I previously had what I thought was a low end Premier unit which I replaced with the AVIC-F90BT. My vehicle was setup primarily for sound quality utilizing Focal components front and rear on amps delivering 200 watts per channel and a JL Audio 13W7 running at 1000 watts at 3 ohms. (not a light weight system) It sounded very good until I put the F90BT in there. Suddenly the bass got muddy and the mids all run together. The detail and accuracy are gone from the system. There is nothing musical about it at all. I went back to the audio shop I use and one of the guys there just installed one of these units in his vehicle and is suffering from the same exact problem. At this point I have determined that the SQ is the worst using the preamp outs, just bad using the speaker outs to the amps, and plain terrible if you just skip the amps all together.

At this point my only hope lies in the cute little Digital port on the back of this unit. Does anyone know what this outputs? Can you connect a DAC to this port and skip the internal apms and preamps? Will the nav and phone still work? I'm thinking about connecting an inexpensive Cambridge audio DacMagic (on an inverter) to the F90BT's digital out and going form the DAC to the amps. Any thoughts?

I personally dont know about the port in the back. But I too went from a DEHP600 to this unit and I think the 90bt sounds like shit! The EQ sucks on this thing! I think they call that nuance control when you control 3 bands at once. I personally call it NUSUANCE control, its a PAIN IN THE A$$ to get it to sound right. I seriously considering going to another NAV unit, prehaps the Eclipse cause of this and other problems. Another side note considering my change is Pioneer making me pay for a firmware upgrade, they can KISS my ass on that. This unit has several flaws and they know it, thus the firmware upgrade. So what do they do? They bundle with a cheesy map upgrade and then charge people for it! Id prefer to just have the firmware upgrade and hell with the map upgrade Tele Atlas maps suck anyways.

At any rate, let us know if you find out about this output, Id really like to add an epicenter to my system but keep the sub controls etc on the radio. So I need an OUT and then IN. I dont know if Im missing something and maybe its possible, but epicenter sounds like shit unless you have a full range output going to it.

Well stated Mike. I actually run all my EQ settings flat on my decks. Any EQing happens outside of the box. This should make the unit even less of a factor in SQ but like you said "the 90bt sounds like shit!".

Amen!

I am planning a trip to my audio dealers shop with a DAC to test the port on their demo unit. I am also taking a fairly high end headphone setup (WooAudio 6 w/Sennheiser HD650) to plug into each of their display units preamp outs and see how they stack up quality wise. It may turn out that I need to just do a seperate deck and GPS unit which is apparently what I should have done to start with. I'll post my findings.

What is your source? I'm assuming CD's? I don't think the analog pre-out section of the f90 is bad at all, but the DAC is horrible. Audio from my iphone 3gs sounds noticeably better through it's line-out than comparatively from an uncompressed audio disc. I'm runing a 10w7 h.o. and premier prs comps @ 150 wpc.

Yes my source is CD (Not MP3). Thats an interesting finding. I use CD so it sounds like I'm stuck with crummy sound unless I can bypass the internal DAC, hopefully with an external which would have its own preamps. I also though that if an external DAC did work I could put the DAC in the trunk with the amps and then would only need 2 foot long interconnects as opposed to 20 foot runs. That should help on quality too.

Does anyone have this thing playing FLAC files?

@Elk:

You should try to play your music from SD and/or USB too in your environment. I wouldn't trust other ppl cause their hardware and ears are different. Rip your CD with EAC as a 320 kbps mp3 or FLAC (dunno if AVIC can play FLAC) and test it in your car.

I use the pre amp connectors too with Bose amps and Infinity speakers and usually play from SD card. I'm also not thrilled with the result.

IMO the sound quality is rather poor using a flat EQ as well. In addition, I agree the EQ design is ridiculous. What I did find, however, is that if you really spend some time playing and learning how to work the EQ that it performs rather well. It took me a good amount of time to get things dialed in but when I did, I felt it was above satisfactory. While it still may not be on par with something like Eclipse if that finicky EQ is messed with enough I think you can get a decent SQ out of it.

- Justin -

I have my F90BT running to an external Audio Control unit. This makes a world of difference. My system with the DQXS sounds amazing!

Oh and has anyone actually measured the voltage output of the F90BT??? I am highly skeptical that it is 4v as stated.

Oh and has anyone actually measured the voltage output of the F90BT??? I am highly skeptical that it is 4v as stated.

I am as well. My gains are pretty high. At least higher then I think they should be for 4v pre-outs

I too would like to use the digital out on the F90BT however when I tried I found the digital out only works on DVD content. CD's or other sources did not enable the digital output. Overall it's a really poor design. Even my 5 year old Eclipse has a digital out that works!

I could go on and on why I'm not happy with this unit, but that really doesn't provide any value to the board who has help turn a turd into something halfway worth using.

Yeah, I have to agree that this thing sounds like crap. Ive bent over backwards trying to get the noise out of this thing. With nothing plugged into my amps, its almost dead quiet. If i get that pre-amp cable even an inch from the pre-outs i start to hear noise, then plugged in, i get a hiss and alternator noise. I think this digital out idea may solve my problem as well. Keep working at it. Anything should be possible with software