Pioneer DEH-P47DH. A great looking/sounding CD player.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Powerful, Custom fit for those with 1.5 din openings, Detachable face, tons of features

Cons: Not the most beautiful deck... no "organic" display.

The Bottom Line: 
Pioneer has everyone else beat when it comes to GM-Sized CD players, even Alpine.

Author's Review
The Pioneer DEH-P47DH is just another one of Pioneer's great products. The main reason I bought it was the look; I wanted a custom looking fit for my Chevy Lumina that has a 1.5 DIN opening, as do most GM vehicles.

My factory radio/cassete player was not very good. I thought that my speakers werent, too, until I dropped this Pioneer in. I was amazed by the clarity and distinction of the high frequencies. But, they are factory speakers, and tended to distort when turned up to loud. So I bought some Alpines and suddenly I have this top-of-the-line sounding car audio system.
Pioneer's 45x4 MOSFET amp puts out great sounding music. You'll tell the diference between a JVC 45x4 and this Pioneer 45x4.

The DEH-P47DH has many features:

HPF - High Pass Filter
Great for blocking the bass when you have subs and just want your speakers for highs, so you can turn it up as loud as you want. Great for blocking distortion, and almost essential when you want to turn the music way up. Blocks frequencies at different selectable levels: 50, 80, and 120.

LOUD
Where you want the most loud sounds to be- you can either have LOUD:LOW, MID, or HIGH. Low meaning you want most power concentrated on your low frequencies. Mid meaning more to the MID, or middle sounds, and HIGH. I think it sounds best on high, and can really bring out the most out of your speakers, factory or not.

SLA - Source Level Adjustment
Ranges from 0 to 4. Just makes the music louder without having to turn the volume all the way up. If you have subs, it will make the music louder while keeping the bass level of the subs the same. This is good for those who have extremely loud subs that tend to drown out the rest of the music. This feature is ideally made for controlling the variance in volumes when switching from source to source (Example: switching from a CD to the radio).

EQ:LOW, MID, and HIGH
Just lets you choose how much low, mid, and high frequency you want to your speakers. If you have subs, the EQ:Low can be used to turn down the volume/level of them. Ranges from (-6) to ( 6).

There are diferent EQ modes too:(Super Bass, Powerful, Natural, Vocal, Flat, Custom)
It remembers youre specific settings for custom

This CD player also lets you name your CDs. It can also be dimmed, and there is a button you can hit so it always shows the time.

All in all this CD player is a great investment, however if you have a few more bucks I recommend the P77DH. It's pretty much the same thing except it has a remote and another set of preamp outputs(RCA's).
I bought mine for $280 about 6 months ago. You should be able to get it for about that much, or maybe a little lower.
If great sounding speakers with deeper lows and sharper highs are what you are looking for, along with that custom fit, than this is the most affordable and best sounding GM sized CD players available. Alpine has a few available, with some other fancy features and a prettier display, but the cheapest one is about $400. Thanks,
David

*UPDATE* - I sold my Pioneer DEH-P47DH and replaced it with an ALPINE CDA-D852. This deck retails for about $400 something. It has a much cooler looking display, but doesnt come close to matching the features. I can't turn it up as loud without having to turn all the bass off, for it doesnt have as much power. I paid only $265 for it, but I'm going to sell it and get the Pioneer DEH-P77DH. Pioneer has everyone else beat when it comes to GM/Chrystler-sized CD Players.

*UPDATE* 12/22/03

This deck should be able to be purchased for about $200. Check out my review on the DEH-P77DH if you have a little more loot to spend.