Product Description
Clarion’s CZ200 is an affordable replacement for your OEM receiver. Enjoy simple connection and integration of your iPod or iPhone, USB and auxiliary connections to access music on portable devices, and superior sound quality with subwoofer volume control and advanced sound technology. Down the road you may choose to add Bluetooth, or expand your system with four channels of preamp output.Amazon.com Product Description
Clarion’s CZ200 is an affordable repl… More >>
#1 by S. Nair on July 2, 2010 - 10:27 pm
The product looked very promising, particularly considering it was “Featured” on Crutchfield. However, I exchanged it for JVC Arsenal KD-AHD69 due to the following shortcommings:
1. iPOD CONTROL:
Crutchfield does mention this in their review that you can only control the iPod via the Clarion. That seemed fine with me, however the iPod controls on the Clarion turned out to be very poor due to the following:
(a) SCROLLING THROUGH LIST: If you have 1000s of songs and the one you want starts with one of the last few letters, you will be turning the dial on the Clarion for several minutes before you reach the song you want, because scrolling progresses alphabetically. This could have been avoided if you could turn the dial anti-clockwise and go in the reverse order… but NO.. you always start at alphabet “A” and the only way to reach “Z” is to pass all the other alphabets.
The JVC Arsenal KD-AHD69 I exchanged this for jumps forward by 10, 100, 1000 songs depending on the speed with which you turn the scroll wheel.
(b) If a unit does not allow for control via iPod, it needs to have satisfactory iPod control capability like “search”, “on-the fly playlist creation” etc.
(c) I connected an in-compatible version of iPod and the unit goes into a perpetual loop to trying to read the device . The JVC unit I exchanged this for says “Cannot Play” within a few seconds.
2. FM RECEPTION:
(a) During FM reception the volume kept abruptly fluctuating. I first thought it was speakers and since I was going to replace it anyway I waited till that was done. New speakers did not solve the problem and then I thought maybe I needed to replace my antenna, but by then I decided to exchange the unit and the JVC Arsenal KD-AHD69 works perfect.
(b) Extremely poor tuning circuitry. When I drive up my company parking garage, the reception almost becomes zero with mixing of adjacent stations. The JVC now provides crystal clear audio (non-HD stations) even inside my company parking garage.
3. BLUE’S BLUE:
Crutchfield pictures depict the Clarion to have a decent mild blue color, but in reality it is a bright, in-your-face blue. It looks very gaudy and if your interior lights are not blue, then this player will really not fit in visually. The JVC has vari-color and so now I have a perfectly matched color.
4. BUTTON FEEL:
The button feel is hard to press. The layout of the buttons won me over on paper, but using them is a slight disappointment… let me explain: Let us take the “Menu” button for example. The button will not activate if you press it towards the top.. you need to press it close to the “SRS” button. This is because in order to activate the button, the entire plastic has to flex downward and depress the switch underneath it. For maximum flexing, you have to press all those buttons closer to the “SRS” button. This may seem like trivial, but the design flaw and the repeated efforts you have to make to activate the button get at you after a while.
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by J. P. Marth on July 3, 2010 - 12:46 am
After installing the unit I noticed the reception was quite poor. At first, I thought it was a failure to connect the antenna lead behind the unit. After verifying that was not the case I kept trying to determine the cause with no results. Found online forums where other owners have the same issue.
The iPod controls are quite poor. It won’t always read the iPod, and even when it does, it can take forever to scroll to the artist or song you want to hear. The scrolling progression with the dial is painfully slow.
The Menu functions are not intuitive and good luck getting the clock to stay on the display. If you press any button at all or change the volume the clock will no longer come back up. You have to push the “display” button to bring it back.
Rating: 2 / 5