Pioneer DEH-P5800MP
No doubt about it, the DEH-P5800MP had the biggest "wow" factor. The fold-down faceplate features a large Organic Electro Luminescent (OEL) display with animations, paired with a large control knob on the left side. It made quite a visual statement.
Display and controls: The DEH-P5800MP's display is a real showstopper. The OEL display has something for every mood, including animated sound level meters (my favorite), and a variety of other animations, ranging from geometric displays to swimming dolphins. It was actually too distracting at times — I had to discipline myself to keep my eyes on the road and not on the faceplate.
The buttons on the faceplate are very small, but it isn't much of a drawback, since the large rotary knob of the Pioneer and a four-way keypad to the left of the knob handle most of the functions and adjustments. The keypad handles many of the basic setup and EQ functions, aided by graphic feedback from the OEL display. It's a nice intuitive setup that works very well indeed. I only rarely needed to consult the manual — with a little trial and error I could figure most things out pretty easily.
Sound: The Pioneer had a powerful kick, with a strong low-frequency presence. There was more than enough power to drive the Cherokee's factory speaker setup well beyond what it was designed for.
It did a nice job on my test tracks. The walking bass line of "Three Days" had nice, full roundness, while the sudden changes in volume of the Beethoven "Scherzo" were handled with ease. Knopler's "What It Is" was authoritative and gutsy.
Music file playback: The DEH-P5800MP was a strong performer with MP3 discs. The player read files quickly, and the four-way keypad made navigation simple. Gaps between selections were minimal, even when using random play. Playback was dependable and the sound quality excellent. I so enjoyed using the player for MP3s that I probably played the majority of my music from MP3 discs while I had it installed.
Sound enhancement: The DEH-P5800MP stores six EQ curves for ready access. Five are preset, and one is a custom setting that you can create. A single EQ button lets you cycle through the curves quickly — that's a nice feature, since I often want to change the EQ setting for different media and styles of music. The EQ curves offer pretty dramatic differences, but if you don't like them you can always tweak the Custom curve to your liking and save the settings for another option.
The EQ's three-band parametric design lets you adjust the level of specific frequencies as well as the width of surrounding frequency curve. In addition, you can use Pioneer's EQ-EX function, which accentuates the effect of each preset curve and allows you to set separate bass and treble levels for each source. In addition, there's a Source Level Adjustment feature (so there won't be a big volume change between radio and CD, for example), built-in high-pass filters for the front and rear speakers, and three different loudness levels. All in all, this is a very capable EQ that allows a lot of tweakability. Pioneer has also included a COMP (compression) setting that compresses the audio signal to avoid distortion at high volume and BMX (Bit Media eXpander), a feature which is supposed to give compressed files a fuller sound. I didn't find either to be that useful — differences in the sound output were slight, to my ear at least.
Radio performance: No problems here. The Pioneer's tuner did a nice job of pulling in my regular NPR stations on the FM band during the morning drive. Performance was comparable to, or better than, other receivers I've used.
Expandability and other features: You won't have any problem building a system around the Pioneer. There are three sets of preamp outputs for adding amps, and plenty of opportunities to add other media sources. The DEH-P5800MP is iPod-ready — with Pioneer's CD-iB100ii iPod interface, you can control your player from the dash. XM and SIRIUS add-on tuners, CD changers, and an optional auxiliary input can be added as well.
