Pioneer DEH-P5500MP Car CD / MP3 Player

I originally bought this head unit to stick into my 1997 Pontiac Grand Am. I bought it mainly because of the features and the price. This is really my first Pioneer product, but I've heard great things about them before, so I decided to give them a try. I can't comment on the ease of installation because Circuit City installed it for me (I know nothing about car audio installation). After my good ol Grand Am met an unfortunate death in an accident, I later had Circuit City install my stereo into my new 2004 Hyundai Tiburon.

Out of the box, before you change any settings, you'll notice an increase in sound quality from your car's stock system. Mess around with the EQ a bit and the sound will just get better. Even on my Grand Am's stock speakers which were probably worth nothing compared to aftermarket speakers, the sound quality produced by this head unit was superb. Now my Tiburon has an Infinity sound system with a subwoofer, and it sounds a lot better than the Tiburon's stock system and really makes the subwoofer give you some extra "boom" that the stock system didnt.

I haven't really messed with the radio much at all, mainly just enough to test it and see how it works. And I liked what I saw. All the stations I listen to came in crisp and clear, even a station that my stock receiver had trouble picking up and my home stereo won't pick up at all. AM reception was also quite good without a lot of static that you sometimes hear.

Audio CD playback is awesome. The sound quality is amazing. Plus, it will read CD-TEXT information encoded on your disc. CD-TEXT info is stuff like artist/album name, as well as the name for each of the tracks on the CD. The only problem with CD-TEXT is that few store-bought CDs actually come with it encoded. Out of 100 or so CDs I own, I'd say less than 5 have it. However, if you burn your own audio CDs from MP3s on your hard drive or a mix from other CDs, most burning programs will let you burn the CD-TEXT info to the CD, which the head unit will read. Playback is simple. Put the CD in and it will play. The previous/next track buttons will let you skip around, that's all there is to it. And when you shut off the ignition and start up again, it will resume playback from where you left off which is nice. Also, it plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs without a problem. I just burn my favorite CDs in MP3 format to a CD-RW. When I get tired of listening to those albums, I erase the CD-RW and put on more albums

One of the best features of the 5500MP is MP3 playback. Burn your MP3s to a CD as data files, and you can easily stick 7 or 8 albums on a single disc, maybe more depending on how long the albums are and the bitrate you encode at. It's great for long car trips. Plus, it eliminates the need for a CD changer: it's cheaper to buy the 5500MP and burn an MP3 CD with your favorite albums than it is to get a non-MP3 playback headunit with a CD changer and load up the changer with your favorite CDs, and you get the same ability to play multiple CDs. But, of course, the 5500MP can control a CD changer should you choose to get one. After an experience with my Panasonic home stereo with MP3 playback having problems playing back a lot of my MP3s (it would skip around, I guess it didn't like the way they were encoded) I was a bit worried about me having the problem on the Pioneer head unit. Boy, was I wrong. This thing has played back every MP3 I've burned to a CD without a single problem. If you burn MP3s to the CD so each folder on the disc is a seperate album, navigation is quite simple. The left and right buttons on the control pad will move between tracks in the folder, the up and down buttons will move between folders, making album changes a snap. Plus, it will display the ID3 tags on the LCD screen, so you know the name of the song and the artist.

On the 5500MP, you have more sound quality and equalizer controls than you can shake a stick at. I've had the thing for nearly 3 months and still can't figure out exactly what does what. But after playing around with the audio controls and randomly pressing buttons, I got a configuration that sounds outstanding. But make sure you wait till you're in a parking lot or at a stop light before messing with the audio controls because there's so many, it wouldn't be safe messing with them while driving (It isn't as simple as turning a knob like it is on most stock systems) Adjusting the settings isn't hard as long as you read the manual to know what you're doing.

The multi-color display looks great at night and really stands out from my car's orange backlighting when the headlights are on. And, by default, the dimmer is off. Turn the dimmer on, and when your headlights turn on, the display will dim a bit so it isn't too bright at night. But, of course, it looks great in the day as well and is very easy to see.

Position of the controls can be good or bad, depending on your car. I have a small car, so I'm really close to the far right side of the stereo where the next/previous track buttons are, but if you're in a van or SUV where there's more room between the driver and the stereo, it will be a bit more of a reach to hit those buttons.

It also comes with a remote with most of the controls on it. It's useless if you're a driver, but it's great if you want to let someone in the backseat take control of the radio