BOSS Audio Systems 616UAB Car Stereo With Bluetooth - Single DIN, MP3, USB, Aux-in, AM/FM, No CD DVD Player

I very rarely write reviews but this deserves one. I wasn't expecting much when I purchased this but, what a great stereo for the price. I have been into car audio for over 20 years and have installed countless stereo's. I upgrade from an older Pioneer head unit that did not have Bluetooth connectivity, only aux in. This Boss stereo blows the Pioneer away in sound quality and power. Bluetooth connectivity works great and connects to my phone automatically every time with no issues. Has bass/trebble balance/fade controls, along with a couple preset eq curves. People that are complaining about screen brightness in other reviews just need to turn up the brightness in the settings menu. I have no problem seeing the screen in full sun. Stereo looks and feels of much better quality than the price suggests. I love how shallow it is as well. It makes installation a breeze. My only complaint would be the sound quality doesn't seem quite as good when just listening to FM radio. However I only listen to talk shows in the morning on FM. All of my music I listen through Bluetooth on my phone and it works great for that. I have only used the stereo's built in microphone a couple times to call my wife's phone and she can hear me just fine. However she says there is a slight echoing on her side of the call like she can hear everything she is saying to me. This could be because I have had the stereo up pretty loud in the calls and is maybe getting feedback into the mic? Not really a problem for me because I didn't buy it for hands free callling. I have it installed in a 2003 Chevy S10 on stock speakers and it sounds great. So much better than the stock stereo and the old Pioneer I replaced it with. If you are looking for a budget stereo with reliable Bluetooth, buy this stereo. You will not find a better one in this price range.

BOSS Audio Car Receiver (No CD/DVD) Model 616UAB | Single Din, Bluetooth, MP3/USB/SD AM/FM, Wireless Remote I have been wanting a Bluetooth enable/compatible car audio head unit for the past several months. Like most everyone else that has a smartphone, I keep my favorite music on a memory card or on the internal storage disk of my phone. The factory installed stereo on my van that I drive for work is AM/FM radio with a standard CD player only. No AUX input and of course no Bluetooth. I finally decided to search Amazon for a new car stereo with at least Bluetooth that wasn't too pricey. I was expecting to have to spend around $100 or so, and maybe if I was lucky I could find something worth having for as little as $75. Low and behold the first item listed in my search results was this little gem: The BOSS Audio systems, 616UAB Bluetooth, MP3 compatible Digital Media, AM/FM stereo receiver. With on-board USB, AUX-in. and SD card reader all integrated with a remote control to go along. Everything I was looking for and then some. All for UNDER $40!!!!! I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I immediately placed the order. Within a week the package arrived and I was ready to bring the work van up to date with the latest technology. Installation was super simple with the assistance of how-to videos posted on other websites. I had the unit installed and working in less than half an hour. I could not believe how loud and clear the music coming from the factory speakers was. The Bluetooth paired with my phone and the controls were as simple as could be. Now I have the capability to make and receive phone calls without having to turn the radio volume down or off completely because now the 616UAB stereo automatically pauses whatever song is playing or switches from the radio station when a phone call is comming through or if you are dialing out. Even if the unit is powered down, when a call is placed or is coming in, the Bluetooth comes to life and the conversation colmes through the stereo speakers. I LOVE THIS PRODUCT!!! I would recommend this to anyone and eveyone. Great quality for such a low price. I decided to upgrade the front door speakers as well since the cost of the head unit was so low. With the BOSS stereo unit, the wire harness purchased seperately to accomodate the after-market stereo, and the upgraded speakers in the front doors I still have less than $70 total invested in my new car audio system. It is as loud as I want and then some and has all the "bells and whistles" I wanted when I decided to make the investment in a new car audio entertainment system.

Decent car stereo for the price. I hooked this up to two speakers in my basement work room. It works good. I wish it was a bit louder. Still sounds good.

This head unit was much smaller and lighter than I expected (which in my case was a big bonus) For the first time installer that just wants a workable radio this is perfect with lots of bonus features you normally do not get for the price. Now the difficult part. In my case I was upgrading a 1998 Winnebago radio. The old one was OK but using cassette tapes is a way gone thing. The one warning I would give is to be careful when removing your old radio and take note of the wiring.My coach was built on a 1998 Chevy P-30 chassis which means that Winnebago for the naked frame and motor and built the rest. The wiring was for a Chevy -BUT- the old radio was from TOSHIBA which meant that there was the original wiring loom that was spliced into an adapter then into the Chevy loom. NOT the fault of BOSS but they used their own wiring color code NOT the new standard that is used. So if you are going to do a bunch of wire matching and harness corrections you must find the original color coding from the old radio. I was lucky that there was a very faded sticker on the old radio and I could match it tot the new BOSS wiring OF NOTE if you are not sure of coding any wire that has a black strip on it is the ground for the speakers The solid black wire off the BOSS unit is a ground . So if you get confused remember black is a ground and the other color is the positive to your speakers and on the BOSS the coding is white/white black stripe, grey/grey stripe as examples EACH set of wires you need are color sets. But over all once I figured the factory color guide from 22 years ago it went right together. ONE FINAL THING before you run out and buy a mounting kit check you vehicle it may be very likely you do not need one! The radio comes with the expandable mounting frame and all you do is take it off the control head, insert it in the hole and bend the tabs. Next just slide your new BOSS in and it will snap in place flush. The BOSS radio comes with EVERYTHING you need to do a basic mounting right down to a grounding screw if you need one. The kit is complete so don't rush out and buy anything until you take the old head out

I needed a new radio in my truck (2004 Chevy 2500), and I chose this one because it was on sale and had the features I was looking for. I did not need anything fancy but wanted Bluetooth capability and a plug for charging my phone. This radio worked great for this. It was easy to install for me and the sound quality is great. The only thing I do not like is that it does not constantly display the clock. You can hit the select button on the remote, and it will pull up the clock as long as you do not adjust the volume, change a song, or touch your phone, the clock will stay up. I am a punctual person and like to be on time, so it is a little annoying. It would not stop me from buying another one in the future.

Once paired, there is no way to disconnect from Bluetooth other than to un-pair from your phone. Okay, so I put a mini-toggle on-off switch next to the radio to turn off the ACC wire simulating turning off the ignition key. That is so I can quickly connect with my headset if I get an incoming call or need to make a call. Lucky I have a van with lots of dash space for a switch. Back to the problem, once paired, the Bluetooth connects any time the unit is powered up. Thus phone calls and other Bluetooth audio that I want to go through my phone speaker or headset is automatically diverted to the radio without my ability to control it. On a normal Bluetooth device like earbuds you simply turn it off. There should be a Bluetooth on/off button but there is not. I called BOSS customer service and they confirmed the lack of functionality. Second, the Bluetooth chops the first words when listening to say a language course. When there is no audio for example between spoken sentences the beginning word of the next sentence is chopped off. My headsets and other audio devices like my JBL Flip 5 do not have this problem. This triggered my return of the product. The Bluetooth works okay for general audio as most radio programming is constant noise and for song such as from YouTube you don't notice the initial chop. There is what looks like a graphic audio spectrum display that BOSS calls "Dancing LEDs". Guess why. Its because they all dance up and down in unison. There is no frequency band information, just a cosmetic garbage display. Its an insult to intelligence, and a driving distraction. There is no way to disable the dumb display of "Dancing LEDs". There is no good way to adjust the display illumination except through the menu. The dash illumination level wire in the vehicle wiring harness is ignored. Too bright at night and can't see it during the day. Audio quality is probably "okay" although note that BOSS specs omit the distortion (THD) specification altogether. I guess FM these days sounds like crap. Bluetooth from my phone sounded "okay" though raspy as did the Auxiliary input. Power output seems good. I presume this is all due to CCP garbage engineering of the chip-set and I bet all low-end radios like this one suffer all the same flaws using the same chip set. Its pretty lame. I'm returning mine and going to look for something better. Because it hijacks the Bluetooth connection, I would not recommend this radio unless you don't mind the work-around ACC switch and all the other flaws. And don't let the amazing number of reviews fool you, most people probably have not run into the flaws mentioned. The price is good. I bought mine for $29 and now Amazon has it for $23 if I purchase in the next three hours. Its not worth it unless you are okay with the flaws. Mine is getting returned.

Bluetooth connectivity to my iPhone XS Max works fine - no problems pairing and the link appears solid after several hours of testing. I can press the 'volume' knob which gives me immediate access to Siri on my phone. The sound quality is what you'd expect for the price with two caveats. The first is that I haven't found a way to equalize the volume from the various sources. Perhaps this capability exists but I couldn't find it in the instruction pamphlets included in the box. What does this mean? Well, let's say I have the volume adjusted for my iPhone. Now I switch to the radio. Instantly I am deafened by excruciatingly loud music! In more expensive units you can usually adjust the relative volume from each source - radio/usb/aux/bluetooth however this capability appears not to present on the Boss. The display on my unit (and most I've seen reviewed) is annoying and wonky. Annoying because the display features a 'dancing equalizer' graphic which cannot be turned off. It's distracting, adds no value to the auditory experience and the vertical bars often have gaps in them; altogether I would describe this portion of the display as 'a mess'. I may put some back tape over this area of the display. However, what really disturbed me is the heat generated when the unit is actively playing rock music at moderate levels. I am running four, 4-ohm speakers and the sound volume, bass and clarity are very acceptable. However, even at moderate volume (I am old and my ears can't handle loud music) the heat sink on the back of the unit gets too hot to touch. I used an IR thermometer and it indicates the heat-sink is operating at around 75 deg C after 15 minutes of continuous play. During that 15 minute period the current drawn by the player averaged 1.1 Amps meaning the total power consumption was around 14W. To my mind, that's uncomfortably hot and as I mentioned, I didn't have the volume cranked up. The spec sheet indicates 20W RMS x 4CH however I wouldn't dare run it close to this power - my unit was struggling at just 14W combined! A large part of the problem is the heat-sink itself. The heat is concentrated at the center of the unit (behind the amp) and falls off rapidly as you move off-center with the IR thermometer. This suggests conductivity across the heat-sink is poor. Which in turn explains the temperature build up! At this price-point you can't expect too much. The USB port does provide 1A of charging power (USB2.0) and the basic formats (MP3/WMA) seem to work well. The internal microphone is very basic - I would recommend finding a unit with an external, high quality microphone if you want to use hands-free calling over the head unit. I bought this head unit as a stop-gap solution until I could find a better single-DIN media player (at the time of review many of the more desirable units are unavailable here in the USA). Hopefully it will bridge the gap until I can find a quality replacement unit that ticks all the boxes. It isn't dreadful but I recommend you ensure plenty of ventilation around this head unit.

I purchased this as a gift to a family member. I previously purchased a similar model which is why I purchased this one. Great starter radio for a teenager or if you just need a basic no frills radio. This will definitely do the job. Easy install and the sound is of good quality. My family member loved it.