This past Saturday night my truck was broken into IN MY OWN DRIVEWAY...and IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS were a live in lancaster PA and my head unit was stolen. none of my cds or 6 by 9 pioneers in the back but part of my dash and the headunit its not sooo bad b/c it was a sony explode and now i have a reason to get a new one. SO i was looking around for a new one and iv come to these two...the pioneer DEH-P7770mp or the Panasaonic CQ-C730IU. Simply which one is overal the best in ur guys words b/c i would like to purchase one of these two.
Pioneer is a better reliable brand IMO and that model has great features and sound.
I have the Premier version myself, which has a silver faceplate instead of grey and brings the pre-outs up from 2.2V to 4V. Price is usually only $10.00 more for the Premier and well worth it since the voltage difference will mean better S/N ratio and better headroom and dynamic range. Plus, my understanding is Premier is built with better quality components.
What I like about the Pioneer over the Panasonic:
Pioneer supports both satellite formats (Sirius and XM) Pioneer's rotary commander knob that controls 90% of functions Pioneer's very cool small remote control - blows away the competition! This Pioneer unit supports not only MP3/WMA, but also Apple IPOD AAC files This Pioneer has a way cool access button up front to get to your subwoofer settings. Also has direct access to the clock. Pioneer's OEL display can do a cool volume level meter that looks like the old skool analog needles - and they dance in proper accordance to the music in the left and right output! You can also choose to let the unit display the battery voltage making it to the head unit. Way cool and I don't know if Panasonic has that. The Pioneer looks innovative and classy at the same time. The Panasonic also looks classy, but not as innovative and clean as the Pioneer.
Either unit will bring you pleasure and be respectible, but the Pioneer consistently gets higher user ratings, especially for the Premier version!
I own the Panasonic CQ-7301U and it's a very nice cd player for the price. The volume control knob controls speaker settings (front and back), bass, treble, sub level, hpf and lpf. You can also customize the display. The Pioneer has a higher voltage preout than the Panasonic and probably a longer warranty. Both are trustworthy brands. If you havent already I would go a listen to both somewhere and start from there.
One correction: Only the Pioneer Premier version has higher voltage out. The non-Premier version has 2.2V at 1k ohms and Panasonic has 2.5V at 200 ohms. That 200 ohm Panasonic spec is actually better than the Pioneer, but the Premier has 4.0V at only 100 ohms, making it the best at handling noise and headroom issues.
Indeed, the best place to start is to demo each one for yourself, if at all possible. Not only sound (make sure both are played through the same speakers when doing an A/B test), but also how the features, looks (considering how each one will blend into your dash and interior) and feel suit you.