Pioneer radio reception

desoc32

Does anyone ever have problems with the quality of a pioneer head units when it comes to receiving fm radio stations? I bought an expensive pioneer unit for my Nissan Xtrail 4 years ago (when bluetooth hands free head units were €350+) and could never get near the quality of reception from original stock Nissan head unit so i changed back.
In the last month i opted for an Alpine unit and reception was great, just like Nissan unit so all good.
Then my sister who has a Bmw 318ci 2001 car with an original head unit with great reception said she wanted to have a usb for her iphone etc so she went to Halfords and picked up a pioneer head unit and straight away after installing the radio reception is well below par (literally cannot pick up even local radio station 2 miles away). I decided to reinstal the original head unit and there we go, reception back to normal! Then back to Halfords and swapped out the pioneer for a sony head unit for her bmw and reception excellent :mad:

Stheno

I've a pioneer in my car and reception is poor, it's about five years old, it flakes in and out fairly regularly, usually outside of Dublin.

Is ok in Dublin, hits the odd black spot and then it's ****e.

Senna

I looked into this years ago, on the technical spec's of the radio there is a figure, something like RT FM=123456 (but that's not it), the higher that figure the better your reception will be.
It took me ages to find it the first time so I wont look now, but my Honda Prelude at the time had a built-in window aerial that was rubbish, I found a cheap radio on ebay that had a very high number (as above) and the reception was excellent.

JohnBoy26

Yes like yourself I bought an expensive pioneer head unit about 3 years back. The reception on the radio was very poor, sometimes not even being able to pick up even 2fm. I also found the sound quality only ok.

The alpine are the way to go imo. They are a much better head unit with good radio reception and superb sound quality(the best sound quality of any mainstream head unit imo)

dar83

Where did you guys place the aerial from the back of the head unit?

I had a Pioneer in my old car that I bought to replace a Kenwood that was in it when I got it. Installed the radio aerial up the A pillar as close to the windscreen as possible. Radio reception was grand, never had an issue.

whizbang

The older pioneer units had an aerial tuner adjustment on the back of them. Made a huge difference. Anybody find one on theirs?

Stheno

whizbang wrote: »

The older pioneer units had an aerial tuner adjustment on the back of them. Made a huge difference. Anybody find one on theirs?

How much older?

desoc32

I live in North Wicklow and can pick up every station clear as a bell in other cars with other branded head units etc but with the pioneer i can barely get East Coast radio in Bray (not that that's a bad thing ) but even doing a manual seek it won't find the larger radio stations or if it does their so bad their not worth listening to.
Even cheaper lidl head units pick up everything so what's the story with Pioneer?:mad: