it does everything I ever imagined... 16 band automatic eq and time alignment, about 5 other sound-shaping algorhythms, similar to my old 8600MP...

but now I get to use bluetooth cellphones wirelessly with my stereo... so damn awesome... it just pauses the music and I can either auto answer or just hit the main wheel to answer... clear as hell... my brother said that his bluetooth handsets don't hold a candle to the quality my deck has... probably because it has a big power supply and room to put a quality transciever inside... you can also transfer your phonebook to the headunit, and make calls directly from it... you just use the 'LIST' button to browse the phonebook... pretty simple, as long as you can easily transfer your phonebook from your phone... it's kinda up to the phone itself...

I haven't found a device to stream bluetooth audio yet, but it does it... it says so in the manual, and I can even switch to it on 'sources'.


the other perks are it supports the new cheaper ipod interface, ($50,) which I'm not completely satisfied with... apparently it's much better than before, but you have lag time when you are scrolling through song lists or anything that brings up data from the ipod. If I am sitting there listening to a song on a playlist, and I know I have 3 albums on this particular playlist and I wanna backtrack/fastforward to a particular album, if I hit the button too fast, the ipod/interface gets tripped up... falls on it's feet...

yeah the interface shows the album/song/artist info, but not all at once.... it CLAIMS a 3-line interface both on the headunit page and the ipod interface page as well... no luck there.

but still, now I can keep my ipod in the LOCKED glovebox, and the songs resume right where I left off when I start up my car... even if I previously removed the ipod to add more songs on while the car was off.... you can safely remove the ipod at any time, even while playing music on the headunit... and the interface charges up the ipod... that's a plus in my book.

let's see... the radio is phenominal, like usual with pioneer. It has the typical features like finding strongest signals, making a playlist of local stations, etc... shows signal strength on the screen... blah blah blah, old stuff...

mp3 cd player is the same as my 8600, other than the fact it supports album art now... I haven't really messed with it, because I believe I have to convert the images... we'll see...

I've also already messed with the new version of the OEL Studio software, which lets me customize the display... made a few slideshows, tons of background pictures, background videos, etc... they all look astounding on the true color display... you can even make your own visualizer... I haven't gotten the complete hang of it, but basically you can have a BGV that's always playing, and the screen will fade to a stationary image on the beat/certain sounds... (it takes about 12 minutes for the CD-R to update the unit with your new customizations...) oh yeah, and you can add caller-id pictures for 5 people for each of your 5 phones... I'm not sure if that means I can have 25 different images, or what, because I haven't messed with a bluetooth phone since I figured out how to add these images... but trust me, I'll find out damnit!!

All-in-all, you get what you pay for... $550-$650, (depending on if the shop wants to gouge you...) I was lucky enough to call twice weekly from January to 6/8/06... when I raced over to the store.... the guy recognized my voice instantly and let me have it for $550+tax.... the only thing that bothered me is that he kept telling me MSRP was $630 or something, when right on Pioneer's website it said $570... hard to say... even so, I got it for less than pioneer suggested, so I'm relatively happy.... hell I probably would have paid his 'msrp'... I just had to have this damn thing.


Next goal is to add the upcoming Sirius tuner... the new version... supports a bit of customization... like sport updates and stuff, even when you aren't on a specific channel.. --- but I can't completely decide... I really want the IP-BUS interface/control of the sirius tuner, but for the same price or less, I can get a 'portable' unit with a full-color screen, and the ability to browse stations, see album art, get live info, all while currently listening to a station... it's a tough call for me... "Siriusly" haha... you can punch me later...

hands down though, there's nothing like having one of the top-dog audiophile-grade systems, (well not the DEX-P9, but you get the idea,) and then, the music stops and you hear a nice polite ringtone.... you can ignore the call and go right back to your music, or have it automatically ignore if you don't wanna bother with handsfree...


my ONLY disappointment so far, is that the damn multi-purpose ****/list function DOES NOT REMEMBER WHERE YOU WERE!!!! just like my 8600... everytime I go in to change albums or whatever, it starts off at square-one... with an ipod, this becomes highly aggrevating... especially with 60 gigs... so don't buy the ipod interface if you think you can QUICKLY get to any song you want... you pretty much either use random (which is a pain to use compared to the ipod itself,) or you make tons of playlists with less than 50 songs each...

Some bathroom material...

 

holey crap. Ive been looking to pull my Carputer out and replace it with a more "Normal" head unit. I think I just found it. that thing looks sweet, and I like the functions it supports.

 

yeah and I plan on getting the flushmount kit from humounts.com

red-lit Trans Am WS6...

should be tight


edit: btw, that's kinda bs how if you put in w w w.humounts.c o m that it automatically puts in that sentence-long advertisement in the middle of my post... kinda taking it too far...

 

Just because I'm curious...

www.humounts.com

 

Let me know how the BT audio works out...