PRS: An Audiophile's Mobile Wet-Dream
Written: Jan 11 '07 (Updated Nov 22 '07)
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Pros: FULLY-Featured. Drop dead sexy looks. Price is right. QUALITY.
Cons: No mute button on face, iPod jack in strange location. Jealous Alpine users commenting.
The Bottom Line: Buy Buy Buy. For this price there is almost nothing that compares. Do the research, but you will most likely end up taking my advice. A true no-brainer.
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| boogacow's Full Review: Pioneer Premierâ„¢ DEH-P880PRS Car CD/ MP3 Player |
Howdy folks, you may remember me from other Epinions reviews of varying quality such as: Mercury Cougar: Hot-Rod for Grandma, and Thunderchickens, Get More for Your Hard-Earned Cash. Well, today I am going to pass on my experiences with another consumer good, the Pioneer Premier DEH-P880PRS.
I have been patiently waiting for Epinions to get around to listing this marvelous electronic bauble for a long time now. Not that I am bitter or anything, just that I pretty much only write reviews on items that have proven themselves a good buy for whatever reason, and this is one of my better buys.
Now I have been into car audio ever since I started driving cars. The last few years I went nuts on it and removed the monetary restrictions on the habit. I soon found myself surrounded by new, and not so new audio offerings. Now a head-unit can only be assessed on features, build-quality, and ease of use, if you don't have a high quality output system to test it with. Keeping this in mind, allow me to give a rundown on the setup that this deck has mostly been used in.
I installed this deck in a 1997 Mercury Cougar. The doors were Dynamatted with three layers, as were the trunk, under the back seats, and back deck. I ran the signal from the deck through a shielded, grounded RCA line, through the middle of the car, away from possible electrical interference, to a pair of Pioneer Premier PRS-X720 amps. Yes, that's the same PRS as in the 880PRS, just from an older production run of equipment, circa 1999. Even so these amps are legendary and are highly sought after for MECA championship use. You can read more about them here,.
From the amps ran twisted pair (and very expensive) speaker wire to two Kicker CVR subwoofers, in a ported box, and two Boston Acoustics Pro60 component speakers. These speakers are absolutely stellar and offered a very fair way to test the quality of the 880PRS regarding its audio excellence. To learn more, you can read here.
I ordered my 880PRS right after it debuted, having had nothing but the best experiences with Pioneer products in the past, I was fully assured in my mind that I would receive good value for my money, seeing that the Premier line is the best of Pioneer, and the Premier Reference Series is the best available through it. Think of it as the counterpart to the Pioneer Elite Home Theater line.
As opposed to paying the $525 suggested retail price (now a bit less), I ordered mine from an eBay seller in Texas. I received it faster than expected and knew right away it was a winner. I was so excited that I swapped it for my much older Pioneer while sitting in the car, in the rain. Right out of the box this deck screams quality. It has a very nice heft to it, something my German heritage appreciated. The brushed aluminum accents are perfect for the overall look. If I gush exceedingly, it's simply because the thing looks like a million bucks, it is a class act in good design. Pioneer can be proud of this one. When looking at it, you really get the impression that it is a small home theater receiver sent from the future to live in your dash. It just looks really nice. The face does protrude a bit, but it is handled in such a way by the black, almost invisible bezel, that it really doesn't offend. It fits the character. I suspect the inside is crammed with electronic goodness, and not to mention the small but useful fan in the back of the unit, yes, it has its own fan.
Featuring a knob for volume on the left, and a multi-function matching knob on the right of the screen, it hearkens back to a simpler era. Before BMW and Pioneer and a few other companies had their "one input interface" epiphany. It also helps during adjustment of the many, many features contained within the units well laid out menus. For instance, you can adjust your EQ or cutoff frequency and change the volume simultaneously to see the effect. If you've ever had to back out of a menu just to turn something back up to see if the change helped you know what I mean.
Speaking of the display, while a point of contention versus the admittedly very nice full color OEL display on the DEH-P980BT, I find the simple white gray-scale OEL to be very pleasant, and definitely suiting for this receiver. While it can be washed out a bit in direct sunlight, at night it has a transcendent beauty. Perhaps I wax eloquent, but this was one feature that grew on me a lot over time. Each knob has a glowing ring around it that can be set for the screen's white, or my preference, a nice blue color. You can adjust the intensity of the screen and rings through the setup, controlling brightness before and after dimming with the car's dash. The display is large enough and is easy to read. You have several choices of font selection and several entertainment screens. While most are pretty lame indeed, a few are entertaining, and one, the volt-meter is downright useful.
Also flush with the face are four corner buttons that you will rarely use. they blend perfectly overall with the appearance and the simplicity belies the serious output, and commendable quality of this unit. Really you should see this deck in person if you are worried about the looks. It has a timeless style all it's own.
Now this is a unit with a lot of features, and I mean a LOT. So many that if I were to list them all and give a short summary, I would pretty much have to include the manual for the deck. So I will cover in basic terms what makes this deck such a good buy, and give a list later with a more complete outline.
First off, this deck has 5 volt preouts. Front, Rear, and Subwoofer channels. Some people try to shoot down this deck by pointing out that Eclipse decks offer 8 volt preouts. Now this is true. It's also true that many audiophiles will tell you that once you get above 4-5 it doesn't make all that much difference, I would tend to agree. Also rarely mentioned, is that some older amplifiers don't accept voltages that high. For instance, if Pioneer had given the 880PRS 8 Volt, or even 6.5 volt preouts, it wouldn't have been compatible with my PRS-X720 amps. And I would have been mighty upset had they done that. This being said, I found the 5 volt preouts to work excellently and provide a very clear, strong signal.
A good indicator of the quality of stereo equipment, is how the music sounds with minimal processing. I prefer my music this way and I found that the 880PRS delivers exactly that, a pure signal with very high fidelity. In fact with everything flat and unprocessed running through my PRS amps, I found myself listening to one of the best audio reproductions I have heard on any stereo at any price. I exaggerate not, only facts here folks. I honestly think the 880PRS could hang with Nakamichi and not be ashamed. Now I know it's not the bee's knees, but with the Burr-Brown DACs it employs, you could have told me I was listening to a DEX-P9 and I might have believed you, call it the bee's ankles I guess.
On to menus.
Now I could spend a TON of time in this area. The 880PRS is extremely customizable. For instance, it has Active Networking. A feature that turns the preouts into separately tuned channels for different components of your system, for instance you can put an amp on your dome tweeters, another on your midranges, and another on your subwoofers. Then you can dial in where you want the frequencies to be cutoff, and how sharply. Effectively micromanaging your output. Then to take it even further, you can independently adjust your 16 band EQ on EACH CHANNEL, left and right. And if that's not enough for you, you can plug in the included microphone and let the deck's computer listen to its environment and adjust itself the way it thinks best.
Technology sure has come a long way in five years.
Yes, you will find oodles of audio adjustments to keep you dialing in that perfect sound for months. Among these are BBE, which sounds ok for smaller non amplified setups; Time-Delay, which effectively gives you a tool to move the "sweet spot" around in the car. Four "listening positions" you can select, to do the same, Front, FL, FR, and Rear. Or just the generic "All". You have the "Loud" feature. Something best left off. You have crossovers with several slope selections for the front, rear, and sub(s). SLA, which is basically a gain control for your media vs. the radio, or iPod input. And yes, you can plug in your iPod, there is a jack on the front. Unfortunately they hid it on the bottom of the faceplate, but they made up for it by adding an all new and much improved iPod management system in the receiver, using the multifunction knob to control it just like an iPod's controls. You have the obligatory phase control for the subwoofers, and a function to disable them, useful for when your mother needs a ride somewhere, etc.
Really the functions seem endless, but when gone through they become apparently useful when you least expect it. I don't find myself missing anything except for one key thing, which I shall mention later. If you are considering this deck, you are probably very well versed in car audio and don't need me to list these functions as you have researched them. If you are not an audiophile, further listing will only confuse you in all likelihood.
Your AAC, WMA, and MP3 files will all play on this deck. And they will sound as good as the original encoding allows. You can also use your Sirius or XM subscription, it's ready and capable. If you use the IP Bus for your system, it plugs in the back.
As far as loading CDs, its extremely fast. The face motors down with a strong sounding whir, and swallows the CD quickly. By the time it closes, playback has begun, the processor is that fast. There is no wait time to load songs, and the menu scrolling is at real time speed and works very well, including the song index window. Song navigation and folder navigation works very well.
Oh, and the one time I heard this thing skip, me and my girl stared for about ten seconds, we had long before decided that it was impossible to skip it, in fact I thought the bump that did it had broken my car.
A few words about the remote control. Small, well laid out, very useful. I have probably actually pushed buttons on the face a couple dozen times in almost a year. You just won't be doing it. The multifunction knob has a counterpart on the remote that works great and does it all. There is only one thing the remote does that the faceplate does not, and that is my big peeve with this deck, and some of Pioneer's other decks. NO MUTE BUTTON!
A $500 deck and no mute button.
So I can see how anything else on the face would have ruined the aesthetic, but come on, in this age of $200 sound law tickets, you NEED one, or at least a re programmable button on the face. I can't excuse this one. The closest thing is the ATT on the remote, which works for these purposes. It would be much better to have one for the drive-thrus and police moments, it's a glaring omission.
Another important feature I should mention is the ability to turn off the internal amp. I have used it both ways and while the internal amp is very strong and sounds very good, this is a necessary feature for any serious car audio fanatic and it's included on this unit, Premier also offers a two year warranty from authorized dealers.
There are probably more great things that I am forgetting, things that someone may crucify me for later. Let it be known though that this is one of those pieces of hardware that you buy and keep forever. Definitely an instant classic in my book and something that has held its value since I bought it like Krazy Glue. While others may say Alpine, Eclipse or (ugh) even Sony, I can tell you right now that this is the closest thing to a perfect car audio product I have ever seen, and you will have to pry it from my cold dead clutches if you want mine.
If you wonder why I am so damned passionate about this deck, it will cost you $330 (eBay) to find out. I salute Pioneer for this amazing piece of work at an amazing price, soon to become a collector's item like the older PRS amps I imagine.
Features Link
(Sorry but the website will not allow me to hyperlink this one)
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v3/pg/product/details/0,,2076_310069882_291159496_tab=B,00.html?compName=PNA_V3_ProductDetailsComponent
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UPDATE: Thanksgiving 2007
I still have this beautiful deck in my dash, and I must say I derive just as much devilish pleasure in its performance and quality of sound as I did when I first got it. I no longer use external amps with it, but it still sounds amazing every day.
I would like to mention that after a years worth of use, the turning of the volume knob has started wearing a thin layer of chrome off of the rings around said knob. It's not bad but another couple years could make it uglier, and I wish it were different. This is remedied by using your fingertips or the remote for volume, but it's worth noting.
I recently connected an in car DVD/TV tuner and TV to it using the IP Bus RCA adapter and running it through aux 2, and the quality of the whole setup is just pure excellence. Movies sound especially good using the Auto EQ feature. I stand by my original review and I wouldn't trade this deck for anything under the sun at this point, as there is nothing near this price range with an ease of use factor in this category. This deck is the Bentley of stereos.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 330
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Epinions.com ID:
boogacow
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Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Your average 20 something consumer.
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