Pioneer DEH-6800MP

I bought a Pioneer DEH-6800MP, and got it at a reduced rate of £119, you can pick them up for £139, which is a reasonable price for what you are getting. as these were £200+ when they first came out.

Starting from basics.

Even though I didn't need the instructions, I looked through them and found them to be very clear and explained virtually everything in such a fine detail making it clear to any user!

The shape and colour of the unit I found to be very nice, not blocky and very smooth.

Now for the audio features.

It supports a fair few different formats of music, like MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC files and can also play CD-R's and CD-RW's.

A continuous power output of 4x17 watts RMS, enough to drive standard door speakers.

It has RDS (Radio data system) which basically receives data like Radio channels names, automatic tuning to changing frequencies.

Fully adjustable Equalizer, there is so much to play with on this and I find it great fun and find something new everytime. There are presets as well, such as flat, vocal, natural, powerful, bass, and super bass. You can adjust the bass, mid-bass, and treble in 4 steps:

40-80-100-160 hz steps for bass

200-500-1k-2k hz for mid bass

3.15k-8k-10-12.5k hz for treble

Meaning you can fine tune the right amount of treble and bass for your needs.

The head unit features HPF, or High Pass Filters, which basically means filtering out bass and mid bass, you use this for when you do not want heavy bass notes to go through your door speakers and then the frequencies below what you have selected will be filtered out, for example, you select 80hz on the HPF and anything equal to 80hz or below will be filtered out.

There is a source level adjuster on the head unit which basically compensates for changes on functions, for example when you change from CD to radio sometimes you may find when using the CD function its soft and quiet, then you switch over to the radio function and you end up resonating your ear drums! this stops this.

Now something I found quite interesting It features an Automatic sound levelizer, Now this feature work when the the unit can sense a change in noise, for example travelling at speed and a loud engine noise and conditions, This feature can be adjusted in 5 steps, Low, Mid low, Mid, Mid high, and High, If you have it set on low there is virtually no difference as I've found, but when you put it up on High you can really tell the difference when on the move, its a fair bit louder and I love this feature.

There are 3 pre-outs on this head unit at 2v, meaning you can use 3 amplifiers without having to use RCA splitters and worrying about losing sound quality, One of the pre-outs its a specific Subwoofer output, which I used when my install for a very short time, It has 2 features also, you can decide whether you want to listen to your sub or not, by switching off the signal coming from you RCA's However I didn't get the change to see whether the amplifier was still on or not, which if left un-attended and engine isn't running, it can lead to a drained battery. the 2nd feature is that you can adjust the output of the subwoofer and the cut off frequencies.

Has a remote lead so it'll send a 12v signal at 0.3a to turn on your amplifiers and switch off when ever the unit is switched off.

Another nice touch is a warning tone, If you leave your unit fascia still attached after you have turned off the unit, it will let off a warning tone to let you know its still on.

For the fascia, This is also really impressive, there are about 10 different displays that you can change, from the CD tracks name and artist, to having dolphins swimming on there! Really does look nice.

The unit is well illuminated in a blue and red, at night time and is clear from every angle.

It also features a remote, so you can control the unit from outside your car.

For £120 this unit is fantastic and didn't expect it to be so inter-tunable! I am really glad I spent that little extra to get a lot more!