This reply is not specific to the brand, model or question. Closer to
head-unit replacements tips for T-birds.
Should you drive with the top down, realize you'll not see the display in daylight. Then there's night. Look for dimming features as they often animate colored light shows and look like a Las Vegas billboard. The Miata folks like to run marine head units for boats. You can see them as high contrast and have all the features and amp punch of car audio. They don't have back-up cam inputs but they do have weather bands.
See
Crutchfield offerings and read reviews to get a baseline of decent units. There are many
double-din units where a quality
Kenwood or
Pioneer would be a better choice over budget brands. Snag a branded model, maybe last years new in box. These things are liquidated and often dumped when the new flavor is released.
I found the Ford unit sounds pretty dandy with the Sat interface. Older, but these units are well designed and sound awesome with factory
speakers. I normally don't have much to say for any factory audio.... until now. They have unpublished specs but they were marketed as 'audiophile' grade. Thought that was silly but for the era they have decent output (wattage), can pump the bass drivers, speaker placement and EQ makes for impressive tunes. Okay fine, maybe even audiophile for a vert? I've had a newer Bose system optimized for Miata that the Bird could embarrass. I listen to my
Borla exhaust system and wind whip so, not exactly helpful here. Just remarking the factory system is sort of a unicorn.
Beware, you could enjoy upgrade bonus with touch-screen nav,
Bluetooth, etc. but a cheap head may make audio performance a down grade or worse than stock? There are eight
speakers where the wrong amp specs may introduce issues? Lastly, steering wheel button interfacing is often claimed as 'button ready' where it should read 'button maybe?' They all don't plug and play with factory buttons. Some indeed will work but the steering button thang was relatively new with no standards when our Birds were hatched. Enter the third party box now needed to convert the button logic to the
head unit to talk. In other words, if you want wheel buttons, research what model(s) work.
