The rotary volume is the best thing to ever come from pioneer. It is excellent. The remote is a good size, better than the top of the range models as u can put velcro on the back of it and stick it where ever u want in the car

the display. and only 2.2V preouts. it should be higher. it says u can run a sub directly from the deck but with only about 40WRMS. which is quite week

I only got this CD player the other day and i''m already impressed by the features on it. The displays quite difficult to see in the daytime especially in my car considering the deck sits quite low in the centre console. At night its very effective and the inclusion of the orange headlight wire is excellent considering lower down pioneer models don''t have this feature. At the moment i''m running just stock speakers from the deck and it already sounds good even when the speakers are 13 years old

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none yet as this is my first deck... well it beats the original stock deck!

Amazing sound for the bucks. Detachable face, 2 amp outs..... the 2 amp out allow you to not use the lowly 45 watts per chan.

45 watts per chan, no head unit should do bellow 100...... but this is better than most.

I have used this rockin unit for about a year and i love it, the low grade stock stereo in my dodge shadow GT drew no looks. BUT, this pumpin head unit gets the looks and the smiles.

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DEH-10, JVC Junk

Good sound/looks good/4v preouts x3/good price

Excellent features.

not easily accessable features such as eq/volume knob too little,too delicate and too close to the eq presets/
I would prefer the look of the nakamichi though unfortunately it does not have enough features necessary for expansion. I would rather sacrafice all the gimmics and display for better & easier control. The hidden CD is a pain, too much trouble opening the face in order to insert a CD.

+ Good features and sound

- Display and control troublesome

For the price this is one of the best decks in my opinion.

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None

Sound, price, features, etc...

hard to see display in sunlight

This product was purchased at SEARS for 190$. I found the price on the internet then went to SEARS and they matched the price. After reading numerous reviews of the product I felt I would take a chance.....
The sound quality is excellent and the built in eq is adjustable and easily manipulated....
The directions are a little confusing at first but after a while are simple and very thorough...
I recommend this head unit highly because the sound is the number one reason to buy this head unit and it is excellent

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na

Price, Sound quality, 3 pre-outs, Function features: Disc title, CD Text, alarm and PGM function. Audio features: fader, pre-Equalizer curve, Subwoofer setting adjustment, High pass filter, Front image enhancer, Source level adjustment.

Very small button, auto AM/FM seeker does skip on some station, however, you have its all memories,

For the price of $399 (CDN) including installation and 15% tax (ONLY IN CANADA HAS TO PAY THIS HIGH TAX), I find the sound quality very impressive. It's not only clear in both tuner and CD Player, it also very smooth for listening. There are a lot of features and very easy to use. The pre-set equalizer is definite value add, because most general public would not have a clue to have a good setting. I would recommend to any one looking for a receiver.

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Alpine CD7864, $200 more

See below

See below

After much looking at HU's, I finally stuffed a Premier 520 in my SAAB 900S.

Likes:
1) Rotary volume control knob
2) Display--when visible (see dislikes). Simple, effective, no dolphins.
3) Very flexible Audio control which is fairly easy to learn and use. Lots of toggling, but this is probably unavoidable. 3 band EQ provides for changing the corner frequency and Q. High pass filter is nice. Sub out with level control and adjustable x-over freq. If you can't get your sound right with this HU, there is no hope.
This HU DOES have 3 pre-amp outs, contrary to some reviews.
4) Very sensitive FM tuner. AM performance is surprisingly good
5) Source EQ memory. The unit retains your EQ setting for CD and a separate setting for the radio, if that is what you've programmed in. It does not, however, have separate memories for FM and AM.
6) SLA control. Source Level adjustment control. This provides for matching CD and AM levels to the reference FM level. Very nice! Maybe most units have this.
7) Over all ease of use. All kinds of control has been made as simple as is probably possible.
8) Unit has nice, clean look. If you want the 720 without the horrible OEL display, get the 520. (Though if the OEL display is visible in the daytime, maybe it isn't so horrible)
9) No skipping--yet.
10) Construction quality, 2 year warrantee

Dislikes:
1) The 520's fatal flaw is display visibility in the daytime. The display is frequently completely invisible. At night it is too bright, but not horribly so. The installation instructions show an orange wire that is supposed to connected to the cars headlight circuit which should dim the display at night. Damned if I could find this wire.
If the display were brighter in the daytime and dimmer at night, it would be perfect.
2) Time lag between switching between sources and radio stations.
Pioneer has obviously incorporated a muting circuit that produces a prolonged silence when switching, say, from FM to CD; or station to station. It is tolerable, but irritating.
3) CD starts playing as soon as CD is inserted into slot. I suspect most HUs do this.
4) Volume control requires way too much rotation for a given desired level change. Why can't they simply use the old fashioned roughly 360 degree min to max rotation ?
5) FM seek threshold is too high. Many viable stations are skipped; but with 18 FM memories, this won't be a problem in practice. There is no scan feature, unless I've missed it. This HU does everything but bake bread so I could have missed lots of stuff.
6) No mute button. I really wanted this feature.

I can't really comment on the sound quality yet since I'm using my car's stock speakers. There has been an improvement over the old stock Clarion unit, but not a massive one. When I first got the unit, I hooked it up on the bench, playing it through a couple Radio shack LX5 speakers. Sounded very good--on par with home equipment.

Conclusion: I've got massively mixed feelings about this unit. It does many things beautifully, and few critical things poorly. The invisible display is almost fatal for me. Would I buy it again? Whelp, my understanding is that many displays are hard to see in the daytime, so I just don't know. My other 2 candidates were the Blau Casablanca--which has a mute button, and the Alpine 7863. Would one of these been a better choice? Impossible to know. I could very well have found many flaws in these units as well. The 520 is definitely worth considering. Mounted in your car, the display may not be a problem. The angle seems to be critial.

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Putrid stock Clarion cassette deck (in 89 SAAB 900S)

Many options to custom set the sound. Will play ANY cd you stuff in the machine no matter how scratched or dirty it is.

Difficult to see in sunlight. unmotorized face. easily scratched faceplate.

This is a good looking cd headunit with a lot of bang for the buck.

Upon opening the box of the DEH-P520 I was immediatly surprised by the quality of the contents. It turns out to be a great performer with tons of options for controlling the sound of you audio. It also has a two-year warrenty.

There is no highpass and lowpass filter on all seperate speaker channels (front, rear, pre-outs) Just an "overall" highpass that cuts all speakers to the same frequency.

Installation:
Lead and DFS Alarm wires had quick slide connectors already crimped on. The player itself had a wide variety of screw holes for the best/easiest possible placement in you car, with no need for any adapters. The Fuse was exposed on the power wire so you don't have to take the whole unit out to replace it if you have this wire available and exposed behind your dash. Also, there were two instruction manuals (installation, and operation)

Operation:
It has a solid, bright display with minimal washout in the sun. Great options for controlling audio with every kind-of EQ-CURVE adjustment you could imagine. Also, you can controll the sub level seperatly and you can even turn it off while still haveing your other pre-outs (front, back) running -a must have. Maybe even better than that is the fact that it will play any disc you throw at it no matter how scratched and no matter how many finger prints it contains + all cd-r's.

I paid $240 and I feel it's worth every penny, I also picked up the remote on a friends recomendation. It's not a must have, but it does make driving safer in some cases since you can rest your arm on the seat or arm rest and change the track/volume/settings without even looking down or moving. I would recomend this to anyone who's in the market for a new system because it has incredible future-expansion options for a great price, and for anyone who's had good system with a crummy head unit that you paid too much for -this player would ease your pains.

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Kenwood with MASK(when it first came out without system E's), -didn't compare to the pioneer, I'll never buy another Kenwood car player, especially since this one got fried overnight for no reason, and the warrenty was only a year.

Well, i was looking around and didnt want to spend over 250, and this had the best features for the price. it cost me about $100 less than the DEH-P8200R, and has all the same features except cd text, RDS, and the display. so seeing as i look at the road while driving rather than the deck, i figured who wants the OEL display, when you can have a regular display that still looks great, and the same features for $100 less.
i find the high pass filters and the sub control to be the best features. the high pass makes it so you can turn up your front/rear speakers without distortion, and the sub control lets you control the sub volume at your fingertips. the pop up volume knob is also great

nothing yet

basically if you want great features and hi-volt outputs without paying $100 extra just for the organic EL display, this is the head for you

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sony cdx4000x... (these suck)

Great, good sounding yet powerfull sound. Lots of features. Great look, good manual also (for newbies installers)

Nothing yet... Everything is going smooth!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! No one can be deceived by the great Head Unit

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