Pioneer and JBL: Made for Each other. Review on Tips on Choosing a Car Audio

I was contemplating for quite sometime to write reviews. Finally decided to start for two reason, one, am an avid reader of reviews as it always helped me to better understand and make a decision while purchasing a product - want to give back such experience to others as well, second, my great friends insisted me to do that as it would be worth the time spend on analysis and may help others.

Car audio market has expanded quite well in terms of models and various options to choose for customers. At a very high level there are two types, CD based system and DVD based system. In both you have the USB option, I will talk about that little later and yes we do have some systems that support SD card reader but usability is not great here so I would rule out the option. If you have to use SD card, then you may need to take out the front faceplate to insert it, didn't felt it a great option. First of all I don't see a great use case of having USB and SD card in the same system.

DVD or CD which one is good for me?

I decided to go for DVD for the reason being the amount of storage that it can hold, its quite easy to fit my 30 GB music files in 6 or 7 DVD. Easy to manage it in the car without need of a big pouch. Next comes the clarity, I felt the clarity of songs to be too good when written on a DVD then being in CD. Some may argue but there good reasons for it and details are very well available through simple googling. DVD systems are designed with DTS dolby digital and the output is very good in these system, I felt this is a minus with most CD based systems. High chances are there for the CD market to die in near future and there are chances for scarcity to get parts for CD music systems tomorrow.

Here main focus is on music so am not mentioning about the video benefits that someone can get out of a DVD system. I decided to go for DVD but not opting for LCD for various reasons, conscious decision made not to put a LCD screen as it would make my son continue to watch videos even in car and I felt listening to music is more enjoyable than watching music. My travel is more limited within the city , this being another reason for it. Price difference is very little and in some cases none.

Do I need system with USB or without USB?

I chose to go with USB as I got tempted to do so, and felt not miss something and feel bad about it later. Now I feel it is not a must, since the clarity of music from a USB is not that great comparative to DVD. Except for the one benefit, that quickly copy to USB and enjoy something quickly and erase it if not required. Ease of use.

Which company and model to choose?

In my experience this is purely personal and I felt Pioneer system with JBL speaker really rocks. I felt this to be a best bet for the price and quality. If you plan to have subwoofer then make sure2 RCA out is available, there are few suppliers ready to push systems with 1 RCA out and fit the subwoofer. Just be careful with this as it would damage and lower the quality of experience. I chose Pioneer DVH- 3190UB system, JBL - GT5-S396 for rear speakers (this is a three way coaxial speaker ) and JBL GT5-S204 as front speakers. Beauty is with its ability to resonate the Bass and the tweeter that never misses out even a single node of the music. Wonderful experience in my wagon-R. Rear speakers I fitted in plank rather than box just for the sake of storage space. I even felt speakers doing great job of compensating the woofer that I miss in the system, it takes care of it to a greater extend afterall it’s a 3-way speaker at the rear and it does justice to it. Total cost came around 16K with warranty and bill.

Still figuring out.. .not getting the song title in the system screen may be I need look out for some settings.. Shouldn't it be default. On the other side I still have a fear that in DVD system title may not be shown in the system display and rather it would be shown in the LCD screen. If this is true then think about it before choosing a DVD system without LCD screen, am okay with it as I would like to experience the pure music through ear and not going to read the title of the song while driving...and its me who chose to put that DVD and wrote it so I know what I can expect as next song.

one other drawback in storing music files in DVD would the search or song skip...you may end of having too many songs files folders and may be slightly difficult exp in skipping the songs and reach to the one you like. its better to plan and organize the music library before writing it to a DVD. These cons are minor, but the overall experience of having a Pioneer DVD system and a JBL speaker in the car is an awesome experience for music lovers. I truly felt that Pioneer and JBL speakers are made for each other