it didnt have a lead with it but din't know its almost impossible to get one, tevion will not sell me one none on ebay ive tried all the car accessories with no luck i think i will have to toss it
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Tevion is an Aldi brand like Medion. I wonder if its available under a different name?
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I've never really found much value in Aldis range of electronics. Most of it I just get a branded item at the same price else where.
As a computer engineer Medion have not really impressed me that much there is often some fatal flaw with the design.
With HIFI and any audio goods it is not really about the cheapness but about the quality. My Marantz CD player of course has a Philips transport (the tray and display) and Philips DACs and on paper it is a Philips. Philips made an identical CD player (it looked different but the inside it was the same) however they both sounded completly different. The Marantz unit has much better quality capacitors and it is designed so that both analogue outputs after the DAC have identical paths the cheaper Philips is not engineered to the same standard.
So in a case of a car radios its not that it may not last as long as the mechanical parts will most likely be made by Sony, Samsung or Philips it will be the user friendlyness and the sound quality that will suffer, but in car radio sound quality is not really a major issue as no car audio freak will buy a head unit from Aldi anyway.
It would not surprise if this head unit is made by Beco, they seem to make a huge amount of electrical goods, even Philips freeview boxes are often made by Beco. If it says made in Hungery then its most likely to be a Beco unit.
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Philips had a large stake in Marantz Japan from 1980 - it bought all 43 per cent of Superscope's shares in Marantz at the time, but didn't take up the US Marantz division as Philips USA owned the Magnavox, Sylvania, Philco and Philips brand names. In 2001, Marantz Japan bought out the European brand and marketing rights from Philips.
The following year Marantz and Denon agreed a joint management integration.
Don't forget, however, that it was Philips who conceived many new ideas, including the compact cassette player, Laservision (from which the audio Compact CD was developed with the assistance of Sony) and, in company with Grundig, the V2000 VCR system, which was far superior to VHS and Betamax.
Its original links with Marantz led to the introduction of many hi-fi products, which were renowned for their sound quality.
Medion is, as I have pointed out numerous times, not a manufacturer but a German based distributor and its products are re-badged versions of specialist manufacturers; these are sold across Europe and the States.
Edited by Stuartli on 11/03/2009 at 22:23
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I know hence they may be Bekos, I am sure a lot of Aldi's PVRs and freeview boxes have been Bekos.
My CD player is the CD6000 OSE LE, so it was designed when it was part owned by Philips. Like my amp its worth more second hand than I paid for it new!
I know Aldi stuff are just brand engineering stuff and that is another reason why I don't see any value especialy when places like Argos often have stupid deals on proper branded stuff (not the brand engineered stuff like Wharfedale).
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You (not for the first time) have completely confused me.
1. "I know Aldi stuff are just brand engineering stuff and that is another reason why I don't see any value especialy when places like Argos often have stupid deals on proper branded stuff."
Isn't that what brand engineering is... that the unbranded goods are identical to the branded - except I imagine with a 3 year guarantee from Aldi/Lidl, which must be worth something. If brand-engineered is the same as branded, then why refer to "proper branded" unless all you want is the badge?
2. "Philips made an identical CD player (it looked different but the inside it was the same) however they both sounded completly different."
So, was it identical, or completly (sic) different?
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Hi I have the same problem did this ever get solved?. I have no idea what I did with the old one.
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