Opinions on the best in dash HU's w/nav & ipod
 

Looking for an indash unit like the top of the line Pioneer with Navigation and ipod connectability. Could I hear some reviews from owners? Thanks. BTW- Searched and found lots of people talking about various HU's, but i'd like to see a thread on users opinions only please. Again, thanks.

I would go Pioneer, great products, not too expensive.

My setup:
-Pioneer AVH-P6800DVD, double din HU with 6-disc Changer, DVD Player
-Pioneer CD-IB100II , iPod Interface
-Pioneer CD-BTB100, Handsfree Bluetooth Adapter

My thoughts:

AVIC-line of HU's:
Pros:
-Z1 has built in hardrive for music
-Navigation

Cons:
-Load time on AVIC-Z1 is slow
-Hacks so that you can watch dvd while car is in motion are a REAL pain
-Navigation's 'wow' factor gets old quick
-that GPS reciever sticks out on your dash like a sore thumb.
-hardrive on Z1 can be damaged, replacement would be $$$

So that left me with the AVH line of HU's. Of this line, only one that is doubledin is the p6800dvd and you GOTTA HAVE double din a 350Z. i fell in love with the 6-disc changer, and that the HU can actually play DVD movies.

AVH Line of HU's:
Pros:
-6-disc changer
-DVD Player
-dvd movie hack is REAL easy, just ground the light green wire)

Cons:
-No Navigation, but easily added.

And let me tell you something, if you have a bluetooth phone. GET THE BLUETOOTH adapter, the wow factor never gets old. whenever you have someone in the car and the phone starts ringing and you just touch your screen and start talking, the look on their face is priceless. the girls love it. the ipod interface is a MUST if yo uhave an ipod.

The great thing about buying your headunit's manufacturer ipod/bluetooth/etc interfaces is that everything gets controlled on the touchscreen. No fumbling around with the ipod, pressing any button on the phone..You just get in, turn the key, and everything just works. I have friends with lots of **** in their car, and everytime time they want to do something different they have to reach for another remote or push another button. WTF is that?? i get in their cars and its like im sitting in my living room, 5 remotes just to listen to some music or watch a movie.

simplicity is key, blending form and function

my .02c

Nice review.

How difficult is it to install the bluetooth phone adapter to the HU and configure it?

Very good post ^^^.

I agree as far as pioneer goes. The z1 is phenominal in my opinion. Hard drive for navi makes it faster, bluetooth is interface is awesome, nav is top of the line, ripping cd's and having an ipod makes keeping cd's around in the car pointless, which is great because z's are limited in space anyways. I don't necessarily agree that hacking the z1 is a pain in the ass. Hacking the z1 is simple as grounding two wires if you have a z1 that was manufactured after july 06. If you have one manufactured before that its as easy as flashing your headlights when the z1 is booting up! Very good z1 forums out there to make hacking everything up to the point of hacking the actual hard drive pretty easy.

You'll get better ipod integration with other units but other units won't do everything for you in one convient headunit without the need for navigation brain units and all the other items that take up a bunch of space that we don't have. The ipod is good enough for me paired with everything else it does to make this a great purchase.

Once you set it up, it hooks up to your car. Everytime you get in and turn on the car it automatically connects itself to your phone. Intial setup my be a somewhat pain with transfering all your contacts one by one, (unless you have a verizon phone, then you can't transfer any contacts and have to imput them yourself one by one) but once you get it set up, its good to go.

Unless of course you dont want to take advantage of having caller id on the headunit, but who the hell wouldn't want that.

Pairing your bluetooth phone with the pioneer HU is a cinch.

Choose TEL and the source, touch Function button, press Search. and the Headunit will scan for all nearby phones and connect to them.

this pairing is only done once. Once youve done it, everytime you get in the car the phone automatically connects to the HU and youre good to go!

Adding your contact list is very handset dependant. Some phone companies lock their phones down so it wont play nice with any other equipment, such as sharing contacts, or media. I have a blackberry for instance, and it went through just fine, i didnt have to add one by one. But again, this is a limitation of your CELLPHONE, not the Pioneer Bluetooth Adapter.

Ill post some pics, maybe even a small mpg, of my setup later tonight.

Thanks guys. I really want one of these HUs. I usually install stuff like this myself. Does Pioneer have the easy harnesses to basically plug and play for the 350Z?

Again, thanks for the valuble info. Looking forward to the clip.

You need:

-Wiring harness(standard across all years),
metra part #70-7550

-Doubledin dash kit
03-05, metra part#99-7402
2006+, metra part# 99-7602

You can get both from crutchfield, you get both free if you buy the HU from them. or you can find one of our sponsors around the forum and buy from them.

Thanks for the review. One question though. Is it DD 5.1 capable ? Thanks

Eclipse AVN50D is what I got and I love it.

Great review, thanks. How does your Pio look with the Metra dash kit, custom, like it came from the factory? Please post pics when you have time. Also, does the Pio have the option to keep your steering wheel controls? I have gotten attached to mine :-) Last question, can the display be configured to match the Z interior lighting? Thanks.

John

Alpine IVA W200 $999.00
Alpine Blackbird portable nav. $599.00
Alpine Blackbird dock $199.00
Alpine Ipod cable $29.99

This is an awsome setup, when the blackbid is docked you have full
nav control on the HU.(touchscreen) And you also have the flexability to use the Blackbird in any other vehicles you might have. Alpine also has one of the fastest
Ipod interfaces around. I have the W200 in my Z and in my Xterra, and all
I do is move the Blackbird from one cradle to another.

^^I'd love to see pics of that setup.

If I had to do it over again, I would probably switch my setup. I have the Kenwood DDX-8017 with Ipod connection. The Kenwood Ipod functionality sucks. For Nav, right now I have a Garmin Street Pilot 2720 in the nav cubby. It is being replaced by a Kenwood GNA-510 and LZ-702W touchscreen. Should be one hell of a setup once it's in.

I will agree with chrisjennings...I have the exact same Alpine set up,,,listed above. I love it....The prices for the IVA W-200 and blackbird nav have dropped.

I have the avic z1 in my z. The boot time for navigation is around 15 seconds, music is maybe 5 seconds. I have the XM with navtrafic, that navtraffic is awesome. I have a long commute to work and knowing if there are problems ahead is great. The z1 has a button for XM traffic reports that is set by the user to their specific area, one toutch and it takes you right to the channel. The navrtaffic would only be useful if you live or drive in an area with support.
As for the bluetooth cellphone connection, it works as described but the person on the other end hears a real bad echo or reverb sound. I did update to mine that is supposed to help make it better but everyone tells me it sounds the same. There is another fix that I have not tried yet. That not withstanding the bluetooth works very well. As for the Ipod, it's true that the connection is slow but if you have your ipod organized it's very good. I have mine at about 40 gig's and organized pretty well but I would like to see it faster. Another thing for the Ipod, I had the connector for it in the cubby, now that I'm putting a lcd screen in there that's not an option I'm relocating it elsewhere. I found on a Minicooper site a docking box that will allow me to just slide the Ipod in and no more fussing with the cable.

Before I bought this setup I was looking at the Alpine unit and the Blackbird. I chose the pioneer over that because the alpine unit was having a problem if you connected the Ipod adapter the bluetooth phone would not work. Maybe that issue has been resolved by now.

I'm very happy with the Z1, made the bose speakers sound awesome, fittment is excellent and all the elements of the system integrate well with each other.

The Pioneer does have a connector in the harness for connecting the S/W controls, get PAC SWI-PS, The pioneer does have a connection so that it knows what settings the lights are in. It slowly dims the screen when ever lights are turned on and when in map mode 3-d the sky goes to stars and night sky. There is also a dynamics screen available in map mode, vehicle dynamics, basically it adds another speedometer measured by GPS, with two others selectable by the user, clock, positive/negative g-force and lateral G-force using the gyro in the unit. The z1 also will allow you to change the backround images and a few other things about the display.

fklentz,,,I think I read with the Alpine the choice was Sat radio or bluetooth. But, you are correct there is something there,,,,,I dont really care for bluetooth due to reviews of reception/sound quality,,and face it,,our interior is not hush,hush..LOL And, I have my car Ramaat'ed everywhere.

Not to hijack,,but would love to hear more about the Minicooper dock for ipod?

The Alpine also allows you to change the background images, if that is a deciding factor.

Your navigation project is the setup I really want to see (have). It offers some major advantages:
1) You are installing a really good monitor (the Kenwood LZ-702W).*
2) The Navigation unit, Kenwood KNA-G510 (aka, Garmin GVN 52) uses Garmin’s wonderfully intuitive software application interface. It is really good and easy to use.**
2) The Kenwood KNA-G510 navigation “black box” uses a ROM chip(with support via a SD slot) for mapping data and application software updates by downloading from the Garmin website***. This is a big performance advantage over DVD based navigation systems, and probably will also perform slightly better than HD based navigation systems. Certainly the ROM based system (e.g., the Kenwood KNA-G510) will be more reliable (no moving parts) and run with less noise than the others (Pioneer and Eclipse DVD and HD systems which pack all the components into a double DIN structure that requires a cooling fan).
3) The Kenwood KNA-G510 supports touch screen functions and also allows operation from a remote RF controller ****.
4) Since this is a component arrangement, you can update individual pieces when there is an advantage to do so without losing your entire investment. That is not possible with the double DIN all-in-one devices.

“The Tech” already knows all of the things I mention here (and certainly a lot more than I know). My thought was to offer some additional explanation on the Forum for people who do not have the time to fully investigate this stuff but who may want to install a really good navigation system for a reasonable price. I wanted to do this project (Kenwood LZ-702W Monitor with Kenwood KNA-G510 navigation “black box”) but totally turned chicken (and waited for someone else to do it). I’m no way anywhere near professional installer status. “The Tech” has stepped up to the plate (thank goodness).

--Spike

=== Footnotes ====

Caveats and other info on this install:

* The Kenwood LZ-702W monitor nearly matches the Farenheit installation that Paul350Z generously described (in words and pictures) in a thread on this Forum. The Farenheit (which Paul shows to be a perfect fit in the 2003 forward/upper cubby) millimeter dimensions are: 177.8 x 127x 22.8. The Kenwood LZ-702W monitor dimensions are: 177 x 121.5 x 34. So you can see that the monitors are nearly identical in size except for the depth. That probably is not a “stopper.” In Paul’s thread, he held the monitor in place in the upper/forward cubby by driving the re-used screws behind (and not into) the monitor. In the case of installing the Kenwood LZ-702W monitor (since it has 30% more depth), the screws will engage the plastic casing surrounding the monitor. You will probably need to add some strapping as well. I know that people have installed the Alpine TME-M770S (which has a depth of 28.5mm) in the upper/forward cubby space. The Alpine install also requires some additional strapping since the Alpine monitor is thicker than the Farenheit and does not fit perfectly (The cubby screws will not fit behind the Alpine monitor to hold it into place.). Another potential problem with the Kenwood LZ-702W monitor: The controls as well as the IR receptor for this monitor are on the lower border. With the monitor installed in the upper/forward cubby space of the Z, the lower border of the monitor (and it’s control panel) won’t be accessible. I’m not sure how you can run the darn thing. I guess we will let the “The Tech” figure this one out.

** The Kenwood KNA-G510 looks the same as the Garmin GVN. In fact Garmin is supplying this unit to Kenwood who labels it as Kenwood KNA-G510. The difference according to Garmin is that the Garmin GVN does not support touch screen functions. Say what? Same device but different functions?

*** The Kenwood KNA-G510 uses an SD slot (a good thing) for map data and software application updates. You can go onto the Garmin web page and download the updates. But you will need to do this on a computer running at least Windows XP, and you will need an SD card reader connected to your computer. It is a USB device that is not expensive. Alpine uses a DVD to update their data (Navteq maps). Garmin’s way is better since you can do an immediate download/update, and it often is free. But, you need the SD slot reader device (a one-time purchase). Updating via DVD (the way that Alpine, Pioneer, and others supply the consumer with new application software and updated Navteq maps) costs about $100 per update (about the price of a SD slot reader/recorder).

**** I sent email to Kenwood’s support people asking if you can use a remote RF controller to run the Kenwood KNA-G510 navigation box. They said yes you can, but they were unsure about the part number. I’m certain you can do this (since the Garmin GVN 52 also supports a remote RF controller). This KNA-G510 is a very new product and it will take a little bit of time for Kenwood’s support staff to get up to speed on the product.

:eek: Wow… long post (probably too long… so long it may not get read)

Iride
 

Here's a link to where I found it. I got mine yesterday. Not installed yet but tested it with my pc, worked perfect. I don't have the organizer shown in the picture, just the Iride. It comes with 3 mounting bosses on the flat side with screws.

http://new.minimania.com/web/AddedFr.../InvDetail.cfm

here the pics and vid from my pio setup with ipod and bluetooth.

http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01542.JPG
http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01543.JPG

Look ABOVE and BELOW , see what I mean by Pioneer looking factory. I love that look, not too flashy,no crazy color LED's that flood the interior of the car with light. Its even black which perfectly compliments the look of the Z. Pioneer FTW!

http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01544.JPG

LOOK closely to the left and right of each subwooofer!! youll see the Z logo embedded into the enclosure. NOBODY has this.
I bought this box from a local builder here in Miami, company name is ZONIX. $145. he also sells them on ebay. i HIGHLY recommend them. the guy met me at his warehouse at almost 10pm just so I could have it for the next morning for my install. real cool guy.

http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01545.JPG
http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01546.JPG
http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01549.JPG
http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01550.JPG
http://www.hoffshardware.com/images/350z/DSC01551.JPG

heres the walkthrough vid which shows taking a phonecall.
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