OTish: Becker VS Pioneer

I've heard the Pionner - I almost bought one as well, then I changed cars instead, excellent piece of kit and looks cool. Very likely it'll be sitting in my next car.

Get the Becker.

Becker have consistently been some of the best sounding radios I've heard. Very neutral sounding and excellent radio reception.

Beckers tend to be fitted to good Mercs.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

I've just replaced the Panasonic in the old Rover with a DAB Blaupunkt Woodstock and it has the higher output you quote - the Panasonic being the same lower one. Both four amp types. And the difference is more marked than I'd expect. The Panasonic regularly ran out of puff - the Woodstock goes too loud for comfort. It's also far cleaner sounding on everything. I'm actually quite impressed. ;-)

Yebbut it's going in a MK2 Golf, and will be driving speakers salvaged out of an old Jag. It's not exactly going to be a high fidelity system. And it's likely to be playing CDs a lot of the time because the radio is shit. I haven't even bothered wiring up my tuner since I moved 6 months ago.

And I can't find a shop where I can hear one nearby.

That's my thinking. I know that 4x27W is more than enough, whereas 17W might leave me wanting an amp. And that perhaps the £40 I save could go on the the wheel refurb the car desperately needs...

In news:46115688$0$19245$ snipped-for-privacy@news.zen.co.uk, Doki wittered on forthwith;

I've got a Nakamichi CD500 in the Merc, it's brilliant. The only reason it's not in the Golf is because the Golf had a Sony Active Panel something or other with a 10 disc auto changer when I bought it - I can't be bothered taking it out because it's not that much worse than the Nak - definately not so bad that I can be bothered stripping half the trim out to remove the autochanger lead.

Take the respective power ratings with a pinch of salt. The standards for measurement are rather vague and allow for a great deal of poetic license. The likes of Becker/ Nakamichi tend to be conservative (read that as more realistic) with their ratings

Ken

Depends on whether they state how it's measured. If DIN it can provide a comparison. Just don't imagine something like '50 watts max' bear any relation to a decent domestic 50 watt amp.

But it's always been the case. With an ordinary class B transformerless output stage into 4 ohms, the most you can get with 13.8 volts is under 5 watts. Didn't stop many makers claiming more...

I've just had a look again, the Becker makes 18W RMS, whereas the Pioneer makes 27W DIN (45324). The car audio people reckon that the Becker will be up there with the Pioneer, but I'm not entirely sure - I've experienced the household hifi lot's superstitions and beliefs that some countries make bigger watts than others. What do you reckon?

18 watts will be fine - it's speaker sensitivity that's more important. If you are getting the speakers out of an old Jag, do you know their specs? How are the speakers going to be mounted in your car? Also, for what it's worth, I've heard a Becker unit, it wasn't shit by any means, and I have it on good authority that they are pretty good. Having said that, I bought an Alpine instead (but moret o do with price than anything, TBH).

Whatever happens, it's unlikely you're going to concerned about missing the finer nuances of Beethoven's 9th whilst roaring down the M6.

I'm not going to be using the Jag speakers as it turns out they're 6 ohm so will c*ck things up. I'm going to leave it for the time being then try to lay my hands on a Becker / Nak / Rockford when the car's bacl on the road.

'RMS' doesn't really tell you much unless it also gives the distortion figure, as a sine wave converted into a square one by clipping will have a higher RMS value. ;-)

I can only give you the spec quoted from the Blaupunkt book. Being German it might be on the same wavelength as Becker.;-)

18 watts from 14.4 volts at 1% distortion into 4 ohms. 26 watts sine in accordance with DIN45324 50 watts max power.

All per channel.

Since it quotes an output according to DIN 45324, that's the one to use for comparison as it is formulated exactly for this purpose.

snipped-for-privacy@eclipse.net.uk...

There's a Mexico CC in my cupboard - don't know the code for it though. Radio and cassette are very good indeed.

snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk...

it's about 2.5db difference.

Aye. I reckon I'll be going to get a Becker when the time comes, assuming one comes up cheap. Not now, because the car's still in bits. Apparently you'd be very hard pressed to produce 27W "proper" watts inside a head unit. Thinking then of perhaps getting a set of infinity components up front and a small sub in the boot, perhaps an elemental designs. Just want to move the bass out of the door cards rather than have the big "boom tish" thing going on.

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk...

Generally, for something to sound twice as loud to the average person you're talking about a 10dB increase in power. So very roughly about 5 times the power output in watts. Which was what surprised me about how much louder my new one sounds compared to the old - someone is telling porkies in the spec. But the old one didn't give a DIN figure.