Pioneer DEH-1630R Car CD Player

Petunia needed to rock, but we had conflicting needs, to say the least: both of us being music lovers, we needed to upgrade the sound system in our 1985 Volkswagen Vanagon (Westfalia camper.) However, the beautiful beast, whose named Petunia ('cause she's a little frumpy, but beautiful) only cost $3200, and so we weren't interested in spending 1/6 or more of the total purchase price on sound equipment. Thus the dilemma: quality sound, on a low-grade budget.

(You can skip all the preliminaries, which I've included since I hope they'll aid in the purchase of a car stereo generally. Look below for "REVIEW OF THE STEREO ITSELF".)

What we had: When we bought the car, it had a poorly working Pioneer AM/FM cassette deck, hooked up to the nearly 20 year old factory VW speakers. (Notably, the factory speakers are Blaupunkt, a respectable brand, but they were low-end, and had paper cones and weak connections, resulting in crackling and buzzing in the rear speakers.) I quickly installed a new, aftermarket antenna ($9.95 from Autozone) to get basic radio reception, and soon wanted to listen to music without crackling, too. Greedy, I know.

To clarify our needs: we wanted decent sound, front and back, and absolutely needed a CD player, since we basically don't own tapes anymore, or even a decent tape/CD player on which to make blank tapes. We needed it to be cheap, both relative to the value of the car, and because, realistically, an 85 Vanagon doesn't exactly represent the pinnacle of vehicle security.(*FN1) What we didn't need was anything too fancy (read: expensive and tempting.)

What we didn't want, or need:We didn't need a CD changer, and didn't want satellite radio (we like our local radio and CD collection just fine.) I also didn't want to do any excessive modifications to the van to make larger speakers fit, secondary battery/power setups to power amplifiers, etc. We could only fit 4" (cutout size) speakers front and rear, so we really only needed a 4x50 watt stereo. (Meaning it has four channels to output up to 50 watts of power to each speaker.)

Where we went to buy:
Tweeter: The car stereo manager at Tweeter seemed to ignore us when we told him, repeatedly, that we didn't want to do modifications, and really only wanted 4" speakers, and wanted to stay around $300, total. He also mistakenly informed us, even after looking at the van, that we could use 5.25" or 6.5" speakers in the back, by just cutting out larger holes. Wrong: there literally isn't enough clearance on the side, which is easy to see if you actually look. He also pushed us hard to get larger speakers, insisting the sound on the 4" was inadequate for us (notwithstanding that it's what we asked for), and which would have included cutting new cutouts in the front doors (through steel), and basically just tried to earn a larger commission. We liked a $139 Alpine CD player (CDM-9821), but decided to move on.

Fortunately, Good Guys was just across the parking lot. We saw the same $139 Alpine, and after waiting about 20 minutes to get attention, were pleased that the (kid) responded to our request for 4" speakers with "Sure -- no problem." We still liked the Alpine, all car stereos over $99 came with free installation (a savings of $45), and were happy with the 4" Infinity speakers that were on sale for $63/pair. Just to be sure we were getting the best deal, we drove less than two blocks away to Circuit City.

Circuit City didn't have the Alpine in stock, but did have a nice pair of Kenwood 4" speakers for $49, which, since the display were the last pair they had, were discounted to $41 with standard warranty. So we headed back to Good Guys after buying the speakers, which I decided to install myself (thus avoiding the inexplicable $45 charge at either place to install just the speakers: especially ridiculous, since our rear speakers literally screw out by hand, the Kenwoods required just four screws each, and then plugging in two wires which can't be mistaken for one another.)

Back now at Good Guys, we bought the Alpine with the free installation. No, this review isn't misplaced: after wandering back to the install area to try a key in the door, we found out the Alpine was out of stock, so we had to go choose another stereo. I was initially tempted buy the $149 Pioneer, but decided to save $30 rather than spend $10 more, and we now happily have the DEH-1600.

Installation required a $25 re-wiring due to old, rats-nest type wiring in the van, which I was happy to pay, especially since it avoided the $20 wiring harness which is normally a cost with almost every new car stereo. (Unless you're switching from one aftermarket stereo to another of the same brand, and of the same general age.)

**********REVIEW OF THE STEREO ITSELF**********

Controls, starting from the left:
The far upper left button, with a little clock picture on it, changes between clock and radio/CD track display when the stereo is on, and also turns on the clock when the stereo is off. (Though our stereo is wired to a "hot" fuse, meaning it operates whether the keys are in or not, so this might be specific to such a setting.) It does make it possible to leave the clock on all the time, but our original digital clock in the instrument panel still works (!) and so we don't need it.

The volume control are buttons ("up" is offset a little left and above the "down, and is almost twice as large as "down"). I would've preferred a twisting-dial for fast responsiveness to turn it down, but this wasn't a huge deal.

The equalizer setting button, on the bottom left, is handy, with six preset styles, including Super-Bass, Powerful, Natural, Vocal, Custom, and Flat (unequalized.) You can set the custom settings by pressing another button, the "A" (for "Audio" button), on the far upper right, which is a little confusing. I've basically left it on Powerful for most of our music, and vocal for things like Dar Williams, Joni Mitchell, etc. (Really, neither of us are big enough audiophiles to bother changing it all the time.) Be careful: if you set custom settings when any setting other than Custom has been selected with this bottom left button, your settings will replace the factory default for that setting. (So your "Vocal" could end up better suited for deathmetal, etc.)

The "SRC" button ("Source") is just to the left of the #1 preset button, and switches between CD, radio, and ostensibly the auxiliary setting if you're using the single provided RCA preout on the (inconveniently placed on the back of the stereo, but I don't use it anyway.)

The radio preset buttons are clean and easily accessed, and fairly responsive and sturdy feeling (better than the $139 Alpine, and much better than $109 Sony CDXS2000.) The stereo offers 18 FM presets on three bands, and 6 AM presets. (Which is fine, since I really only listen to three AM stations total, all for baseball (Padres, Angels, and Dodgers) and LA traffic.) Storing preset stations is easy, as I like it: find the station you want, and just hold the preferred number button for a few seconds, until the displayed preset number stops flashing.

On the bottom next to the presets is a "Local/BSM" button, which I rarely use, except when traveling (similar features on other car stereos.) "Local" mode is accessed by pressing it once, and turned off by pressing again, and basically only causes the seek function to find strong stations which will come in well. "BSM" ("Best Stations Memory") is accessed by holding it down for a couple seconds, and is worthwhile only if you want radio stations, but don't care what they are as long as they're coming in strong: it just finds the six most powerful stations, and programs them in to the six presets for whatever of the three FM bands (or the AM band) you're in. The problem with this is that if I'm out of a city, it generally finds country and evangelical stations, neither of which are my preferred listening.

The CD eject button is a little small, and proves slightly difficult at night as it's unlit, until you remember where it is, at the right side of the CD hole. It's quite responsive, however. Placing the CD in the player starts it up and plays the CD, or switches from radio to play the CD, and works responsively and well (really nicely for this cheap type of stereo.)

The "LOUD" button basically is a low-grade amplifier, and will accentuate the loudest frequencies in the music, without really making most music sound better. Almost never used by me.

The faceplate eject button which pops off the removable faceplate is on the bottom left, a tiny bit close to the tuning and adjustment button above it, but fine once you've learned the deck. It's very responsive, though the faceplate requires a little jiggling to actually get off (this is true of all the Pioneer decks I've had, three at least.)

There is a sideways diamond-shaped directional cluster of arrow buttons (up, down, left, right arrows, four separate buttons). This is nice since some cheap stereos use one larger button that presses to four directions, and so is easier to press incorrectly. In CD mode, the left/right moves to tracks when touched once, and scan ahead in tracks when held (nicely responsive, starts fairly quickly when held.) In radio mode, the left and right buttons move one frequency piece at a time when pressed, and when held then released, scans up or down to the next decently-received station. This function works quite well, and is easy to learn what strength of touch it needs.

Just below the "right" button in the directional cluster is the "BAND" button, which easily switches with one press each to: FM1, FM2, FM3, and AM. I prefer two buttons for this function (one to switch between FM and AM, and another to switch between the FM sets), but this is a minor quibble.

Finally, the all important "A" (for "Audio") button is on the far right upper corner. One press each switches to FAD (fade/balance), EQ (equalizer), LOUD, FIE (front image enhancer), and SLA (source level adjustment). Most important for most users is the fade/balance: the right/left buttons control balance, the up/down buttons for fading from front to back. From there, press the "A" button repeatedly to get back to the start, or just press the volume once up or down to return to normal display mode. The FIE setting cuts all high and midrange sounds from the rear speakers, basically if you want to pound bass from the rear speakers. SLA allows you to set different starting volumes for the radio and CD player, which is potentially nice if you have poorly recorded CD-Rs, or weak radio stations, that you have to turn way up to hear, but then get blasted when switching back to the other mode. See manual for how to set this; it's just slightly complicated.

Setting the clock, the bane of many a driver on daylight savings day, is unnecessarily complicated, though not as awful as some car stereos: you have to turn off the stereo, hold "A" until the time appears, press left/right to select which part (hour or minute) to set, and up/down to set it. Why they can't use the "clock" button to set the clock, I don't know, and for this reason alone, I'll have to carry the manual in the glovebox forever, to remind myself how to set the stupid clock.

DISPLAY: is blue with bluish-white text/numbers, is large and crisp; the CD display includes both track number and time; the radio display shows both the station and preset number, if applicable, as well as which FM band you're in. I'd like it if it showed the time in addition to all this stuff, but that's not unusual in a cheap deck to have to either display time, or everything else.

The SOUND: well, it's great for the cheap price, and given two small (4") cheap speakers in the back, and the 20 year old 4" factory cheapies still in the front, and 20 year old wiring. The Vanagon is pretty notorious for having bad acoustics (think about sound bouncing around an Amtrak car with weirder angles and more pressboard faux-wood, and with plenty of fabric to deaden it.) Despite this, we're both happy with the sound, both for radio, and especially for our beloved CDs. Petunia lumbers around with all the grace of an earth mover, but the CD player has yet to skip even in the worst bumps.

THOUGHTS and EPINIONS...
The BAD: I wish the "A" button said "Audio", controlled less, and was a little more intuitive. I wish the faceplate eject button was further from other controls, and that the CD eject button was more easily seen in the dark. Finally, some reviews on circuitcity.com think the display is too bright at night, but I haven't felt this way. Setting the clock is, as noted, a somewhat counterintuitive pain. All in all, however, these faults don't outweigh the benefits & cheap price:
The GOOD: and all of this is especially good for such an inexpensive deck: the sound is lovely, the ability to control equalizer output and sound is great, there is plenty of power to all four speakers, the buttons are mostly all responsive and generally decently placed, the display is crisp, large, and bright, the controls are fairly intuitive (with the exception of setting the time.) The radio scanning, CD track selection, and advancing/rewinding within each track are all very responsive and easy. It's way louder than I usually need, even with the front windows open, as the usually are.

Bottom line:If I had it to do again, I would definitely be willing to buy the Pioneer DEH-1600 again. I would just go straight to Good Guys or Circuit City; and, I would definitely install the rear speakers myself again.


*FN1: Car thefts and break-ins are fairly to very prevelant in our neighborhood, and San Diego generally. Here's one hot tip: don't give your home address to someone installing your stereo. While I'm sure the majority of car stereo installers are honest, as a criminal defense attorney, I can tell you that, well, some of them... may or may not be. Also, if you buy a removable faceplate, actually remove it at night if you park on the street. And if it's a flip-down faceplate, at least flip it down, so it looks at quick glance like it's been removed.

UPDATE, 4/17/2004: Below, the price field didn't display correctly: it should read "$109 +install". Namely, installation will cost $20-$50 for parts, or more if you have to pay for installation labor, which is often $35-$45 by itself, though Good Guys and especially Circuit City seem to have perpetually free install for stereos costing $99 or more.