Hi All...

I owned an 910bt and it recently broke. While i loved the sound quality, the ui and navigation left much to be desired ... along with all the bugs and other anoyances. After much research I purchased a Clarion NX602 and was blown away by its UI...very nice, the IGO navigation was amazing...however, I cant get over the sound quality of it. I have Polk M series speakers, infinity kappa amps and sub and the pioneer always sounded amazing. Try as I may, i cant get the clarion unit to sound anywhere near as good. i am an engineer and in the audio bus for many years. I hauled out my scope, use reference tones and set levels appropriately but the clarion sounds a bit harsh and gives me ear fatigue after a while. I have a convertible and when the top is down the volume needs to go up so I do listen at higher than normal volumes but the pioneer always sounded much warmer and pleasing to me.

While i love the clarion's user experience and GPS, the bottom line is that it has to sound good. I dont mean to knock clarion...I just personally dont like the sound of it. So.....i am considering a 940 (i use android and want the capabilities it has). From a 910, will i be happy with the 940? Has the user experience improved?

I know there is alot of negative posts about the navigation and I agree, the pioneer's navigation is sub par (slightly better than my toyota factory navigation but not much). However, it is sub par in terms of user experience, but the bottom line is it always got me where I needed to go....so I have no great expectation there. I am just hoping they fixed many of the bugs.

Also, is bluetooth any better than it was?

Has anyone compared the sound quality of Pioneer vs others...any suggestions.

I agree with you 100% on sound quality of the Clarion vs Pioneer. I traded my X940BT in for the NX602 recently, and the Clarion blows the Pioneer away on most everything except sound. The lack of having to click through any "nag" screens is heaven on the Clarion. The nav is also light years better. But, the sound quality simply sucks, especially when using an iPod or iPhone as the source. The D/A convertors suck on this unit. I am also a mix engineer and very picky about my sound. I thought the X940BT sound sucked compared to my old Sony unit I yanked out for it, but the Clarion is even worse than the Pioneer.

I'm not sure on what I will do. There is no one particular unit that has everything I want right now. They all have compromises. The X940BT was annoying and buggy for me to say the least. The Clarion is the closest to date of being perfect except for the fatal flaw of poor sound. I looked at the Kenwoods, and they have their issues as well.

Did you ever do a bypass on the Clarion? I was wondering how to do it. There are no forums that I can find on the Clarion like you find with Pioneer and Kenwood. (another downside to Clarion is lack of user base)

Glad its not just me....I love the clarion, as you said, for UI and Nav (the nav is soooooo much better). And your right, no community.

As for bypass...i ended up purchasing something on ebay or amazon (a small widget that you tie to the amp on signal, gnd and parking brake signal...I think is just adds a bit of delay to the parking break signal...$20 or something like that (total rip but it works fine).

OK, I did it...i bought a 140bh and installed it today. The instant i turned it on it sounded sooooo much better. The place i bought the clarion was kind enough to refund me minus 5% which is totally fair!!!

Sound it fantastic...I am glad I did it...but boy....do i miss the IGO nav from Clarion. Shame on pioneer! And yes...it is worse than before. I cant believe they dont have speed limit data! I was hoping with the new naviteq data that they would add that....it embarising in this day and age. Oh and with my 910, it always thought I lived on the other end of the block (5 houses down)...i had hoped that the new data would fix that....nope...no change...I still dont live where I actually live!...And one more gripe....It has a speed sensor hookup..so why no auto volume control based on speed...my base $15K mazda stock head unit had that. Shame shame.

Anyway...sound is good and there are many good things about it so I am happy.

I know people who turn the sound off their Garmins so it seems that a lot of people do not appreciate the chatter they cause, but speed limit info is one of the glaring things missing from Pioneer Nav. On the other hand, my wife can't look at the screen and see if I'm speeding!

All of the things 'missing features' you guys mentioned are patents that the designers decide are not worth licensing.

Sorry

A poignant example of this is the difference between the Valentine One and Escort radar detectors.

V1's own the patent to show you which direction the radar is coming from, and Escort owns the patent for flagging signals with their GPS location to mask out speed signs and automatic doors on stores.

Thus, even though the Escort radar detectors have forward and rear-facing sensors, they are not allowed to indicate to the user in which sensor the radar signal came.

This is also why you don't see any GPS action in the V1 devices.

By the way, for daily use, Escort's patent is far superior, it's just a shame you cant get all the features in one device!