The DXZ845MC is Clarion's first CD receiver with the Music Catcher system.

Portable digital music recorders and players are hot! Users love the way these small portables let them store lots of music and provide cool ways to organize and playback their favorite tunes. You only have to look at the strong sales of Apple's iPod to appreciate the potential future sales of these devices. Car audio manufacturers hope they can tap into this interest and expand sales by adding music recording and storage capabilities into their car CD receivers. Clarion's first attempt at exploiting this market is the DXZ845MC, a new CD/MP3 receiver with the Music Catcher digital recorder system built in.

The Music Catcher is a built-in digital recorder that can record and playback up to six CDs worth of material, recorded and stored as WMA (Windows Media Audio) files. The Music Catcher can record single tracks, or entire CDs, by the simple push of a button. Playback is simple — just select the "Music Catcher" function from the menu and pick the folder and file you want to hear. The concept sounds promising — record and store your favorite music right in your car, with no CD changer or other external storage device required.

This ProAudio model is positioned near the top of Clarion's CD receiver lineup, and comes with a lot more than just the Music Catcher. It also includes a variable color display with titling features, MP3/WMA file playback, SIRIUS satellite radio controls, dual-zone output, auxiliary input, and three sets of preamp outputs. After getting my hands on one, thanks to Crutchfield Advisor, I was anxious to see how well the DXZ845MC would live up to Clarion's promise of "powerful sound reproduction," and how well it would "easily store...and playback...music with CD-changer like simplicity."

The free Crutchfield wiring harness simplified installation.

Installing the DXZ845MC
Installation of the standard, DIN-sized DXZ845MC was no problem. It slipped easily into a Crutchfield custom installation kit mounted in the dash of my 1998 Ford Ranger. Making the electrical connections was a snap, thanks to Crutchfield's free vehicle-specific wiring harness. The jet-black finish of the receiver matched my dashboard nicely, and the understated styling was clean and attractive.

For this test, the DXZ845MC took the place of my regular receiver, a Pioneer DEH-P3500. The rest of the system consists of a pair of Polk EX572a coaxial 6"x8" speakers in the front doors, powered by the receiver, plus a 150 watt Jensen XA22150 amp driving an MTX 6000 10" subwoofer in a sealed box. The Clarion is the third receiver I've had installed with these components, so I was confident I could objectively compare the audio performance of the DXZ845MC with other models.

First impressions
I was impressed by the receiver's appearance and "feel." The motorized aluminum front panel opened and closed smoothly, while the rotary knob clicked precisely as I adjusted the volume. The variable color display offered a wide range of color shades for the display and buttons, although surprisingly the display had no shades of blue. The display color was easy to adjust and provided just the right shade of green to match my dashboard instruments.

I checked out the tuner's performance first. The DXZ845MC's Magi-Tune+ tuner displayed impressive station-pulling power. Local stations came in clearly, including many of the weaker FM stations in our area. Living in the shadow of the Blue Ridge mountains can make line-of-sight FM broadcast reception problematic, but the tuner of this Clarion gave me as good or better performance than I've experienced with other receiver brands. AM reception was solid, with good selectivity at night, when the AM frequency band gets crowded with many competing stations.

The DXZ845MC plays discs encoded with MP3 and WMA files (remember, the Music Catcher stores music as WMA files). The DXZ845MC had no problems playing back a disc of WMA files. Navigating between the folders in the disc was easy, thanks to clearly marked folder UP and DOWN buttons, and the folder and file ID tags displayed promptly. The display's text scroll feature was nice to have for viewing long folder and file titles.

The DXZ845MC has an easily accessed subwoofer level control, a nice feature when you've got a sub in your system. The level control allowed me to easily raise or lower the output of the sub without having to adjust the amplifier's settings. While this feature isn't unique to Clarion receivers, they deserve credit for making it easy to access and use.

Audio performance and more
The extra power, versus factory radios, that the DXZ845MC brings to your system will probably yield a big improvement in your sound. The output of this receiver was quite respectable at lower volumes, though it did become a little bit "thin" at high volume settings. The DXZ845MC's high (100 dB) signal-to-noise ratio and multiple sets of preamp outputs make it a great candidate for adding an amp, if you're looking for extra punch at high volume.

The DXZ845MC was an attractive addition to my dash, although the display was prone to "washing out" in bright sunlight.

The DXZ845MC's EQ functions allow you to tailor the treble and bass, with center frequency and slope adjustments for each. A source level adjustment feature would have been nice — I often experienced drastic volume swings as I moved from source to source. Clarion includes a bass boost circuit, Magna Bass EX, for pumping up the low-end frequencies. Magna Bass EX is centered at 50 Hz and adds a definite kick to the low end — a nice feature if your system doesn't have a sub.

The DXZ845MC includes a feature called ADF (Anti Distortion Filter). Clarion claims that ADF restores "richness and fullness" to the sound of compressed music files (MP3s and WMAs). The different ADF settings definitely boosted the bass and did smooth away some of the slight roughness of sound that's often associated with compressed music files. In my system I found that that best ADF setting was "Off." Your results may vary.

One slight annoyance not associated with the audio was the tendency of the DXZ845MC's front panel to "wash out" in bright sunlight. This may have more to do with the color chosen for my dash than the actual brightness of the display. In addition, the large number of small buttons on the face can be a problem when you're learning to use the receiver. On more than one occasion I accidentally pressed the wrong buttons while turning the volume knob or attempting to press another button.

The Music Catcher
Let's focus, now, on the Music Catcher. Recording with the Music Catcher is about as easy as it gets. Put in a CD (you can't record from other sources, and no CD-Rs or RWs, please) and press the red button. The Music Catcher will begin recording the track you're playing. If you're already halfway into the song, it will skip back to the beginning and start recording. If you want to record the whole CD, just hold the button in for several seconds, and the Music Catcher will skip back to the beginning of the disc and start recording. The sound quality of the recorded tracks at the best recording level is quite good — very, very close to CD quality. At the lower quality setting recorded music did sound somewhat compressed.

Of course there's more to consider with the Music Catcher than just how easy it is to record with. Let's look at a few other aspects of its performance.

At the best recording quality (HQ) the Music Catcher will hold about 265 minutes of music. That's about the same as six CDs. The Music Catcher will let you record at a lower quality (LP) setting that allows you to stretch out the time to 353 minutes of capacity. If you're uncertain about how much space is left on the memory, a touch of a button will let you know how many minutes of time you have left at the current recording quality level. Erasing the music is also a simple, one button operation.

The Music Catcher records in real time — there is no provision for high-speed recording. That's an important point to consider when you're recording a song. Allow enough time when you start recording, or you may end up sitting in the parking lot waiting for the recording to finish, as I did on several occasions! If you want to store a lot of music in the Music Catcher, make sure you budget the necessary time.

The Music Catcher uses a folder and file arrangement to store and organize the music. If you record several different selections from the same CD, the Music Catcher will place the songs, as files, into the same folder. Other music is assigned to different folders. The music folders are labelled consecutively — Folder 001, Folder 002, and so on, and the music files are also numbered. Folders and files cannot be titled, nor song files shifted from folder to folder. The Music Catcher does have a shuffle feature, and a scan feature that plays a few seconds of the first song in each folder, and then moves on to the next folder.

Is the DXZ845MC right for you?
The DXZ845MC is not an inexpensive CD receiver. However, it does include many features (some of which I only mentioned in passing) like the dual-zone output (useful if you're adding rear seat video) and SIRIUS satellite radio controls. Combine those features with the expandability of three sets of preamp outputs, good tuner performance, variable color display, subdued styling, plus the novelty of the Music Catcher, and you may find that the DXZ845MC is a great match for your needs.