Pioneer FH-P8000BT installed (sweet double-DIN action)

W

warwick5s

Member
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18 CX9
Got my Pioneer FH-P8000BT installed for real last night.

P1040002.jpg

P1040018.jpg

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What I didn't know was that it also required the Pioneer double-din install kit, which was another $50, but it it was still a very easy install.

Likes
  • The bluetooth phone feature is outstanding. Pairing the phone was easy, and it pulled all of the contacts off my iPhone no sweat. Now if I get a call it mutes the music and shows who's calling, I can just hit answer and talk through the car, and when I hang up it goes back to the music. The sound quality, according to my friends, is great and sounds like I'm talking on the phone normally. I mounted the microphone on the side of the instrument cluster for now, but I might try to hide it up in the headliner.
  • I'm still going to throw in some new speakers and an underseat sub just to monkey with things, but it sounds great even on stock speakers.
  • OEM look. This one was really important to me: I didn't want something that looked like a boombox or had images of satellites and dragons or whatever whooshing back and forth, and I didn't want something with a trillion buttons on it. The multi-control wheel takes a little getting used to but it didn't take long at all to be able to use it without looking at it.
  • Has an aux in and a USB in, and the iPod control is fast and very easy to use. You can plug USB mass storage devices or iPods directly in.
  • BRIGHT display. Can see it in direct sunlight with no issues.

Dislikes
  • Apparently you can only plug in 5g+ iPods directly, anything older requires the external, older iPod adapter. This is fine with my iPhone, but I had a 4g black and white 20gb I had put a new hard drive in expecting to just leave it in the glovebox. Sucks.
  • Inconsistencies in the multi-control. In some menus you spin the wheel to get from option to option, and press right to confirm, other menus you press right to go from option to option and press in to confirm...
  • The dimmer isn't turned on by default, and without that this thing is blindingly bright at night.

Overall I couldn't be happier with it. My plan is to eventually add XM or Sirius to it, and get a compatible iPod to stash in the glove compartment all the time eventually, but a bunch of mp3 CDs and my iPhone will work for now.

And here's what she's in, ol' Salty:

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Nice choice; I've been contemplating this unit as I've had nothing but Pioneer in the past for in car.

How does the "cool blue" display contrast with the interior dash at night (I saw your pic)? I would love it if it toggled the color.
 
Until I figured out that there was a way to turn on the illumination dimmer I thought it was really overpowering and distracting at night. Now that I found it I think it works quite well. Of course it would look better red but I think it looks nice.
 
Nice! What a coincidence, I had been contemplating getting this HU for my Acura and just wandered in here not expecting to see this...

How do you like the knob control? None of the local places had the doubleDIN version so I played with the DIN ones. The knob didn't feel as firm as I'd like and the menus did seem to suck, but most HUs usually have a learning curve unless you had one of their predecessors.

Oh, one other question. What does it use for rear aux input, RCA?
 
khaosman said:
Nice! What a coincidence, I had been contemplating getting this HU for my Acura and just wandered in here not expecting to see this...

How do you like the knob control? None of the local places had the doubleDIN version so I played with the DIN ones. The knob didn't feel as firm as I'd like and the menus did seem to suck, but most HUs usually have a learning curve unless you had one of their predecessors.

Oh, one other question. What does it use for rear aux input, RCA?
Click to expand...

The knob has taken some getting used to, but I think if you press it more like it's a button, rather than moving it like a joystick, it seems to make more sense. It seems pretty tight though, spinning the knob has a very mechanical feel to it.

The rear aux input is a 1/8" stereo jack.
 
I am down to a choice of two Pioneers, the DEH-8000BT and DEH-7000BT(single din)
Both have pretty much same specs, other than the 8000 has a 7 band equalizer and of course the 3 line display.

I can't find any info on if the three lines actually give you any useful information more than the one line when scrolling through menu's , USB memory device, or an IPOD song list.

Does all three lines get used in a menu or iPod list. Or does 2 of the lines stay with static info (say source & date/time) and only 1 line scroll?

I'm hoping it uses all three lines when listing, as it would give a lot more context navigating lists than a single line.

How does the three line display work in this unit?
 
sorry to bump this thread, but I'm giving serious consideration to this headunit. Warwick, what are your long term impressions of this unit? I'm asking because my choice is down to this or a Kenwood DDX712 which is a DVD touchscreen unit.
 
Sorry for the delay in reply, I'm not around these parts very often...

I still love this deck. I was worried a little bit about the knobstick loosening up over time, but it's still as tight as the day I got it. No glitches or anything, but that's pretty typical Pioneer quality. I wasn't as neat as I should have been with the wiring, and there's a rattle somewhere, so I'll need to pull it and use some cable ties. Also, the little plastic trim piece that's part of the installation kit SUCKS and doesn't click in all the way, so it rattles too after it works itself loose, requiring me to push on it a bit to click it in. I'm curious what people with AVIC's or other Pioneer DoubleDIN decks do about this.

The UI is fine once you get used to it, but it does take some getting used to. Clicking SOURCE to cycle through sources instead of having a button for CD, button for Radio, etc, bugs me, but I internalized how many clicks to get from place to place fairly quickly. Setting radio presets isn't intuitive but is easy once you know what to do, as it is with accessing most of the secondary functions. All your interfacing is done through a scroll knob, four directional arrows, a Source, a Band, and a List button. Sometimes it gets confusing because it's not always consistent. The other main issue I have with it is that scrolling through large amounts of information, whether it be files, iPod tracks, or names in your phonebook, takes a lot of knobstick spinning. When scrolling through information it does give you three lines, which rules.

The shuffle function is kind of wonky, so if you use that you'll want to read the manual. Turning it off is not the inverse of turning it on.

I don't want to make it sound like this thing's a b**** to use; in day to day usage you won't hit anything that's weird and it's very easy to get around.

I ended up grabbing a 5th gen iPod, and it works wonderfully. You can customize what info from the track you're seeing on the display, and it has two lines of info with scrolling if it's long. My iPhone doesn't play as nice with the USB connection, as sometimes I'd switch sources or make a call and when I switched back it wouldn't mount the disk. I have a first gen iPhone so I'm not sure if the 3G ones are different.

The sound quality with iPod tracks or CD's is insane even with stock speakers. The phone function is incredible and I could not live without it.

All in all I still highly recommend it.
 
thanks for your long term impressions. the more I read, the more I'm leaning towards buying this. Do you by chance have any night time pics of the head unit to see how much of a contrast it is to the orange lights?
 
Got me one of those too

I just found out about this forum and was going to let you all know about that sweet double DIN stereo, until I found out someone already had. It is truly amazing. I'm kind of a tech geek and have 3 different cell phones I swap back and forth with (HTC 6700, LG 8600, BlackBerry 8830) and the nice thing was - it seamlessly syncs with all of them and stores all three of them in memory. Also, I used the USB port on the back side to run a USB extension cord down into the ash tray (I don't smoke, so might as well put it to use), and use that as a holster for my flash drive. Also, am running a Cerwin Vega 1600 watt (RMS) amp and single Alpine 12" Type R 2-ohm. Just put in Blaupunkt front door speakers, but since the cold weather came I haven't had quite the motivation to install the new rear door speakers, since I had to wait so long for the conversion kit (convert from 7" down). I also got the Pioneer HD radio add-on and installed it under the passenger seat. I must admit the Pioneer HD unit is kind of stubborn at times and will actually turn off the head unit. Not a problem though, you just need to turn it back on. The other problem I have run into, which may be out of the league of what some of the users here want to do - although I have a 2 farad capacitor hooked up, I am still getting electrical dimming. It is even as bad as when I only had a 1 farad capacitor hooked up. Someone suggested changing the cables that run from the alternator to the battery from 8 gauge to 4 gauge since overall with the Bluetooth, HD tuner, and amp; I am pulling a lot of juice - but I'm not sure of it. (By the way, if you do install this, DO NOT turn the radio on and attempt to set up your bluetooth device with it without the car running. Having the bluetooth feature running for about 5 minutes without the car running will cause even a brand new battery to need to be jump started.) Another side note about the first guy to post - you really paid $50 for an installation kit? As far as I could find, there was only 1 company that even made one (Metra? Metro?) and between Crutchfield and eBay, the going rate was aron $20. Lucky for me, it is a piece of s*** and I had to modify it to keep the radio from flying at me every time I dropped it down a gear and so when I called Crutchfield to complain, they said they were aware it was trash and reimbursed me. But, it can be easily modified with the right combination of washers and screws and will sit nicely now.
If anyone has any suggestions as to my lack of power problem, please let me know. Also, if you need any advice installing this or other items, I had my PR5 apart for a good week puttng all of this stuff in (luckily my girlfriend was out of the country and left me the keys to her car), and I've come up with all sorts of creative ways to get this to work.
 
The unit looks nice in your dash.

Can you change the color of the buttons so they are red/amber?
 
I have this deck as well. I like all the features that it has. I still haven't looked at the manual but I was able to do almost everything. I changed all the presets for audio, and linked my bluetooth (HTC 6800 Mogul) amoung other things. The only thing I haven't figured out is the radio stations and clock. I would recommend buying this unit because the looks are beautiful, and it is very clean.

Though it collects dust as if it were postage stamps.
 
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