Pioneer DEH-P8600MP Car CD / MP3 Player

I bought the Premier version of this headunit the DEH-860MP. The noticable diffrences is that it comes packing 6.5 Volt presouts instead of 4, let me tell you the diffrence in between 4v and the 6.5v of the Premier is a night and day diffrence. The Premier version also includes a microphone for automatic EQ adjustment and automatic time delay. It also comes with an Color Organic OLE display which looks amazing, and is no longer limited to blue hues, it's now capiable of displaying multiple colors. On first impressions, this is a pretty headunit, but like most Pioneer the beauty is only skin deep, or uh, plastic deep. However this is a rare combo of beauty and brains, the 6.5 volt preouts brought my amps alive like never before, my previous Kenwood KDC-X869 packed 5 volt preouts which was a great headunit, this Pioneer manages to outclass it hardware wise. I have a 4 channel and a mono amp for subwoofers, so im unable to test the internal 50x4 amp, however im sure it's up to the Pioneer quality, but the three sets of preouts did the job, there was a clarity that my previous headunits couldent provide. CD access is fast and track changes are lighting fast, Mp3 access is just as fast switching between folders and mp3s. Hardware wise the Pioneer is amazing, however using the headunit feels clunky and redundent. There are two large knobs, 6 buttons for saved radio station, and a EQ, band/escape and display buttion, an open/eject button on the top left and a clock display on the top left side. The left knob doubles as volume control, and when you push on it works as a source button. The right one can be clicked in the four directions, can be rotated left and right and pushed in. Phew, that's a lot of stuff for one little knob. Pushing in brings up a sub menu, you're options are function, audio and entertainment, you make the selection by rotating the knob. This makes for a clean face place, but to access the sub controls requires you to go through two submenus and many tabs to adjust gain and frequencies. Overall this is a great headunit, but the use of it is odd and clunky to use. Basic operations are simplestic, but getting into more advenced options requires more time, not a plus when driving. Over all very reccomended.