Greetings, I'm restoring my 1959 Chevy Apache truck and want to put a radio reflective of the times. I've been looking at the USA-230 / USA-630 / USA-740 models.
Has anyone had experience with these? Some reviews aren't good. Or is there another brand/model you recommend?
Classic Car Stereos, among others, sells the Custom Autosound USA-630 for $229. You have to buy it at a dealer like that, They seem to have a 2 year warranty. They are made in China or a third world country. It's hard to screw up the electronics now-a-days. IC's, PC boards, machine soldering and the only wires are for the interconnect to the truck. So the electronics should last a long time Except the rest is cheap plastic. Bezel, face plates, knobs... some of the switches (tuning, volume and mode select) will be third rate stuff. This is where the failures will be. You just have to take your chances and buy from a vendor that cares when you need warranty help. Reviews will reflect this. Some good, some bad. I think more mad people post reviews than happy people, so factor that in on any purchase. This kind of trinket product has a fairly low sales volume to customers with lowish budgets so no incentive to build it like a Japanese or German radio. If you want USA quality, you need to by a non working original Delco for $100 and have a radio guy rebuild it for $300-$400 and listen to AM....or use it to fill the hole and add a good unit in the glove box with remote.
Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. - William Penn
There are several unrestored 55 to 59 Chev truck radios on Ebay. They are an easy radio to restore and if I had it here in my shop I would gladly restore it for you. There are people in the business of replacing the insides with a modern AM/FM module that uses the original tuning mechanism. They also sell new radios that look original but they are very expensive.
