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Review 2 of 2
Price Paid:
$210.00
from mr2guy @ ebay Year / Model Reviewed:
2002 DXZ925 #R Summary:
The DXZ925 is something I had only dreamed about owning when I first saw it, but thanks to fantastic deals on refurbished units, I now have one in my car. My last system consisted of a Clarion ARX7370 cassette receiver, EQH5100 equalizer/crossover, and CDC635 disc changer.
This unit offers so many ways to shape the sound within your car, it's just ridiculous. One of the processors in this unit is a Dolby Pro Logic II decoder, which produces genuine 5.1 surround sound from your average 2 channel recording. It is optimized for 5+1 channel systems, but can be used without a centre channel to very similat effects. When in PLII mode, you can adjust several parameters to modify the soundfield to you liking, but to be honest I haven't even scratched the surface of the Pro Logic mode. Seems like it would be useful to achieve a more ambient sound.
The feature I use most is the AC Processor II. This feature has two main modes. When in Standard mode, you can select from 6 preset sounds, or you can create your own sounds by adjusting diffusion, vehicle length and vehicle width, and store these settings in memory. To be honest, I haven't played with this mode enough to achieve a decent sound, and the presets sound like crap to me. I like to use the Pro mode. In this mode, you have 5 presets for different seating positions in the car, and again you can tweak them to your heart's content. This mode allows you to adjust the time alignment and speaker gain for each individual channel, which is marvelous for custom-tailoring different sounds. You can save up to six of your own settings for instant recall, but best of all, this deck allows you to assign names to all of your settings, a feature that I had always wished I had for my previous system.
As if all that isn't enough, the unit also features a built-in 3 band parametric equalizer. It took a bit of getting used to after years of using a graphic EQ, but now I'm really enjoying it. This feature gives you 6 presets for different car types. When you enter 'adjust' mode, you can select from a wide variety of centre frequencies, adjust the gain, and set the Q value at 1, 5, 7, or 20. You can make all of these adjustments to the front and rear channels seperately, and save the settings as custom presets. Or, you can opt to turn off all this fancy crap and hear the pure unprocessed signal.
Apart from all these features, you can also adjust the subwoofer volume, which is easily accessed with one button, the crossover frequencies (not available in all modes), and lota of 'extras' like contrast, illumination colour, screen savers, etc.
The sound quality of this deck is a big step up from what I'm used to. 4 volt RCA outputs provide lots of juice for my amp, resulting in a much cleaner sound that is free of background hiss. CD playback is incredibly clean and detailed, presumably thanks to the dual 24-bit D/A converters. I can make out far more details in the sound than I could with my last system, which brings me that much closer to home-audio sound in my car. Overall, I'm very impressed by how my system sounds with this unit in control.
Cosmetically, I love the look of this deck, especially at night. Some find it repulsive, but it works for me. Also, whereas most companies are forced to cram 15-20 buttons and a fancy display all on one panel, Clarion's unique dual-action design allows for a superior button layout. The display is equally impressive.
At first, I found this unit to be dauntingly complex, and the user manual only compounded my confusion. Once I stopped trying to figure out the stupid manual, it became much easier to operate, and I now find it quite fun to navigate through the different menus and play with various sounds. In spite of all appearances, it is a user-friendly unit. Strengths:
-Unprecedented signal processing features virtually eliminate the need for external processing.
-Fabulous cosmetics and layout
-Clean, clear, powerful sound reproduction
-Can be connected to an endless number of peripheral components for a complete A/V system Weaknesses:
-When the control panel is in it's upright position, everything's fine. However, when you drop that panel to reveal the inner display, everything tilts upwards! Mounted in the dash of my '99 Civic sedan, it is very difficult to read the display in daylight due to the angle of the screen. And the control panel is angled so that it blocks part of the lower display. This was disappointing at first, but I'm getting used to it now...
-Crappy intruction manual. Similar Products Used:
Clarion ARX7370 w/ EHQ5100 & CDC635
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