Clarion DXZ815MP

Price Paid:  $240.00 from ebay

Year / Model Reviewed:
 DRZ835

Strengths:
I'm impressed with the FM reception. CDs play good. MP3s and WMAs play fairly easy. Not bad to work with but not the best. Has a good power output and overall I have impressed with the sound.

Weaknesses:
The display is the worst I have ever used on anything! If you turn on a flashlight at night, it will drown out the display. Clarions advertises that it has over 700 colors to display but I still can't get it to match my BMW's orange interior lights and that is the main reason I bought this unit, was to match. You can adjust red blue and green colors to custom make your display color. Hello Clarion, ever heard of primary colors? Red, Blue and YELLOW? Very disapponting. The outside border is made os chrome color and blinds you when teh sun hits it going down teh road and really sticks out as a gaudy piece of junk. It look like it should be hanging off a harley instead of blending in with the interior of a car. Some people may like that, if so, go for it, otherwise stick with another brand. It is impossible to read during the day. If you don't need to read your display, then this radio will work. Overall the bad outweighs teh good on this 2003 model. Wish i could get my money back.

Summary:
This is the DRZ835 model (Clarion's 2003 lineup) but took place of the one in this review. Performed great in some areas and very poorly in some. Good FM pickup, good CD operation, good power. Display is advertised as a strength but the worst I have ever used. Chrome finish is putrid and hurts your eyes.

Similar Products Used:
Alpine, kenwood, Pioneer

Price Paid:  $0.00

Strengths:
XOver point control

Weaknesses:
MP3 filenames and tags

Summary:
This is a pretty cool head unit. I had some trouble with the MP3 navigation at first, but once I knew what I was doing (i.e. I read the manual), it was a snap. I like how you can set the Gain, and Q for the cross over points. It needs to have better capabilities for the MP3 filenames and tags. Overall, a real nice unit.

Price Paid:  $175.00 from ebay

Year / Model Reviewed:
 2001 Clarion DXZ815MP

Strengths:
Excellent sound quality. Plays MP3s. Looks great. I bought it for next to nothing.

Weaknesses:
MP3 navigability is lacking. Cheesey Screen Savers.

Summary:
I think this is one of the coolest head units i have had the pleasure of owning (and i've had alot of 'em. -- mostly alpine and clarion). I'll admit that some of the MP3 navigation utilitys could use some help, but the sound quality and the the ability to integrate with other devices via the net cable make it all worth it.

Price Paid:  $249.00 from Car Strero Parts 4 l

Year / Model Reviewed:
 2001

Strengths:
Great price point for a unit that has the 24 bit DAC processing, and some flexible on board EQ modes, and enough 4 volt output to receive reasonable clean signal to the amps. Motorized flip down faceplate.

Weaknesses:
Build quality can be better, but sturdy face plate.

Summary:
I have DXZ715. I didn''t need the MP3 items. And I did not want to spend a huge amonts of money for a head unit. I mainly use my CD. I also want motorized flip down faceplate more to impress my friends. I knew that this item wasn''t going to be gound breaker. I was looking for above average head unit that had 24 bit DAC ablities. I was surprised that this one had it at this price point.(Under $300 range). Others in this range usually cost $600 and up. I had called Clarion to find out why such an good deal. The tech help guy mentioned that they are using "in house" components instead of vendor component, and this allows them to have better control over the overall cost the unit. OK, I buy that. Then, the next question is how good are these alternative components? I will see when I bought and install the head unit. Now that I have everything installed, compared to head I had in the past (Pioneer P1R,tops; Eclipse 5506,5504, and 5301, and Sony c910,currently own) I would say it is a modestly good performing unit for an item that has the feature I was looking for, and the basic features included for this price point.

Similar Products Used:
PIoneer P1R; Eclipse 5506, 5504, 5301; Kenwood 6001; Sony C910

Price Paid:  $325.00

Year / Model Reviewed:
 2001 Clarion DXZ815MP

Strengths:
I. CHEAP
II. Play's MP3's right from a CDR media (I have used 700 and 800 meg CDR's with no problem)
III. Re-emphasize # II

Weaknesses:
I. This is a low end deck with MP3 added, don't expect the competition series features (this is why I also have the DPH910)
II. Very akward menu navigation in comparison to other Clarion decks I have used. This could also just be a sloppy hack to add the DSP menus to the deck.
III. The MP3 support is "limited" to say the least. It does NOT support ID3 tags in any way, it even warns that certain MP3's with ID3 tags will not play at all (hasn't happend to me yet). The MP3 names must be all lower case, or all upper case and can only be 31 characters in length with no spaces.

Summary:
I purcahsed this product for the sole reason that it plays MP3's raw from an ISO formatted CDR. In this it works great, even with the limitations that I have to believe are imposed not to hurt the next generation of Clarion high end decks. I would consider this deck a downgrade from any current high end Clarion in almost all respects. HOWEVER, it DOES play MP3's which is REALLY cool. The menu's are akward and hard to navigate and without the nice DPH910 DSP it's features are limited.

You should buy this product if the idea of playing CDR's that have MP3's on them (lots of MP3's/CD). You should NOT buy this product if you are already using a really high end deck and wouldn't use the MP3 feature much. This deck's main strength is in the MP3 playback, it isn't a pro deck.

Similar Products Used:
Other Clarion Decks, Winamp . This deck cannot compete with the current high end line of Clarions, but none of them play MP3's so make the call :)