Pioneer, Kenwood, Panasonic

[bmxmike]

Well i had a Dual XDVD8181 that i had but sold it to another member on here so know im looking at a new unit with nav in it. I was thinking one of these....

Pioneer AVIC-D3 or Z1 and upgrade the harddrive to a Z2

Kenwood DNX-7100

Panasonic CN-NVD905U

Any other suggestions? I was thinking Kenwood DNX but just seeing if anyone else had any thoughts bout these.

[99 galant]

well i dont have nav but i like my pioneer and im pretty sure its kinda old, but i think pioneer is pretty good

[bmxmike]

Well I heard sound on the kenwood is great and that they push the highest rms out of alot of head units. I have had some pioneer stuff the only thing is that the kenwood and panisonic are both upgradeable through sd card and are hard drive based.

[fatal1]

all pretty good choices, the d3 only has 1 slot for cd/nav disk so if you have an ipod etc you are fine, panasonic is the newest to the navi game but pioneer and kenwood have both been around a long time

the z series are very nice

i would aslo look into the eclipse units as well they are among the best you can get and i have seen them realatively inexpensive on ebay brand new in the past

i would more or less limit myself around
eclipse
pioneer
kenwood

also i opt for a security feature like a removeable face plate and seperate brain unit as well i am not sure if any have come out recently by any company but double dins i am aware of do not offer this just so you know

[bmxmike]

Ya im looking at getting a double din and security wise i have it take care of. Its the same thing me and my friends have always done its a cover that you put over it and it locks in and looks like a empty space. There not the most secure but if someone is just walking by all they see is something that looks like a empyt spot in the dash plus i have a 2-way communicating remote for my alarm.

[fliegendaffe]

Well I heard sound on the kenwood is great and that they push the highest rms out of alot of head units. I have had some pioneer stuff the only thing is that the kenwood and panisonic are both upgradeable through sd card and are hard drive based.

rms in head units actually means squat.

[fliegendaffe]

i would say eclipse>>pioneer>>kenwood

one thing you need to look for it volts in the preouts. higher = better clarity.

i have a single din eclipse unit myself that i can add gps to but haven't bought the module yet. but they are nice head units.

[bmxmike]

Well i looked at a few eclipse's but all the one's i looked at had really bad rating plus i kinda want a hard drive based navigation and the eclipse i looked at as well as the pioneer are dvd based

[criz067]

I have had the same pioneer cd player for 8 years and it has worked like new since the day i bought it. Ive seen panasonics start having problems after a few years.

[djflex167]

i like pioneer in-dash tv/dvd/mp3 radio! thats a good one when it comes to soud system on your car!

[fatal1]

Well i looked at a few eclipse's but all the one's i looked at had really bad rating plus i kinda want a hard drive based navigation and the eclipse i looked at as well as the pioneer are dvd based


actually eclipse was the first ones to come out with hdd navi...thier navi isn't as "user friendly" but it is one of the best out there...i had an older model a few years back the 2454 (dvd based) *i think and it was one of the best i had ever owned... there are a lot of models out there...pioneer is easier to use and is very good as well as i have had them as well

[bmxmike]

Well the Kenwood arrived today and looks great. Lots of manuals, The manual is so big that each different language has it's own manual. Then the navigation has it's own manual... Lots of wires that i had to go through to figure out what was what. Took me a sec to figure out which was the remote wire for amp. One thing about it is that the remote wire has 2 settings Pulse and Constant, don't know what you would need a pulse for but you can adjust the pulse rate and voltage. Then also on the sub outputs it actually has adjustable amp settings. Can't wait to install it, didn't get it till 9p.m. cause they shipped to Maple De. instead of Maple Dr., Luckily UPS knew what they meant so install tommrow and pics.

[fatal1]

cool cool kenwood has great units as well but i never had any experience w/ thier navi, which is the reason i couldnt give a good reccomendation on it obviously...the pulse is usually the "pulse speed sensor" i dont know for the 7g but for the 8 it is a yellow/black wire on the harness but you will have to get a diagram for the 7g and find where the speed pulse wire is

[rez887]

Avic N3 FTW!!!!

[bmxmike]

Well the pulse wire is coming out of the unit it self and is the one giving off wattage i hooked up a multimeter and it would jump from 0 to 12v a couple of times really quickly could

[cntrylvr79]

cool cool kenwood has great units as well but i never had any experience w/ thier navi, which is the reason i couldnt give a good reccomendation on it obviously...the pulse is usually the "pulse speed sensor" i dont know for the 7g but for the 8 it is a yellow/black wire on the harness but you will have to get a diagram for the 7g and find where the speed pulse wire is

Jjust for the sake of completeness, the 99-02 8g has the speed sense wire as stated above. The 03 8g on the other hand has the speed sense wire, same color, located at the diagnostics plug.

[bmxmike]

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b73/xbox360ghost/102_0313.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b73/xbox360ghost/102_0312.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b73/xbox360ghost/102_0311.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b73/xbox360ghost/102_0310.jpg
Works great

[PogiGreg]

That is a very nice fit. Congrats on the install. http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/images/smilies/headbang.gifWhat wire was the VSS wire? Where did you tap into it from?

[bmxmike]

?? VSS what do you mean? I already had a amp wire run so hooked that up and rest was just plug and play. As for the parking brake wire you just ground it to bypass it. The bad thing about the parking brake is you have to have it on to change a destination in the gps or see your route. It wont even show you when your at a stop. Good thing kenwood has never changed that feature! lol