Cruising To The Beat

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great quality, reasonably priced, simple to use and nice looking

Cons: A nice unit for our family...may not satisfy an audiophile

The Bottom Line: 
A quality car CD player for the price, this unit has a nice clean design and sound. Easy to use. Provides the most often used, quick touch button functions.

Author's Review
When we bought our 99 Dodge Caravan se, it came equipped with the original factory installed radio/cassette player. Having the Pioneer DEH-1100 CD player installed was the only change we made to our mini van.

My husband and I are not audiophiles, so we didn't require the very best equipment and all the fancy extras. We are also budget conscious but not cheap, so we wanted a reasonably priced tuner with good features and a good reputation for quality.

Pioneer has always had a good name in the electronics industry. I can remember hearing their name bandied about when I was a teenager (way too long ago!).
Back when I was a kid I remember my brother purchasing a radio with money he had saved from his first job. He shopped around and studied all the specs. Quality was important to him because he was buying something with "his" hard earned money.
He finally made his decision and bought a pioneer radio. Over the years our family has used products by Pioneer and we have never been sorry.

The Pioneer DEH-1100 we had installed plays our music loud and clear without distortion. It has a simple, clean design. All the controls are push button and they are lighted, making them easy to find in the dark. The liquid crystal digital display is easy to read.
Learning what buttons to use for the different functions is not difficult.

Pressing the source button lets you choose back and forth between the radio and the CD player. Holding it down for more than 1 second turns the unit off.

BASIC OPERATION OF TUNER
Manual Seek & Tuning - The select buttons are arranged in a circular pattern (up & down and left & right). By tapping the L or R button for 1/2 second or less you go up or down the frequencies one at a time. If you hold the button down for more than 1/2 second and release it seeks out the next station with a strong signal.

Arranged along the bottom are buttons numbered 1-6 and local, clock and bsm buttons. The number 1-6 buttons in radio mode are used to preset your favorite radio stations.
Up to 18 FM stations (6 in FM1, 6 in FM2 and 6 in FM3) and 6 AM stations can be stored.
You choose between these different bands by pressing the B (ban) button. Each time you tap the B button it advances through the different bands.
The local causes only local stations with especially strong signals to be found when you use seek.
The clock button, of course, changes the display to the digital clock.
The BSM button (best signal memory) stores stations in memory automatically. By pressing and holding this button for 2 seconds the stations with the strongest signals will be stored under buttons 1-6 automatically.

BASIC CD PLAYER
The CD player accepts one standard 12cm or one 8cm (single)
Cd at a time. The track number & play time are displayed, but you can keep the clock display by pressing the clock button after CD play begins.

You can select track search or fast forward/reverse by pressing the left or right select buttons. Track search is accessed by holding the button 1/2 second or less and fast forward/reverse is activated by holding the button for longer than 1/2 second.

Repeat (button 5) plays the same track repeatedly ( something that I guarantee will drive you up the wall). Random (button 4) plays tracks in a random order. Scan (button 3) plays the first ten seconds of each track in succession; when you find the desired track, touching button 3 again cancels scan play.
Pause (button 6)pauses play until pressed again.

If you accidentally insert the disc upside down it will automatically eject the disc for you.
There are built in error messages which will display when the CD player cannot function properly.
The manual tell you what each error message means and what action to take for each error message.
Examples of possible problems are things like putting in an unrecorded disc, a dirty disc, a scratched disc, electrical or mechanical problem, or overheating.
We have had the Pioneer DEH-100 for 9 months now and I have never seen any error message or had any kind of problem.

SOUND QUALITY ADJUSTMENTS
By pressing the A button (audio menu) you can choose what mode you want to select; fader, bass or treble.
In fader mode you adjust the balance between the front and rear speakers and the balance between the left and right speakers.
In bass mode you adjust the amount of bass you want.
In treble mode you boost or lower the treble level.

There is a loudness button located under the source button. When turned on, this compensates for deficiencies in low and high sound ranges at low volume.

TIME DISPLAY
The time display is turned on by pressing the clock button. The time display disappears temporarily when you perform another operation but returns after 25 seconds.

When the CD player and radio are off you can still have the time displayed by pressing the clock button.

Setting the time is easy. Turn the unit off and then press and hold the A button for 2 seconds. The time display will flash and you can then select the hour or minute by touching the right or left select. Adjust the time up or down using the up or down select buttons. When you are finished touch the B button.

We really enjoy listening to music. One of the reasons we moved from a cassette player to a CD player was because we burn our own CD music mixes onto blank CD's using our computer.
We always carry a dozen or more CD's with us whether we are diving to the grocery store or on a trip.
You never know when a craving for a particular piece of music will hit you, lol.
Sometimes it is nice to take a break from CD's and listen to the radio to hear new songs and get weather and news.
I have my favorite stations preset and I don't want anyone changing them. Since I am the primary driver of the mini-van I have my favorite stations preset on FM1.
My husband has his preset on FM2 and my daughter gets to use FM3. This way we can all quickly access our favorites without messing up the other persons presets.

For those of you who are technically gifted I am including specifications for your enjoyment.

AMPLIFIER
Continuous power output is 17 W per Channel Min. into 4 ohms, both channels driven 50 to 15,000 Hz with no more than 5% THD.
Maximum power output..........40Wx4
Load impedance................4n (4-8n allowable)
Preout maximum output level
...........output impedance...2.2V/1 kn
Tone controls
...(bass).....................+-12 db (100Hz)
...(treble)...................+-12 db (10kHz)
Loudness contour..............+-10 db (100Hz)(volume: -30dB)

CD PLAYER
System........................Compact disc audio system
Usable discs..................compact disc
Signal format.................Sampling frequency 44.1kHz
Number of equalization bits...16 linear
Frequency chracteristics......5-20,000 Hz (+-1db)
Signal-to-noise ratio.........94dB (1kHz) (IHF-A network)
Dynamic range.................92dB (1kHz)
Number of channels............2 (stereo)

FM TUNER
Frequency range...............87.9 - 107.9 MHz
Usable sensitivity............10dBf
..............................(0.9uV/75n,mono,S/N: 30dB
50dB quieting sensitivity.....15dBf
Signal-to-noise ratio.........70dB (IHF-A network)
Distortion....................0.3% (at 65dBf, 1kHz, stereo)
Frequency response............30 - 15,000 Hz (+-3dB)
Stereo separation.............40dB (at 65dBf, 1kHz)
Selectivity...................70dB (2ACA)
Three-signal intermodulation
...(desired signal level).......30dBf
...(two undesired signal level).100dBf

AM TUNER,
Frequency range...............530 - 1,710 kHz (10kHz)
Usable sensitivity............18uV (S/N: 20dB)
Selectivity...................50dB (+-10kHz)