well, it's likely that Steve Jobs will blame EVERYTHING but the iPhone

I've spoken with my checkbook, the x920 just went back to Amazon and the F700 went back in the car, and the 3 test calls I made to people had them instantly commenting how much better the sound was without me even asking them.

hi - check your PM inbox re: question about Amazon

strange that her old deck works to her satisfaction, but the new and improved one doesn't. Wouldn't the new deck be more likely to incorporate advancements in the Bluetooth field?

 

That would make the most sense. But it seems to be hit or miss the the new iPhones and iPhones running OS4. I dont know why they work with some bluetooths and not with others...in the entire industry, not just within the Pioneer lineup.

It's simply a case of sometimes, even with standards, some components don't like others, that's the joy of various manufacturers meeting standards in different ways. The x920 and F-series implement BT in completely different ways, so it doesn't surprise me that we can have varied results. For all we know the newer units could use a consolidated BT chip and software stack that the old ones didn't.

I'm quite tech savvy, trust me, I tried everything to get the x920 to work for me, and even did both firmware updates, the quality was always poorer then the F700 in my car for calls, and keep in mind, the phone was sitting on the passenger seat in my handbag all throughout this, that's where it always lives, even the commute was the same!

Giving up my iphone that has a 2-year contract wasn't an option, either the x920 worked with it, or it went back, and the answer was "it went back"

my money's green and it knows how to walk. did you try Pandora with the X920's BT?

Just installed the Z120...2003 Jeep GC Overland

love it. All but the hands free calling...my callers report wind noise with the mic at any position within the cabin (windows up, ac off, blah, blah). I have a BB Storm2, paired up no problem can even stream my Pandora through with the source set to BT audio.

So I called Pioneer using the hands free...the first guy I spoke with "Ray" told me they would replace the mic under warranty, then he transferred me to service and warranty and "Henry" said they would have to examine the entire unit to properly assess whether or not it was the mic or not (protocol). I asked "Henry" if I was the first to report having a problem like this, he said I was the first he'd heard of...must be a HUGE organization or noone else is calling them. At that point I asked to speak with his supervisor, was told I would receive a call back from him but never did, it's been a week. Poor customer service IMHO. Hopefully Crutchfield treats me better than Pioneer...we'll see.

In the meantime I have disabled BT...ugh.

It seems to be the most likely thing to not work in these units. However, some people say theirs work great. One thing is for sure, you did the right thing by calling them from the car - they can't ignore it then.

Ridiculous that they "haven't" heard of this yet.

More than likely a complete and utter lie.

Someone here trumpeted the "free-enterprise" system over one post or another.

I'd like a free-enterprise system where companies had to supply what they advertise.

Oh to dream

PS - keep calling - don't wait for them to call you. If it isn't fixed, don't let your return date pass.

It's obvious they are ignoring the issue. Support people won't even take case notes when you call. They just spit back the standard "we can't guarantee compatibility with every phone" BS. This is a real problem that seems to affect A LOT of people, any may be primarily linked to people with Blackberry phones (I can confirm problems with several different models using BB OS 5.x). Pioneer won't even bother trying to replicate the issues with their engineers.

If I thought I could in good conscience pawn this piece of garbage off on someone and buy a Kenwood, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

My wife's BB sounds excellent in her Jetta wagon with its' built-in bluetooth. I was talking to an installer today in Southern California. They sell both Kenwood and Pioneer, and he said that the phone absolutely has an effect with both units. I didn't ask for a laundry list of brands, but maybe we should start a thread here and then copy it to just about everyone at Pioneer US, Canada, Japan Europe, you name it.

Let's start posting the names of the Pioneer executives and their response to emails and phonecalls.

Are they a public company? If so, it's open game on every single employee of relevance.

that's the only way anything will happen

My wife's BB sounds excellent in her Jetta wagon with its' built-in bluetooth. I was talking to an installer today in Southern California. They sell both Kenwood and Pioneer, and he said that the phone absolutely has an effect with both units. I didn't ask for a laundry list of brands, but maybe we should start a thread here and then copy it to just about everyone at Pioneer US, Canada, Japan Europe, you name it.

Let's start posting the names of the Pioneer executives and their response to emails and phonecalls.

Are they a public company? If so, it's open game on every single employee of relevance.

that's the only way anything will happen

You can pound on them here as well....

http://www.youtube.com/user/pioneerelec ... ZeGZxwxKt8

My wife's BB sounds excellent in her Jetta wagon with its' built-in bluetooth. I was talking to an installer today in Southern California. They sell both Kenwood and Pioneer, and he said that the phone absolutely has an effect with both units. I didn't ask for a laundry list of brands, but maybe we should start a thread here and then copy it to just about everyone at Pioneer US, Canada, Japan Europe, you name it.

Let's start posting the names of the Pioneer executives and their response to emails and phonecalls.

Are they a public company? If so, it's open game on every single employee of relevance.

that's the only way anything will happen

 

You can pound on them here as well....

http://www.youtube.com/user/pioneerelec ... ZeGZxwxKt8

haha - I've written notes on a few of those videos - ZERO RESPONSE. I even met one of those guys, Kevin Slack (appropriate ?) in a local dealers store. He seemed to know that there were problems in paradise, but obviously couldn't comment on them. One only hopes he took my suggestions to heart

I've spoken with both Ray and Henry - yes they have heard about this issue - and it seems the official response is to act ignorant. I disabled my BT - but since I just did the Z120 update/BT update(s), I'll try it again.

From talking with others, changing mics (Garmin) really doesn't do a lot.

Ray said the most important thing is to locate the mic at the top left of the windshield - next to the visor. As I need to pull apart my dash/A pillar etc, I've put that off until I'm in there for something else...

I've done all the updates to my Z110BT, including the $160 map updates, plus the latest 2.03 firmware, moved the mic from the rear view mirror to the far left next to the visor and still the sound quality is poor. Mine sounds a bit muffled instead of clear. Sometimes it sounds as if the words run together. Has there been any other fix or remedy? Oh and I also tried wrapping tape around the end of the mic as well, no go....

I've done all the updates to my Z110BT, including the $160 map updates, plus the latest 2.03 firmware, moved the mic from the rear view mirror to the far left next to the visor and still the sound quality is poor. Mine sounds a bit muffled instead of clear. Sometimes it sounds as if the words run together. Has there been any other fix or remedy? Oh and I also tried wrapping tape around the end of the mic as well, no go....

I think you have again confirmed an issue (well - really a huge monstrous design problem) with the the Z.

I'm now toying with the idea to move to a random Chinese thing (had one before - but now they have in-car Internet).

Just keep calling and complaining...

I can't imagine a company having a flagship device with *poor* - nay *awful* BT in-call performance.

I'm guessing due to the lack of a fix, they are marketing this at people who don't care about BT mic performance - meaning the ability to make a professional call ( not to your friends - I mean for conference calls, customer calls, or even important personal calls). Buy it, and don't count on anything close to norm from a sound quality.

Just search the forum. The Z110 and Z120 have very very poor BT.

Yes - it works great for sound, and the Z120 update is easier to navigate, but if you are buying this, know the limitation (which IMHO is HUGE if you use this during business hours - or even for most personal calls).

EDIT: Just to clarify, The BT streaming (music) works great. The only big major real issue is with phone calls - if calls are important - and you can't use a personal ear mic (BT from phone, or wired) - buy the Ken/JVC/Alp/random China things of the world...

Is it possible to use a bluetooth headset which connects to the Z110 and bypass the cheap wired mic from Pioneer?

From what I've read the Parrot mics are not changing the problem which leads me to believe its an internal software or electronics issue, not the mic.

This is strange since we replaced an F900 Pioneer which had GOOD BT performance but the unit itself was plauged with being slow, long lag times etc. So now the Z110 does have faster response times and start up but the reverse it the problem, the BT sucks. In fact I've found it works just a tad better when the mic is furthest from the driver.

Is it possible to use a bluetooth headset which connects to the Z110 and bypass the cheap wired mic from Pioneer?

If you wanted to do that, then why not just connect your BT headset directly to the phone? or am I missing something in the logic here since that pretty much defeats the purpose of integrated BT

From what I've read the Parrot mics are not changing the problem which leads me to believe its an internal software or electronics issue, not the mic.

 

This is strange since we replaced an F900 Pioneer which had GOOD BT performance but the unit itself was plauged with being slow, long lag times etc. So now the Z110 does have faster response times and start up but the reverse it the problem, the BT sucks. In fact I've found it works just a tad better when the mic is furthest from the driver.

The F series is completely different hardware AND software, you really can't compare the products, they have different pros and cons.

I'm using a bluetoothspeaker phone instead of the mic

And I'm much happier

You get all the bt integration of phone numbers, dialing, receiving, etc

But the added quality of a better Bt mic and no noise or complaints from ppl

I'm using a bluetoothspeaker phone instead of the mic

And I'm much happier

 

You get all the bt integration of phone numbers, dialing, receiving, etc

But the added quality of a better Bt mic and no noise or complaints from ppl

which make and model - could be good to know for those who are having troubles

Blueant supertooth 3.. I tried all of them

Thisjs the best one

I bought that Garmin replacement mic and never used it.. Its new. If anyone needs It i can send it to them, just PM. I think it was $15

I have owned AVIC units for many years. Had the N1 then the N3 and now the 110.

With all of them I could never grasp why they would release their products with so many fundamental flaws. Still, despite the aggravations I tolerated the N1 & N3 deficiencies since the good outweighed the bad relative to the competitive alternatives.

However, the 110 was a step backwards in so many ways. How can a voice message such as "What was it?" be acceptable in a consumer product? Moving from the N3 to the 110 meant that I lost a large number of voice commands and have to go through an insane number of manual menu selections for basic functions while driving!

But the most unacceptable aspect it the terrible BT performance. I have been using handsfree devices in my vehicles for 10 years; and BT from the beginning of the technology. The 110 is by far the worst. It's actually embarrassing to try and conduct business calls. Hell, people tell me that the BT sound quality is far better on my loud motorcycle than it is in my quiet car. It's not mic placement, it's not tape to cover holes, it's not AC vents, it's not do this before you do that, it's poor engineering!

I'm now looking for a Pioneer alternative. I don't care how much it costs. I need something that works!

Your best bet is to move away from Pioneer when it comes to BT performance.

Blueant supertooth 3.. I tried all of them

Thisjs the best one

you get phonebook integration with this? not sure I understand how, and where you'd see the phonebook info. explain please

the iphone is tied to the pioneer with bluetooth

so you get phone book.. calls coming in, etc

then

you also connect the iphone to the bluetooth speakerphone on your visor

when a call comes in,.. the pioneer displays it.. it rings through the system

and you pick it up by answering the call on the Super Tooth

I like this way.. it ws $60 on ebay and sounds great

a work around until they fix this

I'm inclined to try this alternative but what about outgoing calls...won't the pioneer receiver automatically pick them up?

If you answer the phone call with the S3 you will only hear the person through the S3 right?

I follow what your doing though. Pretty cool. Basically your pairing your iphone with two BT devices, the Pioneer and the S3. Either of which can take over the call. If you choose to take the call with the Pioneer you'll get the the person's voice over your vehicle speakers but yours will be over the Mic which is the issue in the first place. If you choose the S3. Will the volume on your music stay muted while you talk and then resume to normal volume when you end the call like the Pioneer does or I suspect it probably wont. The moment you take the call over the S3 your loud music will resume. You will manually need to mute it and the conversation will be over the small s3 speaker.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on my assumptions.

Thanks!