Pioneer AVH-P5900DVD
Single DIN source unit with motorised 7 inch QVGA touch screen. Piano Black finish surround to screen to look like Pioneer’s Plasma screens’ surrounds. Sub-display on front of unit. Certified for DivX and you can operate DVD menus intuitively by touch screen by pressing what you see, or else by the more pedestrian onscreen GUI menu-button emulation system. Plays DVD-Video, -R/RW, Video CD, CD-Digital Audio -R/RW. Does not play DVD-Audio. Full control of iPod, with scrolling faster than on an iPod. Video iPod compatible but that must be controlled from the iPod, rather than using the intuitive emulation-display on the touch screen. iP-Bus means 12 years of retro compatibility. An old machine can thus operate a new device. The deck will play MP3 from DVD discs. The remote control is an option.
– 4 x 50w MOSFET
– 7 inch QVGA touch screen with full graphic user interface. Anti glare coating (336,960 pixels)
– 96kHz/24 BIT Digital to Analogue converter
– iPod ready with included CDI-200 cable
– Bluetooth ready with CD-BTB200
– Optional Bluetooth adapter box has flash memory to hold your phonebook
– USB compatible with CD-UB100 adapter
– Integrated linear PCM and Dolby Digital decoders with digital output
– Surround sound with addition of DEQ-P6600 5.1 decoder box via digital output
– Dedicated rear camera input
– Front/Rear/Sub RCA outputs
– Auxiliary input
– Buttons can be blue or red, Graphic User Interface can be red/amber/green/blue/violet
– Three choices of ‘skins’ so a possible 30 permutations of appearance
– Can be expanded with Multi-CD or DVD players, TV tuner, DEQ-P6600 processor & DAB tuner
– Signal to noise ratio 97dB; Dynamic range 95dB.
Review by Adam Rayner
The first thing that slaps you in the face about this product is the price. If it does what it says on the box for the wedge, then you have an absolute bargain on your hands. They even include the iPod connector lead. We have HUGE clout here on TA as there are so very many of you and Pioneer’s top mobile electronics geezer came to visit, complete with an National Accounts Executive (that’s posh for Rep) who had one in his car so as to best demonstrate it and teach me a little about how it works. (I did of course also get one to play to death with in my own ferrety way.) That has to be a cool job that comes with such things a P5900DVD as a necessary part of the gig, though, huh? Actually Pioneer are bloody brilliant at looking after everybody I had one brief operational question and the customer service line call centre were going to get a person to assemble one on a test bench and phone me back to talk me through it same day and that’s for any customer not just reviewers.
I understand that Pioneer’s UK team were instrumental in making sure that as many digital formats as possible were woven into the works for the UK specification product, so the player can decode and use WMA and AAC as well as MP3. It’ll read MP3 files from DVD too. How many songs is that?
It is a good looking piece of kit and like the Kenwood also checked out at the same time, has a choice of different looks to the screen graphics that you can select from. The iPod control was not quite as advanced as the Kenwood, in that you had to change the Video settings from Video output Off to On on the video iPod and then operate the controls of the video from the ‘Pod itself. Of course, you are not supposed to watch video while you drive, but your passenger could want to while you listen to FatBoy Slim. ‘If you walk without Rhythm, you won’t attract the worm’ While Christopher Walken dances like a nutter around that hotel on the screen.
I flung a DVD of Faster, Louder Harder by the Bass Mekanik into the deck as well as trying out the old dB Drag test CD. Screen images are crisp and the 4 x 50w onboard power amp is seriously meaty, if not quite as madly powerful as the one in the Kenwood 829 as that one has extra fat capacitors onboard due to it’s use of a hideaway box. This unit is all in the one item, so installation is a lot easier, though. It too has a lot of possibilities and connectability. The back is a small festoon of wires to connect that iPod, another A/V source and also a rear view camera.
There are RCA outputs a plenty yet despite being able to read so many formats, this is not a unit for use with 5.1 multi channel outputs. No ‘centre’ channel. Demand for full on surround sound in cars is still way behind that in home cinema applications, so surround is the exception rather than rule in this market. There is however, a digital output that can be used with a DEQ-P6600 off board decoder bought separately. You can illuminate the sparse buttons in red or green and the unit is fan cooled around the back.
Like the Kenwood, you had to learn how to use it a bit. That operational issue was about how to get the video from the iPod on the screen. It was a ‘window’ label, not a ‘door’ one. The button that said ‘Music’ or ‘Video’ was referring to where you would go if you pressed it, not which screen you were in.
Another cracker, an absolute bargain, with very few compromises made for the lower price and equipped with some hectic levels of connectability and expansion.
Sound Quality 8.0
Appearance/Display 9.0
Ease Of Use/HMI 8.0
Features 8.0
Value For Money 10.0
Overall rating 8.6 