Thoughts on Eclipse vs Pioneer

[HiveMind]

At work I get dealer accommodations on both Pioneer and Eclipse in-dash units.

I have really wanted one for a long time and I have narrowed it down to the following two:

Pioneer AVIC-Z2
Eclipse AVN6610BT

Now, they both have bluetooth (a must for me), both have GPS, both look awesome, and work great.

I have had personal experience with Eclipse units and was really impressed by the audio quality, the ease of use in both GPS and sound setup categories, and the bluetooth was amazing.

I have seen a couple of people here with the Z2 unit and really liked how they look, but I just want to know if you guys had any thoughts on which one I should go with?

Is one of them better than the other in the GPS or bluetooth category? How about iPod interface? Or are they both awesome, and its down to personal preference?

 

[pho1982]

eclipse for the sound quality and GPS

 

[my07blkgti]

I have had pioneer in the both of my cars I owned and I have never had a problem with their HU and the quality is great. I cant comment on the eclipse HU since I never experianced it.

 

[jayratch]

I bought the Pioneer D3 on price and features, and while overall I'm very satisfied for the money, I have so many frustrations with the bluetooth and the software, I can't imagine the eclipse being much worse.

The ipod interface, while completely night and day above the OEM, leaves much to be desired. Why the one knob on the unit functions ONLY for volume and you need to page through your lists in the ipod (my list of arrtists is 300 pages long on the screen and each page takes >1/2 second) which can take so long as to be useless. You can just use it in video mode to control it from the ipod itself, but if doing that why have more than an aux in?

Also my D3 seems to frequently insist that I'm about a block away from where I actually am, to the degree of having placed me on a boat in Lake Ontario instead of the clearly marked highway next to it, for about 15 miles. In that same vein I would occasionally find myself teleported to Brooklyn (sometimes upwards of 1500 miles!) and could only escape by manually dialing in the current location after rebooting the car (a bit of a hassle at 75 mph).

So I would say, if money is no object, put some serious consideration into the eclipse...

 

[sonomamkvdsg]

I am not in love with either

 

[HiveMind]

Thanks a lot for the input guys, I think I will go with the Eclipse and post results as soon as I get them. It should be a month to a month and a half from now before I get it

 

[sonomamkvdsg]

I think the Eclipse is the better of the two though.

 

[obiwan]

check out the kenwood 7100 it looks quite good.. only thing is that BT sucks.. on kenwood.. is why i went with the d3

 

[Technic]

At work I get dealer accommodations on both Pioneer and Eclipse in-dash units.

I have really wanted one for a long time and I have narrowed it down to the following two:

Pioneer AVIC-Z2
Eclipse AVN6610BT

Now, they both have bluetooth (a must for me), both have GPS, both look awesome, and work great.

I have had personal experience with Eclipse units and was really impressed by the audio quality, the ease of use in both GPS and sound setup categories, and the bluetooth was amazing.

I have seen a couple of people here with the Z2 unit and really liked how they look, but I just want to know if you guys had any thoughts on which one I should go with?

Is one of them better than the other in the GPS or bluetooth category? How about iPod interface? Or are they both awesome, and its down to personal preference?

I have the Avic Z2 and to be honest, the audio section is not great at all considering the price. Simply, the outputs are in the low level side (2V) and the sub output is weak as hell. Contacted Pioneer USA about the sub outputs weakness and they recommended grounding the RCA negative terminal, which improved some of the output strength but still was not enough.

Tried a 3SIXTY.2 to see if at least can get better output level and nothing changed, actually I started to find out that it sounded actually worse. But what finally solved the low line output issue (in all channels, not only the sub) was an Audiocontrol Matrix line driver between the Z2 and the amps. That also can explain why the 3SIXTY.2 was not good at all, DSP processors require stronger level of inputs than what the Z2 was able to supply to properly drive the digital processing.

Obvious now, but I do not think that after paying that much money for a Z2 anybody will need another piece of equipment, much less a line driver, to get it to sound the way it should be (at least the way I like music, strong and clear).

 

[sonor kid]

Eclipse.

 

[vdubbaby]

I sold car audio for a while and try this trick most pioneer radios if you put a really badly scratched cd in it will skip or not even play. In an eclipse do the same thing and it will play no problem. Go with eclipse!! (scratched cd: take and old cd you don't care to scratch and your car key and go crazy then do the test)