Car stereo with builtin Bluetooth A2DP?

[geoffbaker]

My car has an input jack and I use that for streaming music from the n95. But my girlfriends Honda CRV has the original crappy stereo in it and I was considering replacing it entirely with a better stereo... has anybody been using car stereos that now come with built in bluetooth stereo? I'd be interested in recommendations...

[NsHFsH!!]

Why not use an auxilary input instead? In my opinion auxilary its much reliable and has better sound than streaming bluetooth.

[DaveW]

I disagree if your input jack goes to a modulator on the antenna.

Geoff,

The very best BT radio on the market is the Pioneer DEH-P7900BT
I paid 420 plus tax at Bestbuy.
I have seen if for much less on the Internet from Circuit City. 320 I think.

Added cost features:
Add Sirius or XM. I have the Sirius SIR-PNR2 and it works perfect. Sirius claims to have issues with BT disrupting their signal due to the FCC lowering their bandwidth. In my case and with my equipment they were wrong, as it is flawless. They even called me back for information, as they were very surprised. My guess is the N95 has filtering built in to tighten up the signal and their dedicated SIR-PNR2 made specifically for this Pioneer radio also tightens things up.
You can also add an adapter for an iPod, which I have for my son and wife.
You can also get the USB adapter, which has a pass through plug so you can have the Sirius, USB and iPod on the same harness.
You can also control AUX , DVD players and other audio visual equipment.

The Sirius, iPod and USB adapter run about 100 each.

I have not gotten the USB adapter, but I have called Pioneer and you can put any flash drive on there or even a very larger USB hard drive, if you supply the power for the external hard drive.

The sound quality is excellent. I hear things in songs I have listened to for years that I never noticed before.

If I am playing music on my N95's external speakers and get in the car and turn it on, the N95 pauses for a few seconds and then the N95 music is passed to the car speakers and completely controlled with the radio and the music quality is perfect! The song automatically resumes where it paused from after the connection is made. It does take a few seconds. You can skip/change songs with the big control button on the radio, but to fast forward and stay in the same song you must use the phone control.

The display is curved plastic and makes it bit hard to read if you have the radio low and older eyes like myself. It will display the contents of you iPod, but not you phone. I have a stand for my phone in the car that is mounts pretty high and so I see the display of the phone instead. In this case, I prefer the phone display as it is sharper, bigger and clearer. The only downside is if you do not put it somewhere you can see the phone display you will never know what song is about to be played.

I have never dropped a connection yet in BT mode for music.

When you get a hands free call you just press the big button to answer or the small on to refuse. It comes with the mic. If you take the call you must press play on the phone to resume a song, as far as I can tell. It will hold a quick caller last and your phonebook, but I have not tried those features yet. I have not dropped any called entering and leaving the car with the BT transfer back and forth.

I highly recommend this radio if you can afford it.

[geoffbaker]

Originally Posted by NsHFsH!!

Why not use an auxilary input instead? In my opinion auxilary its much reliable and has better sound than streaming bluetooth.

Because life without wires is good.

Most BT capable stereos come with an aux input anyway so you can go either way...

[geoffbaker]

Originally Posted by DaveW

The very best BT radio on the market is the Pioneer DEH-P7900BT
I paid 420 plus tax at Bestbuy.
I have seen if for much less on the Internet from Circuit City. 320 I think.

I have not gotten the USB adapter, but I have called Pioneer and you can put any flash drive on there or even a very larger USB hard drive, if you supply the power for the external hard drive.

It will display the contents of you iPod, but not you phone.

I highly recommend this radio if you can afford it.

Thanks! It has a lot of features I'll never need (I dont care about satellite radio, video etc).

The USB flash drive capability is good.

I believe the A2DP protocol doesnt allow the radio display the tracks, only the phone. So that problem exists with any bluetooth system in any car. Will it display info when using the aux input tho...?

A more affordable ($150) alternative is the Sony MEXBT2500. Anybody looked at that yet?

[geoffbaker]

Originally Posted by DaveW

I hope you guys don't mind my avatar. It reminds me of my wife during day when I come here to take a break. She is a big Hello Kitty fan/collector.

lol not at all. I just assumed you were sick and twisted :) (j/k)

[gadgetman]

Why not simply get the CK-20w car kit????

[geoffbaker]

Originally Posted by gadgetman

Why not simply get the CK-20w car kit????

Because it would be nice to upgrade the crappy stereo in the car to begin with.

It'd be great if it played mp3 cd's, had an aux out, and did a bunch of other things as well...

And with the ck20w retailing at $120, the sony bluetooth stereo retails at $150, brand new. Add another twenty bucks at circuit city and they'll put it in for you.

Seems like a good time to get rid of an old stereo.

[electronf]

I have the Sony Bluetooth enabled car stereo. Best thing I ever bought, no wires, perfect sound, never dropped out.

Using the stereo remote or the track forward and back buttons goes next and previous track on the phone.

PLUS it is works as a handsfree phone carkit. The stereo has a microphone built in and it works really really well.

[nutter426]

Sony BT2500 is £139.99 at halfords atm, and yeah, i work there, but it supports A2DP and handsfree over bluetooth, and I believe also has the front 3.5mm aux in.
Its a pretty basic stereo apart from the bluetooth.