A Polished Sound

I immediately noticed the improvement over my factory car stereo when I turned on the power and tuned in to my favorite local radio station. My Camry sports the stock speakers, but the 15 watts of continuous power provided by the AVN5435 still made them sound great. Plus, I had much more control over my sound thanks to the built in equalizer, the ability to set the "sweet spot" anywhere in my car, and a number of effects to change the sound of my music.

The equalizer can be set to flat or to one of five custom presets. The settings can be tweaked to fit any style of music, so it was easy to find the perfect sound for our varied musical tastes, including hip-hop, country, and rock. Once we found the best possible EQ settings for each style of music, the AVN5435 allowed us to store those settings and recall them quickly when swapping CDs.

The equalizer offers five preset curves and the option to build your own sound and save it in the stereo's memory.

For added realism, Eclipse gives you five different environmental settings, Concert, Live, Cathedral, Club, and Theater, to change the acoustic characteristics of your music. I only tested these out a couple of times, but I was impressed at the way the Concert setting gave that grungy venue vibe to a live recording of a Sublime show, making me feel more like I was in the mosh pit instead of the cockpit of my grocery-getter.

Five different effects add character to your music.

The position selector allows you to move the best listening position in the car around with just a touch. The crosshairs automatically center on the position in the vehicle you select, whether it be on the driver or in the center of the cabin for everyone to enjoy. The difference was noticeable on my factory speaker setup, so I'm sure aftermarket speakers and amps would really ramp up the change.

A single touch puts the "sweet spot" where you want it.

The Eclipse did a great job handling CDs burned with MP3s, and I never had a problem getting to any of my music files. All I had to do was select the file I wanted from the touchscreeen, and the AVN5435 opened each folder quickly, without the lag that some receivers have when searching for songs. You can add external amplifiers to make full use of the 24-bit digital to analog converters for full, rich reproduction of your music.