23 replies to this topic

[fordfalcon460]

Gday. Prior to yesterday, i considered myself pretty knowledgable in car audio. I have a alpine head unit, audison amps, etc etc, not bad stuff (i thought so anyway).

Now i met this guy yesterday from NZ, and he was a really chilled bloke, and he had spent over 6 grand on his car system. He said that he has been into car audio for a very long time, and that Pioneer easily make the best head units in the buisness.

I was looking for some new splits, thinking along the lines of Focal, Morel, Boston etc etc, and again, he said that Pioneer is by far the best for speakers. It is not often that i hear people say anything good about Pioneer, which is why his information concerned me.

Can u guys please just tell me that he was full of sh!t and that Pioneer is no way as good as these other brands? I know a lot of quality car audio is to do with personal preference, but still.

Just out of interest, he was also saying that he had 3 subs in his car, a 15, 12 and 10! I can tell when someone is bullsh!ting, and this guy wasnt. He was sincierly a good friendly bloke, and i had no reason to think anything he was saying is untrue.

Cheers.

[Tiger]

Tell him he must steer clear for crack!!!

Look, they may make some nice gear, but it ain't one that I'd personally run out to the stores and go buy. We have some people on this forum that do swear by the gear, though. So I can't really say that they are crap, because I'll be up for an argument which usually takes 6 months of post whoring to settle!

However, that install of his with a 15, 12 and a 10? Well, he must be a mobile sound board for Pioneer, that's the only reason you'd want that setup in your boot... otherwise that is just absolutely ludachrist!

[Interceptor]

are they good? yup!
are they good value for money? provided you dont pay retail (only suckers do! lol), definitely yes!
are they the best available? you gotta be kidding..... right?

gaws, i love my pioneer stuff, but if i had the money to blow on a much better system, none of it would be pioneer, although i *may* make an exception for the HU

[Damon]

Anyone who claims 'this brand' or 'that brand' is the best in the world is showing thier obvious ignorance and/or brand bias. Each person has their very own wants or needs and therefore what ever is the best product for them should be based around these values and these values alone. No matter how many products Pioneer makes they can;t make everything perfectly for everyone. No brand can.

This is certainly not to say that Pioneer don't make some very good products when compared to their competitors. In the last issue of Auto Salon Magazine I reviewed half a dozen of the latest CD tuners in the $500 to $600 price range and, when carefully comparing all the features and measurements, I concluded that the Pioneer DEH-P5750 was the best unit of the bunch - but only by a very small margin. This was not to say that this is the only unit anyone should buy, however.

For example, if you wanted the single DIN DVD/CD tuner under $1,000 Pioneer wouldn't be able to help you since they don't offer any - yet JVC do with the KG-DV6105 for $599. Meanwhile, if you wanted a sub $600 Class-D amplifier before this year you would have had a choice of over a dozen models, yet Pioneer - the world's largest selling brand - only finally released one this year (the GM-7100M at $429).

Heck, if you want a CD tuner with a black front panel you don't have much choice in the Pioneer range 'coz all they make is silver face units.

Look man, some people think the Holden Commodore is the best car in the world. While it can be quite successfully argued that they are in fact wrong, all that matters is that the likely scenerio is that the Holden Commodore is the best car THEY'VE ever owned. This just shows thier lack of experience ro willingness to try other things. Maybe this is true of the guy you met and his Pioneer experience.

[Tiger]

Damon.... being a commo driver, I resent that comment... I KNOW it's the best car in the world!
HAHAHAHA!
Just kidding... nah, well put, dude. That last point you brought to our attention is so true. You can get so many stubborn people in this industry that are just stuck on the one brand, which happens to be 8 out of 10 cases one of the well known commercial brands.
Tell that guy to try Fusion or Cadence then.... the different colored Sony! hahahaha

[Damon]

Being a car audio reviewer I've had to keep an open mind to all products and brands, and no matter how good or bad my experience may have been with any brand I need to treat them fairly without any bias when I next review one of their products.

I have found this to be the best way to approach any car audio purchase, as the competitive nature of the business is such that there are always new leaders in each market segment every year. If you are open to that - and not blinkered by bias - then you'll always be buying the very best gear available at any given time.

[jas]

just remember even with average components a great install can make all the difference

pioneer makes some great products. If i had to use only one brand of equipment in my car then pioneer would be an excellent choice. The odr series mids and tweeters are excellent (i have yet to hear the new series but i bet they are awesome).

i heard a full pioneer odr setup in SA a while ago...absolutely amazing.

personally id choose focal utopia or dyn over pioneer ts-c splits but then again the price difference is huge, over 100%++ so you would EXPECT these other products to be better.

at the end of the day would i spend $6k on an entire pioneer system, NO i would prefer to mix and match...and its more fun to do so

[BlackIce]

The dudes put down serious dollars in the gear, naturally he'll say its the best. I wouldnt pump $6k into audio gear and say "Nah its not that good, I prefer Brand X".. I'd have bought Brand X instead.
Every brand has its pro's & con's, just get whatever you like... its your car, your money & your ears.

[KAL SPL]

10 , 12 and 15 " WTF ?

[~Spyne~]

^^^ indeed

the 'best' is very subjective, and as far as i am concerned, it means the most pleasing product available to me in my price range.

sure i could say that denon, nak, eclipse, pioneer p9 or clarion hxd2 is the best hu, but who am i kidding? there is no way i would be willing to cough up that sort of money for a hu.
so for me, the best hu would probably be, at this point in time, the one i bought which has everything i wanted at the price i could afford.

by the way, did this guy have his hand down his pants when he was telling u this rubbish?

[mutek]

^^^^ no but i have my hand down there now lol

ive only had a pioneer sub - i didnt like it for SQ but for SPL it was good bang for buck and didnt blow up on me - on average i used it for 2 yrs for at a minimum 40 mins everyday... but once you go to other brands you dont look back ... so go with your budget

[HISPL]

$6K for the deck and how much for the rest of the system?
$6k is nothing when you have a look at how much some people spend on systems for their vehicles.
Some of our customers have spent over $50k and one of them spent $180k on a boat!
If he spent $6k on the whole system then he obviously hasn't experienced what most manufacturers have to offer in terms of their flagship products.

[jas]

hispl:

pioneer do have the p9 combo and the odr stuff, have to say thats some of the best engineered product on the market, very impressive stuff.

and $6k on car audio is still a lot of money, yes people can spend more but youd have to say that $6k would put you into the rare 5% of car audio buyers

[fordfalcon460]

thanks for your advice guys, u only confirmed what i suspected. It is strange, i mean i was talkinh about lots of very specific **** with this guy, and he definately knew what he was talking about, but he had never even heard of Focal or Morel or any other fine brands.

I DONT KNOW, but maybe it was just that he lived in NZ, and they only have acccess to the mainstream stuff, in which case i to would probably pick Pioneer over sony and all the other JB HI FI Crap.

[Marlin]

Methinks theres to much sheep blood in his family.

[Fury♫]

NZ has heaps of decent gear.
Trust me, they sure as hell dont have a shortage

Mmmmm Arvus.

[SILVR6]

and he definately knew what he was talking about, but he had never even heard of Focal or Morel or any other fine brands.

I have talked to such people also, I believe its beacuse Focal and Morel are not as well advertised as Alpine, Sony, Kenwood.

[gooki]

Just out of interest, he was also saying that he had 3 subs in his car, a 15, 12 and 10!

I would steer clear of anyones advice who has a setup as per above.

[jas]

"3 subs in his car, a 15, 12 and 10! "

I would steer clear of anyones advice who has a setup as per above.

yeah true that sounds a bit unconventional

but well give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe it works well together, somehow.

[SQXPRT]

my pioneer stuff works ok
never had any blown gear, although my tweeters were a bit smelly at one time...

like any gear, you get what you pay for - if you buy crap, you get crap, no matter what price you paid for it.

if you buy the best you can afford, you will be happy knowing that you have the best you can afford.

ummmm, what else... oh yeah, I think Pioneer stuff is ok, but buy carefully and test-drive things where at all possible...

for example, my HU has almost no noise - unless you use the built-in EQ, then it's terribly noisy (still within the specs though) so, external EQ it is and no noise is the result. my old HU (also a Pioneer) had almost no noise, but lacked bass definition - so I upgraded.

[fordfalcon460]

True, Pioneer is OK, I love my Pioneer setup i have in my house, it is great, the speakers
and amp I bought new in about 98, i spent about 1500 bucks all up, and it has been completely problem free, and a very satisfying purchase.

(Except it has a rotary volume control, and sometimes when u turn it down it will rapidly go to max volume instead! Not cool.)

[1.3 carby]

I think there is never a best brand. It all depends on what you want from what you buy and what you can afford. For example I bought a Sony head unit, not because I like Sony or I believe Sonys the 'best' brand. The reason I bought it was that it was black, had decent features and output and finally it was an old model so it was on sale. In this case I got everything I wanted at a price I was comfortable with, in this case Sony was my best brand.

[SQXPRT]

excellent, so it's settled then
as per the marketing hype - every brand is the best... at something (except Boss)