Panasonic Showcase 2007

Panasonic make an incredibly wide range of products and are in receipt of a major accolade from Which? magazine. Their Heritage Award, for achieving the most Which? Best Buy recommendations in the long history of the publication.
Instructions for use: For information on the stuff they make and an overview of the whole range, check out The Lowdown. For showing off in public how much you know about the stuff and the brand. Read Instant Expert section first. Otherwise skip straight to the meat and potatoes.

Panasonic is an absolutely massive brand. Their bread ovens are unarguably the very best there are. They make incredibly clever microwaves and combi ovens, too. Their industrial machinery is awesome. Their Viera televisions are award winners – with Home Cinema Choice for whom I also write. I’ve stood before the mighty 105 inch 1080 HD screen at a press do. It was installed with a crane. I was too close, so when the camera scene moved, I nearly fell over, so big was the image and so lifelike in my face. Creators of the Technics brand, which has now become entirely oriented around the wheels of steel that became the deck of choice for those Disc Jockey fellows. Now, the whole Technics brand is pure DJ market.
Panasonic are keen technologists, often the first to market with new ideas and toys. They were the very first makers of in car DVD decks that could read DVD-Audio, in their 909. Their ‘Katana’ motorised centre speaker on the 5.1 surround sound equipped decks (Dolby Digital and dts) remains the cutest feature I ever saw in mobile electronics. It was a small sound but it cut through and gave you that centre channel detail that is at the heart of good 5.1 sound tracks. It made a sort of ‘SCHWINGG!’ noise as it opened.

Sometimes it’s hard to know if that Acronym you read is for something actually vital and industry-grade relevant, like dts stands for Digital Theatre Sound (but they always use lower case letters). With SRS it might have been seen as some sort of silly ‘Super Wide’ setting you used to see on cassette portables. However, it isn’t and here’s a brief anecdote about its importance: I was repping to recording studios, radio stations and musical instrument technologist shops. I was selling the BBE processor. Kiss FM bought one. You’ll see the BBE logo on many amplifiers and things these days. It makes the sound more punchy. Thing is, I had an appointment at a very exciting and posh recording studio, to see the boss. While I was in the waiting area out front on a super-fat leather sofa, some Rock Gods walked in. They went upstairs, without removing their VERY dark glasses and I hopped to my feet and asked the receptionist, ‘Wasn’t that U2?’ He replied, ‘Yes’, so I asked ‘Why are they here?’ Only to be told that they were having a meeting about recording their next album using SRS. So it is no pansy marketing term. But my reppy appointment had been forgotten to the point of not even bothering to let me know. DOH! You can read some techno about SRS in The Lowdown. Suffice it to say that this year, Panasonic’s line up of multi media and CD headunits is well thought out, very good looking indeed, with a good choice of finishes in the midprice zone and has some of the most cost-effective upgradeability in the game. It’s Posh Kit.

 

As any Formula 1 motor racing fans will know, Panasonic sponsor the Toyota team. This has resulted in some great fun press days, going along to the testing at Silverstone and meeting drivers and stuff. I can tell you that my fat carcass will simply not fit into the F1 simulator they have at these things. We arrived for our do and were given a 1GB Panasonic Class 2 SD card and loaned a very posh Panasonic Lumix camera to stick it in. We shot video and stills of race cars, pit lanes and even Ralf Schumacher. Incredibly, he looked idly at the odd fat bloke in the audience as the flashguns blazed, so that super shot of the chap is a total fluke and not a library shot! We were all given a 7.2mp DMC-TZ3 Lumix at the end in our press goody bags. Lovely folks!
The Big Thing for Panasonic in 2007 is multimedia and the easy combination and expansion of your in car source system, as they are not importing Panasonic automotive speakers and amplifiers into the UK. The upsurge in exotica in the UK has changed things, so that more folks will use specialist speaker/amp lines for the rest of their system. Or else simply upgrade the headunit and leave the stock speakers severely alone. Mind you, I heard a fully Panasonic system in Athens just recently on a secret trip that I can write about come August. (Non Disclosure Agreement signed, very exciting and hush-hush as press got hands-on with the new thing at the same time as the UK product manager. It’s like being treated as Inner Circle.) and I can reveal that the vehicle, a people carrier, was rocking and sounded great.

 

Enter the MP3
Digital files matter like hell to everybody these days and Panasonic kit can handle MP3, as well as WMA and even the newer AAC files, of which more later. The entry-level CD deck is the CQ-C1475N and its brethren. They all do the same things, just with different looks. You can buy this £80 CD Tuner with a grey or black fascia and a blue or black background front display. Button colours are red or green depending upon which one you get. They are the CQ-C1465N, 25N and 15N. Features line up includes MP3 abilities although no other digital formats, bar of course CD and also CD-text which used to be a high end thing. The preout is a fat 2.5V, which is excellent at this price and the power amp is 4x50w, which is also wicked VFM. The radio can set its own 18 presets. There is an optional remote control and that small hole in the front is a microjack stereo socket for direct aux input of your MP3 player’s stereo sound.
The next notch up at a suggested £100 retail, is the CQ-C1505N. This adds WMA (Windows Media Audio) to the party and looks a bit sexier. It too can be supplied with an eight button remote control as an optional extra and also uses the ID3 tag system, like the 1475.

For around a score more, you could buy the CQ-C3305N and have a deck with a flip down front. This CD tuner can be bossed by an altogether more flash looking remote but this is still optional rather than included. The CD changer controls are added and it is Expansion Module ready. This means that even at this scale, you could add a DVD changer, a slave screen and even a TV Tuner (CY-TUP153N – £250) and rear view camera (CY-RC50KN – £200) all to a basic unit. The display is a bit better looking and the expansion thingy also means Bluetooth and iPod readiness, too. The CA-VDC300N connector wire powers your ‘Pod, is priced at £50 and is used for video generation iPods. The £40 CA-DC300N iPod audio adapter wire is what you’d be more likely to use with this unit, though. The full on add-it-all box is called the CY-EM100N. This Expansion Module costs only £120, so instead of hundreds of quid and lots of sockets you won’t necessarily use, you pay just for the expandability you need. The Bluetooth product is plug-in and called CY-BT100N and sells for around £160.

Another score, up to around £140 and you get a front mounted USB plughole in the CQ-C3355N; so your memory drive accessories can plug right on in there and file transfer all your Martha & the Muffins tracks. The sexier remote is still an option and of course you are full on expansion ready. This product is Panasonic’s entry level USB CD tuner deck.

It’s always structured to make you want to throw that One More Note at the purchase. For another reckoned £20 hike in retail at £160 and the features list suddenly expands. The CQ-C5355N has two lines of text in its display and a variable colour background with a choice of seven shades to match your dash. The remote is included, and the built in EQ system goes up to their SQ3 system. SRS WOW is included too.

 

Techno
SRS Wow is just part of the selection of audio technologies that Panasonic employ. They use a clever interpolative system to recreate the lost high frequencies that audiophiles can hear are missing from all compressed audio formats and replaces them for a better, crisper sound. They call this Re-Master. The SRS Focus, CS Auto, SRS WOW and Tru Bass terms are all trademarks of Sound Retrieval System Labs and are licensed processes. The WOW system is said to offer improved dynamics and bass with your existing speakers. The soundfield is extended to offer a more 3D audio image and deeper, richer bass. ‘As much as an octave below the actual frequency limitations of the speakers’ SRS Focus is about putting the soundfield up front by virtual means and is said to improve clarity of higher frequencies. I just have to get my reviewer’s ears around one of these decks.

 

At £200 you get the AAC format included in the CQ-C7305N and you get a lovely motorised 3D dot matrix display. The Re-Master feature is here, where it isn’t on the 5355 and the SQ7 super-eq is on board now, too. Crossovers are built in for the speaker outputs, and a subwoofer line out as well as dual preouts are present. All at a healthy 2.5V output level. That pretty face is motorised and the 4x50w amp is now a MOSFET one, which makes it louder, basically. File Tree Display helps find Germ Free Adolescent by Poly Styrene and X-ray Specs, while the changer control will also boss a DVD changer. The best bit, though, is Variable Colour. As against a choice of seven colours, the thing’s display will scroll gently through 21 shades until you are fully happy with the colour match to your dash. In my experience, though, this is so attractive that every single one gets left in demo ‘Christmas Tree’ mode with all the colours gently grooving and scrolling through all the time. The 3DDM display is well smart and can be customised to show pictures from the Panasonic Customise site. You can have cars and girls or F1 cars and the absolutely de-rigueur dolphins. This feature is also applicable to the CQ-C8405N, which is £280. This top CD player has a delicious motorised 4,096 colour Organic Electro Luminescent display and the outputs are a high-end scale 5V. Every feature of all the other decks is on there. OEL outperforms LCD on brightness (crucial on sunny days) and viewing angle as well as having five times the contrast. The spec is 10fps (frames per sec) and is sized 172×54 pixels. It really is a bit of flagship CD deck all round.

Multimedia on the move
Panasonic’s multimedia selection is right up there with the best. It certainly isn’t priced at fight-over-it rates. This stuff sells on its quality and the top brand behind it. There are some cool extras. The CX-DH801N is a £450 8-disc DVD changer that’ll read MP3 from DVD. I won’t even do the sums as to how many songs that could be. It has both Dolby Digital and dts surround sound output from DVD. Comes with a remote control and can either connect to a changer-equipped deck or else plug into the expansion module. The CY-TUP153N is an analogue TV tuner that can use PAL or SECAM broadcast signals and has a four-line diversity antenna to maximise reception. The CQ-D1703N and CY-VM7203N would make a lovely two-DIN combo as the former is the 1-DIN DVD receiver and the latter, the motorised in dash 1-DIN 7 inch 16:9 widescreen TV monitor. They cost £250 for the player and £400 for the screen. This player can read DVD-R and DVD-RW disc, too. The £650 CQ-VD5005N is a single DVD deck with a motorised screen. It has a 4x45w amplifier inside and the screen is a touch panel. The resolution is the familiar (to sad geeks like me, anyway) 336,960 pixel count, giving plenty resolution at this screen size. It can use PAL, NTSC or SECAM and will play those ‘arthouse’ DivX films from the web. A two-hour movie can go on a CD-R and 12 to 14 hours can fit on a DVD. It even has a front aux in that is video, not just audio-capable. Lovely.

The CQ-VD5505N is a two-DIN, £600 deck with nearly everything. It has a 7 inch touch screen and pretty much identical features to the 5005. The difference is that the screen is always on show and like the 5005 uses code security rather than a removable face. An awful lot of cars in the UK can now use two-DIN head units and most makers now offer them where in recent years they may have had them for the Japanese market but not the UK. We’re up to date now.

At the top of the tree we find a similar pair of machines, the CQ-VD7005N 1-DIN motorised 7inch touch panel DVD player/screen and the two-DIN . Both are priced at £750. These decks have the lot. SQ7 is a seven band onboard EQ and they have actual on board decoders for Dolby and dts rather than down mixing the output to stereo as before. As well as front and rear, left and right preouts as normal, you also get a centre channel output and the subwoofer feed, making 5.1 channels of audio. Lots of inputs and outputs and you get an included remote control. The full SRS CS auto is employed but the two-DIN screen is slightly less high resolution, with 280,880 pixels against the 7005’s 336,960. They are equipped with the higher power 4x50w MOSFET amps, as well. Compatible with video iPod, these are true high end source machines.

 

 Class leading entry level products through to true high end.

 Handsome looks and top Japanese-controlled build quality

 Excellent iPod compatibility and wide file-reading skills

 Panasonic’s Mobile Digital Network concept means expandability

 Most affordable mainstream brand to expand systems with

 Only pay for the features and benefits you need via add-ons

 SRS technologies and Re-Master system make for good sound

Customer support telephone number 08705 357 357
www.panasonic.co.uk”>