New Pioneer Car Systems Launched

[JayD]

i think he's talking about the '9' series, ie 3090,4090 etc, which are official imports with B&W. whereas the ones on sale are the '5' series, which are grey market imports. Just like they had the 2950 and the 2990 in the prev generation.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

What I got is a 4050, .... Will post reviews after a week, at least -- going off early tomorrow for a 3 day trip ....

Here we go, as I promised.

The car - 6 month old Wagon R. This most ice unfriendly of the mid-budget hatchbacks currently available in India.

The ears - Though not a great acoustician I think I know where bass ends and the mid tones start. But can distinguish between music and noise

The music - Ghazal-bhajan-hindustani / carnatic classical - oldie film songs type, where everything is in MP3 format. I buy the CDs, and rip them to MP3s using grip-lame (on Debain GNU/Linux).

That is great way of preserving the original media you have. It is a right royal PITA to find that the (cassettes in the early days) and the CDs going to the dogs after a couple of weeks' listening.

The plan - Given the tastes, was not looking for big boom-boom, but wanted to distinguish between tabala and phakwaj.

The budget - 10K !! Over shot by a mere 1.2k. Total 11.2K

Constraints - No modification of what can be seen from the passenger compartment. Though I did have a good mind to get the ovals in rear door panels, I finally decided against that, since beewee "the boss" did not want to modify the door panels. Neither of us liked the idea of having a parcel tray. Couple of installers I met were not comfortable with puting speakers-in-the quarter glass (discussed in another thread on this forum). That left us with the rear hatch as the only solution.

The set up - DEH P 4050 UB HU with 4 pioneer speakers. Front 4" in the stock location in the dash and 6 x 9 ovals in the rear hatch door.

The result

I do get music - (what I consider) good music - from this using pioneer speakers. I am paying the price for not jumping through the proper hoops and putting the speakers in the appropriate places. There were 5 adults and a 1 year old in the car for the Ernakulam - Kanyakumari - Trivandrum trip (about 700 KM round trip done in 3 days). The sparse Luggage in boot space was absorbing plenty of output from the ovals.

Most of the music I have are in the form of MP3 cds, with most of the original CDs being scratched. Did not (and will not) risk the scratched CDs on a brand new HU. I did not have much time to build up a good album /collection of CDs from the music on the HDDs here and given the short time available, the collection was very haphazardly arranged. I also took the USB pendrive cum MP3 player with me.

But in spite of all the disadvantages, ICE in the family is hotter than all audio systems inside the home.

We are quite happy with the current set up, but I may upgrade of change location of the speakers later on.


HU Controls

The install was done day before we left and I did not have the time to spend with the car when it was being ICEd. The car reached home late in the evening, and we started at 6.30 in the morning. For an absolute newbie to operating sophisticated complex hi-tech rockets like car HUs, it was a surprise to find that simply popping in a CD was all that it takes to get music flowing out.

Using the USB pendrive/MP3 player was an absolute cake-walk. Just open the protective cap on the HU's cable, connect the pendrive, and lo!! the music comes out, and that was a few Msec faster than popping in the CD.

The HU reads info in the pendrive as a file system, and recurses the directories and subdirectories.

Most of the operations were done using the remote (cannot read the controls). The blue LCD with segment type fonts is good for reading during the day time and night driving also, but is not very pleasing for the eyes. And I do find that "always on" back lights on the HU a bit irritating. I want the lights to remain off when I am not playing music.

As the yeti says in his magazine article (look for the thread elsewhere), ICE IS a necessity. GIven the traffic conditions on Tvm - Balaramapuram - Kaliyikkavila - Amaravila - Nagarcovil stretch of NH 47, I guess I might have ended up in an asylum instead of home if the car was not ICE'd up before the trip. Tvm - KK through the stretch took a mere 3 hours to cover 86 KM.

[s0uljah]

Originally Posted by JayD

i think he's talking about the '9' series, ie 3090,4090 etc, which are official imports with B&W. whereas the ones on sale are the '5' series, which are grey market imports. Just like they had the 2950 and the 2990 in the prev generation.

Agreed, but viddy has posted official pricing and images of the models slotted for India.

[sudhi_des]

New Update:
Here in Faridabad 4050 is of Rs.5500 and 5050 is around Rs.6400 (both withoutout bill and warrenty)

[knownstrangerr]

HI ppl I just have fixed a Pioneer 5050 HU with jbl speakers in chennai the entire set up costed me 11k with bill n 6 months warranty i havent listened to set much but from what i have used it sounds gr8 n has a good punch with my jbl gto 937 oval will try to post some pics of it soon. I wanna know if its a good buy or if i have paid more

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Originally Posted by sudhi_des

New Update:
Here in Faridabad 4050 is of Rs.5500 and 5050 is around Rs.6400 (both withoutout bill and warrenty)

Sure about the price?? I paid 6.5 for the 4050. Looks like was taken for a ride!!!

[Delta9]

regarding the ipod connection wire, is this the same as the one supplied with the ipod ?? how much does it cost in the grey market ?? has anyone tried the ipod wire on the pioneer systems ??

[Mugen_Power]

Originally Posted by Delta9

regarding the ipod connection wire, is this the same as the one supplied with the ipod ?? how much does it cost in the grey market ?? has anyone tried the ipod wire on the pioneer systems ??

Which wire you got with ipod ? there are two types of pioneer wires available.

[s0uljah]

Originally Posted by Delta9

regarding the ipod connection wire, is this the same as the one supplied with the ipod ?? how much does it cost in the grey market ?? has anyone tried the ipod wire on the pioneer systems ??

Some models use the "aux in" to connect ipods. Here you need to use a 3.5 MM RCA type cable. One goes into the aux plug of your HU, the other into the headphone plug of your ipod.

If you have an ipod ready HU (eg : 7950) then you can use the cable that came with your iPod. This also enables you to charge the iPod through the HU while in use.

Alternatively you can buy the Pioneer CDIU50 cable

If Im not mistaken you got the 5050 right?

[Delta9]

yes i bought the 5050 yesterday, it says that the HU is ipod ready, i also have an ipod - which camw with a sync wire for conecting to the computer (data cable), [img=http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/6871/61812209mg7.jpg]

i was wondering if this same wire could be used for connecting to the HU or is there some difference in the data cable we get with the ipod and the CDIU50 cable which pioneer sells.

ImageShack - Hosting :: 61812209mg7.jpg

i also have the 3.5 mm RCS cable for connecting the ipod through aux, but then this would not allow me to control the songs in the ipod through the HU nor will it charge the ipod.

thanks

[Delta9]

i am not very sure, but i think there are two models, 3050mp and 3050ub the later comes with the USB connection i think, not very sure.

about the CDIU50 cable, any idea how much does it cost in grey market ??
got the 5050 for 6600 in grey.

[speedzak]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

Sure about the price?? I paid 6.5 for the 4050. Looks like was taken for a ride!!!

Oh my god! Where did you buy it from?

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Originally Posted by speedzak

Oh my god! Where did you buy it from?

Banerjee Road - Market Road junction.

Actually, thsi shop looked better when I was looking around for a lower end system. Thought that they will be cheaper for the whole thing.

Now I need to verify if the speakers are also worth. I could not be there during the install, and only the rear ovals are visible.

[Magma]

i was quoted 900rs for the i pod cable here in mumbai! the CD 1200 i think. So the other one should be as expensive

budget choices ( 5600-6600 bucks grey)

4950 - 5500rs 3rca + Aux in + 5 band EQ for USB and i pod direct control you will have to buy seperate wires 750-900rs )
5950 - 5700rs 3rca + Aux in + 5 band EQ + motorised faceplate ( for USB and i pod direct control you will have to buy seperate wires 750-900rs )
4050 - 5800-6000rs 3rca + Aux in + 5 band EQ + USB wire included (for i pod direct control you will have to buy seperate wires 750-900rs )
4090 - 5800-6000rs 3rca + Aux in + 5 band EQ + motorised faceplate +USB wire included (for i pod direct control you will have to buy seperate wires 750-900rs )
5050 - 6500-7000rs same as 4090
5090 - 6500-7000rs same as 4090

For all choices you will have to buy Aux in wire for 100rs

Somebody please correct me if need be

[Delta9]

4950 was available for 4900 when i went to buy the HU in santacruz (west), aux wire 100 bucks, no idea about ipod wire, did not ask.