Pioneer DEH-P8100BT

This is the top headunit in the Pioneer line up before you enter their PRS zone. This is the best that regular non-competition buyers will ever want in a single DIN device. Above this, you will find three-way crossovers and time alignment and different EQ systems for left and right channels but very little of the whistles and bells of this piece of kit. For the DEH-P8100BT has pretty much everything and even two of some things, like iPod/iPhone capable USB interfaces. It has a monochrome blue OEL display. (Organic Electro Luminescent, now called OLED by some and also being used in some very sexy TV sets as well these days.) Bluetooth equipped for both telephony and music streaming, both of which were tried.
Not too busy a drop on the front, there are only a few buttons with most control being effected via the wobbly-knobber (technical term) in the middle. It was tested in a dozen directions and had a small iPod, a large flash drive, a stick type flash drive with lossless WMA files upon it and a choice of two different 320GB USB-power-only-required HDD drives. One from iomega and one from Western Digital.
– 4 x 50w (MOSFET Power IC)
– 1 BIT Digital to Analogue converter
– 2x USB interfaces, so you can have iPod & another mass-storage device connected (but not all HDD devices)
– iPod Full Direct Control
– 1 rear mounted jack type Aux in
– Wired remote input
– Sub display output
– Front/rear/sub chassis-mounted RCA out @ 4V
– Twin external wired microphone for phone use and echo cancellation
– CD- DA, R/RW; WAV, AAC; WMA; MP3 from CD or USB
– CD/MP3/USB Text
– Bluetooth hands free calling with voice control by Parrot
– Bluetooth music streaming as above
– Phonebook transfer with 1,000 entries for up to five users, SMS alert and
– six language voice recognition and text to speech (misspelled as ‘SPEACH’ on demo screen!)
– Egg shaped steering wheel remote control supplied
– Dual microphone for echo cancellation supplied for rear connection socket-on-a-wire
– Blue OEL display with 192 Characters/48 pixels
– Seven band EQ with five presets and one custom
– Highpass and lowpass filters
– Proprietary Advanced Sound Retriever for digital MP3 expansion
Review by Adam Rayner
What a sexy piece of kit! It does so very much more than merely play CDs and radio that for some the CD mechanism will be a redundant item. Which would be a shame as CD sound is crisp and sweet and to my ear through my Bowers & Wilkins LM1 monitors (which are only entry level, albeit from the mighty B&W) and Genesis SM100 amplifier (which is sexy) it is clearly sweeter and better on CD than on other digital sources.
This is something that Pioneer have addressed and indeed was the subject of a trip to SEMA in Las Vegas a year or two back to tell us all about it. It is a process wherein the iPod’s signal is got at digitally rather than after the ‘Pod’s own analogue conversion, for a spot of what’s called ‘expansion’ in the pro audio trade. The opposite of a compressor, this widens dynamic range. There is also an element of enhancement that can be called up in levels One or Two of this Advanced Sound Retriever (ASR) system and this adds some meatiness as well as some breathy highs, a bit like the Aphex Aural Exciter that Clannad used to death and spawned a band who loved it and called themselves Aphex Twin! It works well and once switched off, regular iPod sound seems a little lifeless. It’s a clever system and enough to make a non-believer get right into the iPod AAC thing.
OK, so far so good, it has so many ways of working and we tried a lot, not the Royal We but myself and a software developer for a major ‘real’ university who was on the forum asking if anyone had one of these he could try. I chipped in that it was on my test bench, and we got in contact. His question was about the increased number of files and folders that the new 8100 machine was said to be able to handle versus the 7000 series machine also from Pioneer that he had in the dash and was looking to upgrade. This is because he has a huge collection of tunes and keeps it all on a USB-power-only HDD from iomega. He brought it along with one from Western Digital as that had the music organised by more categories and so meant a HUGE 1600 folder count.
He has 15,500 files on 455 folders on the iomega, making up 75GB of music. He was concerned about the length of the USB wire I had that’d fit the small port on the drive and worried that it’d stop it working. He said that he could remove the shortie wire he used in the car if need be. So first we plugged the devices into my PC and both devices spun up and played the tunes within a few seconds. Then we tried the iomega in the rig on the DEH-P8100BT with the battery and it wouldn’t fire up, despite the LED on the side illuminating. To cut it short, we tried the battery rig, the PSU rig and even in his car and found that while his 7000 series Pioneer happily spun up the drives and played tunes, it couldn’t read all his files due to the limits within the head unit’s software and yet despite the greater limits claimed for the newer deck, he would have had to have had it all on an 80GB iPod or iPhone to hear it. For this new machine is optimised for use with the iPhone as well and while it has two of these ports and can do amazing things, my 100th-centile software doctor was a bit sad and admitted that he wouldn’t be getting one of these now, though, as he is an HDD dude. So deep and sincere thanks are offered up to Graham, known as pc99 on the forum. Here’s hoping it’s a new testing trend to get forum users involved in reviews!
Enquiries went all the way up to head office on this one and the simple truth is that like video standards and their conversion from one type to another on the internet, there are just too many types and protocols of these drives for Pioneer to guarantee the function of their head units with all these drives and for video manipulation to be idiot-proof on the net. I was sad, as it does seem a slight retrograde step but then my new chum is not representative of the mainstream market and you could have TWO HUGE i-Bheasts connected and play new tunes for years, with that sexy pre-DAC digital enhancement that Pioneer have invested in.
I made calls and recorded answer phone messages right on the bench with outrageous echoes in all directions but what was heard on the speakers of the headunit system and on the answer phone recording was just the voice, no echo. So the dual microphone works like a dream to keep that annoying echo away from your calls. The unit paired to my Blackberry easily and thieved the phone book in an instant, also allowing me to play a tune from the phone to the test rig system by the ‘Tooth. This does sound even more bandwidth limited than MP3 or AAC without sound retriever but it means the music is in your system and not just spanking away on a kid’s plastic phone in the back seat which is just annoying. My son may even think I am cool. (But I doubt it!)
I love the included remote control, it is the descendant of a type that Pioneer have been using for a decade and more and fits nicely on a steering wheel. Of course it has to be spring-releasable from it’s strapped-on base and I found I tended to punch it off from time to time when I used it but its small enough and simple enough to use by feel and keep in your hand while you feel the need.
I really enjoyed playing with this deck and the only thing I’d like to see at the price level was a sexy colour OEL display but maybe that’s just fussy of me!
An easy Talk Audio Best Buy with clever intuitive use for even complex stuff and awesome musical power.
Sound Quality 8.0
Appearance/Display 9.0
Ease Of Use/HMI 10.0
Features 10.0
Value For Money 10.0
Overall rating 9.4