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ANYONE HAVE ONE OF THESE ??? PIONEER APP RADIO FOR CAR


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Anyone have one of these? SPH-DA100

I bought one yesterday but I may be bringing it back within a few days. I asked the salesman for the "spec sheet" . It said that it had GPS, BLUETOOTH, Radio, USB ! Very impressive for a $220 PIONEER unit, but when I got it home and dug deeper into the specs, found out that the USB was not made for MP3, that the GPS only works with your phone in the car, and that the Bluetooth only worked well with older phones ?? There is NO SPEC LISTING ANYWHERE telling me how much internal memory exists for the end user.

 

I'll wait a few days for a letter back from Pioneer, explaining how to get my music into this thing, but it looks like this puppy is going back.

 

http://www.pioneerelectronics.ca/POC...28SPH-DA100%29

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Many cars come stock with that stuff now. You do overpay for it though.

I have a Shaker System in my 2013 Mustang GT Pro 5.0 and it has at that stuff built in.

If I need to call someone driving, I simply press the phone button on my steering wheel and the radio cuts

over to a hands free radio and then I just speak the name I want to call and it dials.

 

Its got the USB, CD, Satellite Radio/AM/FM and Navigation too. It even compensates for volume levels

as you accelerate or have the window open.

 

If anything, I'd say the sound quality isn't exactly audiophile quality. I've heard and installed many auto systems

that sound better, but with my current job, I only drive about 6 miles each way so I'm not even in there that long

on a daily basis. If I were doing Field Work like I was in the past, then that would be a whole different thing.

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It has that compensation built into the Shaker system, and since it is a 40K automobile with all the extras, its about as dampened as a Mustang can be.

Half the fun driving a 420 HP V8 is hearing it's engine when you get down on it.

I thought they'd be allot louder before I bought it, but its actually as quiet as any other vehicle just tooling along at highway speeds.

 

The speed compensation has 4 settings I believe. On the extreme setting you can hear the radio volume come down when you come to a stop.

The lower settings are barely noticeable. However, its not the road noise that's a factor. I'm just spoiled listening to really good high end gear

and many stock audio systems like the ones in my car have a bunch of bells and whistles, but it just don't come close to being high end systems.

 

 

 

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I'm still using the little cassette-form factor adapter I got with some forgotten portable CD player in the late 80s or early 90s. Plug into my phone's headset jack and it works for both playing music and as a hands-free (the phone's mic stays active, at least on my phone).

 

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Well S/N ratio is the big thing with car audio...the noise being wind, motor, tire and muffler noise that is. So if you can find a way to dampen those, you are on your way to a true hifi experience. Then TURN UP THE VOLUME!

 

Dan

Single-ended SNR enhancement.

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I'm still using the little cassette-form factor adapter I got with some forgotten portable CD player in the late 80s or early 90s.

 

I use one of those with a stand-alone MP3 player in my 13 year old car. I used to carry it on trips, but now that rental cars don't have cassette decks any more, I leave it at home and hope that there's a line input jack or USB host port. Still gotta carry a collection of cables so I can hook up whatever I end up with. And then there's the Tom Tom GPS that I carry, too. Although nobody every calls me (and vice versa) I usually set up the bluetooth link between the phone and the new car radio just in case. My old car doesn't have one of those either.

 

Some day I'll get a new car, and its technology will probably last half its functional life as a car, or less.

 

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I recently had some work done to my Miata, and as part of that, I had a Pioneer stereo installed, but not that one - I have this one. http://www.pioneerelectronics.ca/POCEN/Car/CD-Receivers/FH-X700BT

 

So far, I really like it. I can connect my iPhone to it and play back the music from it via the usual Apple Lightning / USB cable. It charges the phone at the same time too, which is nice. It has Bluetooth, and a dash mounted mic, and can do the hands-free dialing / calls, but I have not messed with that yet. As long as I can play a CD, or the radio, or anything I want from my iPhone, I'm a happy camper.

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My car is a Lexus ES300 (the fancy Camry). I once asked at an auto radio shop about getting either a new radio or a modification that would give me a line input jack. They told me that this car had parts of the system spread out all over and it was darn near impossible to replace the radio with anything else without major $urgery. I found a kit on line that cost too much and kludged in a line input jack, but I did a little exploring and discovered that I couldn't really bend myself enough to work where I'd need to work in order to install it.

 

It's still running good. Maybe some day someone will total it when I'm not in it and I'll have a good excuse to get a new car. Until then, I'll continue to use the cassette adapter.

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I returned the radio yesterday and bought a new one today.(for 25% more money) It covers most of the features that I wanted . I went back and forth with this whole thing in my mind for the past week. I even borrowed a Ipod nano from my daughter and son-in-law, but when I discovered the hassle involved in moving mp3 files I made the final decision to return the radio.

 

My new radio will be in town in a few days .

 

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...s/AVH-X3500BHS

 

 

Dan

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I mostly listen to radio when I drive. I check the days news and what's going on in the world.

I may also check to see how my mixes sound using a USB memory stick as a last step in my

recording process.

 

I also listen to satellite radio a little but the audio is so compressed, the high frequency of the voices and music

sound like they are passing through a flanger or a Tape with really bad head alignment. I can only handle it for

short spells before it becomes too annoying.

 

I been noticing this more and more on cable TV too where the high frequency audio is being mangled

during transmission/compression.

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I also listen to satellite radio a little but the audio is so compressed, the high frequency of the voices and music

sound like they are passing through a flanger or a Tape with really bad head alignment.

 

I've had rental cars with a satellite radio a few times in the last several years. I didn't find "flanger" kinds of artifacts but I did experience an annoying number of dropouts on a drive between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. But what was interesting was that I had my MP3 player and cassette adapter along with me loaded with several programs recorded over the Internet at whatever rate they streamed, saved as 192 kbps MP3 files. When switching back and forth between the XM bluegrass channel and a recording of a streamed show captured (via Total Recorder, digital-to-digital) from Bluegrasscountry.org, when comparing the same songs played by the same bands between satellite and MP3 player, the satellite broadcast sounded thin and with less dynamic range, in general, more annoying to listen to. I wouldn't spend money on a satellite radio subscription when I have a better sounding alternative, and one that offers me a choice of programming.

 

I don't use iTunes or anything that requires it, so loading up the player is as simple as connecting it to the computer that I use to record streaming radio programs and dragging files over to the player. The only hitch is that it's really clumsy to make a play list on this player so while I have a variety of shows, sometimes I'd rather listen to a different show than the one that comes up next. And of course the display is too small and buttons requiring too much concentration to make a new selection while driving, so I live with it. After all, if I didn't want to listen to the program, I wouldn't have recorded it.

 

I've been thinking about moving to a smart phone and I see that there's a number of playlist editors available for Android OS, which is probably what I'll end up with if I go that route.

 

 

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