Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best car receiver so far, May 11, 2008
This is the third in-dash receiver I've installed in my car in the past 2 years, and I have to say, this is by far the best head unit yet. I didn't install an amp and I'm using the stock speakers, so I can't comment much on audio quality. It's as good as can be expected from the marginal factory speakers. Instead, this review will focus on features.
The P7000BT has a very nice, clean design. Some car receivers are just overloaded with dozens of tiny buttons and goofy graphics. Not so with this unit: it is clean and neat, but not too spartan. The cool blue and white faceplace looks modern, and is bright and easy to read in both sunlight and at night.
The large rotary knob on the left side controls volume, station selection and tons of other functions. Its not as elegant as the click wheel on an iPod, but lets face it, no other company can come close to the ease of use of an Apple product. It will take a little getting used to, but after using this Pioneer receiver for a few days, I got the hang of the interface, and I like it. Note that there are no station preset numbers on the faceplate itself; instead, you use the rotary knob to select from one of 6 favorite stations, or you can use the included remote to directly select a preset. At first, I thought this was kind of lame, but after using it for a while, I don't mind it at all.
The built-in Bluetooth is a godsend. Within minutes of first installing the P7000BT, I was able to pair it with my iPhone. It just works. Not much else to say about this.
I also installed a USB to Dock cable, allowing an iPod or iPhone to connect directly to the head unit via USB. Nothing special is required: a standard dock cable is all you need (Apple brand or third party, doesn't matter). Not only does the receiver play the iPod's audio through the car speakers, but it also charges the iPod without the use of an extra clunky cigarette lighter charger. You can even choose to have the head unit control the iPod, in which song titles, artist info, track number and duration show up on the head unit. Or, if you prefer, you can choose to do all your searching on the iPod or iPhone itself. I like how the receiver gives you both options. I prefer to control all my music on the iPod or iPhone, because Apple's interface for browsing music is simply unmatched.
In this review you've seen me mention the iPhone several times. Just to confirm, yes, the P7000BT does work flawlessly with the iPhone, despite the fact that Pioneer never lists it as officially supported. No complaints here. It just works.
Overall, a very nice receiver. Highly recommended!
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect ??? (Should be 4 stars, but I can't change the rating), May 11, 2008
Bought this deck and the HD unit from Amazon (etronics). Received the components in 2 days, and I received both units for $280 ($220 deck+90 HD Radio - $30 Amazon credit) which is less than the head unit alone from a lot of places.
I bought this unit because I don't like ipods, small buttons, flashy displays, or low voltage outputs. This unit allows me to use USB, has simple controls, simple one line display, and four volt outputs. Having just used a jvc hd radio unit, I found I like being able to pull up traffic/weather reports every minute on our news HD3 radio station so I had to get the HD Radio add on.
Bluetooth:
The mic was easy to run, and I glued it to my steering colum so that it is less conspicuous in this location. Getting the phone to connect to the head unit was easy, ONCE I understood how to work the big knob system. The sound comes out of the microphone instead of through the speakers, and that's ok, the clarity is pretty good. One knock is that users complain of static when they speak, my voice is coming through crystal clear. I tried the various echo settings, but the listeners still complained of static when they spoke. Otherwise, I speak at a regular speaking level with no need to shout. The other good thing is that the deck recognized my voice commands in the phone!!! I press the band button, say "mom" and the phone dials my mom. Nice (Sound is actually coming out of the front left speaker not the mic, like I originally thought)
Features:
LOTS of stuff to tweak which can be good or bad, in this case its for the good. Simple 3 band EQ, that lets you set the center frequency and the Q(!) of the frequency. I haven't had a Q setting since my old sony crossover from 15 years ago. The High Pass Filter cleans up the music to the front and rear speakers, this eliminated a hole I had in base with my amps crossover (Bass strings came from the subwoofer). The deck has a subwoofer crossover, loudness (with three settings), and built in eq settings. Again very nice.
MP3 USB/CD:
My primary listening source are mp3s. I have some mp3 discs and to be honest its just clumsy to handle all those cd's. The usb option is nice, and for preliminary testing I used a 2 gig card in my Sansa Express player. Navigation of the folder's titles on the CD and USB are identical. Once I get an 8gb SD or a hard drive I will only be using the CD player for FULL CD's as a reference material.
Sound:
The sound was MUCH better than any radio I have used. I had a Bose Factory system, the JVC (which was better than the Bose), and now this Pioneer 7000BT. With the JVC I had noise in my system that I could hear when the music was playing, I don't hear it anymore. The staging has changed for the better, the bands are playing on top of my hood instead of in the dash board, and the instruments are better seperated. I used the loudness control and the low setting sounds the best, the mid and high settings were overwhelming.
These were opinions after only a weekend of fiddling. I will update this review after a week of commuting, but unless it spontaneously combusts I have a HARD time saying this deck is anything but PERFECT.
Things left to test: (updates in parenthesis)
Phone Book import (never got this to work with my ATT Tilt)
HD Radio with Standard Radio (y adapter). (I have the y adapter but it does not work as expected. All radio comes from the HD tuner, which is inferior to the base tuner. I would skip HD unless you need it)
Hard Drive as Main USB source. (I am using an 8 gig thumb drive, and this works well. The only complaint is that I can't get the music to always sort properly and my ID3 tags are properly configured. More later)
Cleaning up the noise in my system to clean up the phone. (Noise my callers were hearing was caused by an old battery in my Tilt phone, I replaced the battery and its performing perfectly)
Tweaking the sound/image (sound is great, I really like the way it sounds withall my music sources, it took me about an hour to get the subwoofer, and imaging set, but once set its perfect)
Impressions of the controls. (Controls require taking eyes off the road, and there is no tactile feel to the knob, so clicking accurately takes practice.)
Bluetooth music streaming. (It works, but I wish I could disable the blue tooth audio section like I can with the AUX1)
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
WHY 4?, May 7, 2008
Hi Guys, got the player couple of days ago.went to best buy to install where they sell it for $290.The player works good so far, the Ipod cable is extra still have to get it, Bought the stereo because it has both the i pod and the USB option and the Bluetooth. I have a LG Voyager and I was skeptical about some of the reviews I read about the incompatibility with the LG's...it tool me sometime to get it paired up with the LG as the manual does not specify that the phone has to have the discover me option on, got that from the Pioneer Tech Support. But after that it took me only a minute to pair the phone. The microphone is installed on the front of the speedometer panel where i tested has the best sound quality and i tested and IT WORKS GOOD.Have to still download my phone book to the device.Connected my 2GB flash drive with the USB and it is working good so far.
One of the Drawbacks so far is that the Display is not that visible during the sunny day as it is LED. Pioneer should have had OLED display as it has done for some of the less expensive models. The menu is a little complicated but with some practice it is easy.
Hope it is helpful.
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