Pioneer DEH-P7000BT In-Dash CD/Mp3/Wma/iTunes AAC/Wav Receiver

5 Comments

1. M. Gerenser says:

   June 22, 2010 at 9:37 pm

   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!

   Reply
2. Jay says:

   June 22, 2010 at 10:51 pm

   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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3. B. Mishra says:

   June 23, 2010 at 1:50 am

   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.

   Reply
4. Tor Slettnes says:

   June 23, 2010 at 4:47 am

   I initially wrote this the day after I installed it, together with a SWI-PS adapter to retain control from the buttons on my steering wheel. I was already quite impressed, since then I have truly come to appreciate some of its finer details. I believe I have finally reached nerdvana!

   Prior to installing this unit, I had tried a number of different handsfree/audio streaming products, including FM transmitters like the Venturi Mini (simply awful) and the Motorola T505 (cumbersome); the Parrot MK6000 Car Kit; and finally a couple of other aftermarket car receivers: A Kenwood setup consisting of the Excelon KDC-X492 with a KCA-BT200 bluetooth adapter and a SWI-JACK Steering Wheel Interface, as well as the Dual XHD7714 receiver with the SWI-PS.

   All of these had their share of usability or quality issues. The FM transmitters, especially the Venturi Mini, would simply not produce good sound. The Parrot unit kept interrupting my car stereo whenever my phone displayed a notification (e.g. “Battery full”, “Charging”, new e-mail, etc); the Dual unit has pretty poor FM reception despite its built-in HD radio receiver. However, the biggest dealbreaker for me with the Parrot, Kenwood and Dual units were a significant delay (1-2 seconds) from when my phone starts streaming audio until sound comes through the speaker. Because I use my phone as my GPS device, voice instructions like “In 400 yards, turn left” would become “n left”.

   In the end, I kept going back to my own homebrew solution consisting of my factory stereo, a cassette adapter, a wired headset, and a contraption I soldered together myself to connect these to my Nokia N95 via a 4-ring 3.5mm plug. Clearly not as convenient as a handsfree stereo setup – but the least annoying of all I had tried.

   That is, until the Pioneer DEH-P7000BT.
   
   It addresses all of these issues, and then some:

   * Really good sound! Very good FM reception. Crystal clear bluetooth audio (A2DP). There is a little bit of whitenoise in the background with the “Bluetooth Telephone” source, but hardly an issue.

   * It automatically sends Play/Pause commands to the phone whenever you switch to/from the Bluetooth Audio source, and pauses then disconnects when you turn off the ignition. This is a nice surprise: It means that your phone won’t be left “hanging” for 10-15 seconds before figuring out that the stereo is no longer connected, and then start blasting out music through its internal speakers as you are walking away from your car. Plus, it is done in a very intelligent way: If you have another audio streaming source already running on your phone (e.g. an audiobook reader) when switching to the Bluetooth Audio source, it won’t also start the music player.

   * Something I initially thought was a show-stopper actually made me appreciate the device even more. It would fail to auto-connect to my phone when powering up; I’d have to switch to the Bluetooth Audio source to initiate the connection. It turns out that there is an incompatability between this unit (and by the way, some other receivers too, such as the Dual) and some newer Nokia phones (such as mine). However, the firmware can be upgraded via Bluetooth! A fix for this issue is available at: http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/content/support/support/update/deh_bt_update.html

   Now, there are a couple of minor things I don’t care so much for:

   * While in handsfree mode, it is susceptible to “GSM noise” for the party you are talking to (i.e. interference from your phone if you use AT&T Wireless or T-Mobile with no 3G coverage and marginal reception). I believe the very long (4m / 13in) microphone cable is the culprit. Frankly, for the setup in my car, I would have preferred a built-in microphone – but that of course would not work for everyone.

   * Controls are a bit difficult to get the hang of. The main control know is overloaded with functions and gestures (i.e. rotate wheel, push left/right/top/botom, push center — and it’s very easy to push up/down/sideways when you mean to push center). To top it off, no printed user manual is included – it is provided on CD-ROM only! (Hardly convenient if you’re in your car trying to figure it all out).. For one thing, I could not figure out by trial/error how to save FM stations into the channel presets.

   * It has two bluetooth modes/sources: “BT Audio” and “BT Telephone”. That by itself is not a big deal, and I can see why they do it: If you have an iPhone (which does not support bluetooth audio streaming) as well as an iPod or other music player with a bluetooth streaming addon, it might make sense to have each of these functions operate a separate device. However, it means that when you have a REAL phone with both bluetooth profiles available, you will need to pair it with the unit twice – one with the unit it BT Audio pairing mode, one in BT Telephone pairing mode.

   * No front aux/usb inputs (they’re in the rear), and the CD slot is hidden behind the front cover. If these are important to you, you may consider waiting for the Pioneer DEH-P6100BT instead.

   * I don’t care much for the Sony/Pioneer/Dual etc. standard for remote control functions, where the input signal for the tuner functions “seek up/down” rather than “preset up/down” matches those of “track up/down” in the music player modes (CD, USB, bluetooth). In particular, this means that while using the FM tuner, the “prev/next” buttons on my steering wheel will do manual tune/seek rather than browsing through my presets.

   That said, I consider these issues to be minor – especially given the stellar performance this unit has overall for me. As I said, this is the one unit I’ll be keeping – at least for a while.

   UPDATE 2009-06-26: I just replaced my phone with the new Nokia N97; unfortunately with this phone, the DEH-P7000BT does not work at all in “audio streaming” mode, though handsfree mode works fine; no firmware update is available either. I got a Sony MEX-BT2700 from a local Best Buy to replace it — with this one, both streaming and handsfree work fine. But because sound quality etc. is much inferior with the Sony, I’m going to return that one too; I have a Eclipse CD5030 on order from Crutchfield.

   Reply
5. E. Lugos says:

   June 23, 2010 at 5:10 am

   Summary: Achieved successful integration of iPod Nano 4Gb (2004) and iPhone 3G to 2005 Honda Odyssey (replaced original stock 6CD receiver) for hands free phone calls and music library. (I didn’t get the P7000BT for the HD or SAT feature.)

   I ACTUALLY READ THE OPERATIONAL MANUAL FIRST. I normally skip this step, but based on other feedback I read, I was glad I did this. I was able to sync the iPhone 3G, set the clock, change the fader balance, set the presets for FM and AM, download the address book, turn the display on, stop the beeping that reminds you to remove the face plate all in 30 minutes by reading the manual first.

   Positives:
   
   + iPod integration works with iPod Nano (2004 version) and iPhone 3G as advertised. I wanted the flexibility of leaving the 4Gb iPod Nano in mini-van glove compartment for long periods of time and not worry too much about the operating and storage temperatures. Full access to the playlists (as well as Artists, Albums, etc).
   
   + Bluetooth integration works with iPhone 3G as advertised. The sound quality is decent with microphone mounted by rear view center mirror (nice installation job by The Car Audio Company in Los Altos/Mountain View CA).
   
   + Remote unit is useful and more intuitive than the control panel.

   Negatives:
   
   - Still finding out (have been using for 2 days), but having to access the features through the one knob and few buttons isn’t as intuitive as I would have hoped for.
   
   - IGNORE the iPhone 3G message that will pop up that says it is not compatible when getting the receiver to talk to the phone.
   
   - (Added 01/11/2009- The factory controls on the steering wheel no longer controls the receiver.)

   Additional needed items:
   
   CD-IU50 USB iPod Interface Cable
   
   Car Mounting kit (replacement face cover)
   
   Wire harness kit
   
   Antenna adapter for Honda
   

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