Clarion CZ500E

A 1-DIN headunit with the Clarion blue ‘Starburst’ design. Single CD player with FM and AM tuner and rear USB port on a wire. Able to play from flash drives or else iPods and iPhones at full speed. Reads MP3 and WMA and AAC by way of iPod technology. There’s a small stereo jack socket on the front for insertion of generic MP3 players and the USB connection is via a rear connected lead. Remote control with 13 buttons supplied with battery, microphone supplied with clip and hard case for removable face plate.
– CD/CD-R /RW Ready
– Built-in Bluetooth® Hands-free (HFP & OPP)
– Hands free Microphone Included
– MP3, WMA Compatible with ID3-TAG Display
– Rear USB Input
– Blue illumination
– 18 FM/ 6 AM Presets
– USB Audio for iPod/iPhone (Rear)
– Front 3.5mm Aux Input
– Subwoofer Volume Control
– Parametric EQ
– Beat EQ for Sound Adjustment
– Built-in LPF
– 2-Line High Visibility LCD
– Large and Easy to Operate Rotary Volume
– 6ch 4-Volt RCA Outputs
– 50W x 4 Built-in Amplifier
– OEM Steering Wheel Remote Ready
– Detachable Control Panel
– Infrared Remote Included
– Made for iPod / iPhone
– Includes Free 2 Year Warranty
– Includes Free 12 Months Anti-Theft Insurance*
* online registration required at www.clarion.co.uk within 21 days of purchase.
Review by Adam Rayner
I was told by a technician at Clarion, to whom I am deeply grateful for his encyclopaedic knowledge of all devices Bluetoothery, that some Bluetooth thingies are more equal than others and that while my ‘Berry was perfectly able to make Bluetooth phone calls and the like through this headunit, it wasn’t compatible for music streaming. The 8520 was the cheapie freebie with a contract after all. (And now I wish of course that I had paid to get a slightly quicker one for loading web pages!) But the point is, I was on the phone about something pretty darn abstruse and digital and this is a �150 head unit.
Just a few years back, this would have been all flagship binary hocus-pocus auto-focus stuff. Now, it’s just a matter of ‘does it all work well and just how far up the digital pathway can you go for the money at this level?’ Well to start with, lets get the basics out of the way. The deck is an interesting mix of the seriously clever and the stripped-down. The face looks pretty in the dark yet the switchgear lacks the feel of the sexy controls on the awesome HXD2 I once tried of theirs. This is where some cash is saved, although it looks cool. The display isn’t too flashy as a simple FL type, either and so costs less than some. It plays CDs with a nice rapid motorised grab-a-disc mechanism but you can hear some transport noise way back of the box on my super clean monitors and posh Genesis amplifier through the Bowers & Wilkins LM1 leisure monitors I use as test bed on the Diawa lab supply at 12V.
But turn it up at all and you will not sense the noise as the signal levels are a huge 4Volts on the nest of six dangly RCA cords out the back and with judicious set up of an amp or two, you should get this noise floor perceived as good and low for the cash spent. A nice place where they spent more to get a more bodacious result for amp users, though.
The remote control is cool but does not allow anything other than single track up/down in order on the iPod, so can act only as ‘track veto’ for passengers. Which is enough for most people.but the i-control from the headunit is rapid and effective and intuitive. The manual is well written and nice and short, too, so isn’t too daunting once you realise that Polish and Russian are in there with all the other European languages.
I made a phone call by pairing my Blackberry up to the unit and it was simple and fast and clear, although again, since microphones can cost so very much (for things like fancy auto-EQ of Pioneer home AV receivers) and this was just for phone use, all you need is vocal intelligibility (so you can save money) and my called-up chum told me I sounded a bit back-of-the-box, even as I moved the microphone to within inches of my mouth, as though it were in the headlining close to my gob. You do get a nice long cable to connect to the flying lead on the back of the headunit to do this if you want, which helps. And it all adds up to a very low cost after all to keep this in perspective.
Changing from source to source was easy as pie as well and apart from a few Bluetooth issues to read about, you really don’t even have to open the manual if reading’s not your thing. It’s brainlessly simple and I reckon that takes some real cunning in interface design as this thing will play CD, radio or MP3 and WMA files off said CD or else a USB flash drive stick, or it can boss an iPod or iPhone and even accept the plughole on the front as an extra source of tunes if you poke a player up it. It’ll be your hands free set for less than most hands free sets cost without all the music and choices and comes with whistles and bells like some really ridiculous-for-the-cash amounts of DSP, all casually flung in ‘cos they can.
Like the dog and his bollocks, Clarion lick ’em with a settable Q (that’s bandwidth of effect) as well as frequency and gain (dB level) at low, mid and high frequencies, making the normal Treble/Bass fixed controls seen at this level look pants, as this now becomes a three band parametric EQ system called Beat-EQ. And if you ain’t an engineer and don’t want to muck about setting a clever, and punchy-in-your-car setting on the system, then you can try their preset EQs and they work!
I am, as you can tell, slightly obsessed with quite how much stuff is crammed in here as standard for so little money and while the basic sound quality of the whole audio section is not a mad-end audiophile item, they make them too if you want that (hell, they make Macintosh for Macintosh car audio, and that awesome HXD2 thing) but that’s to answer a question that hasn’t been asked here. If you want a solid branded item that works for Bluetooth phone and audio then check compatibility with your phone first, but if you need that ‘Pod or iPhone control and you have CDs you still use as well as FM RDS radio in the mornings and you might like even one day to add amps and blow your roof off, while still having an industry standard fat 4×50 watt on board chip to rock you, then this really is bloody hard to beat.
And it says ‘Clarion’ on the front, not ‘Treefrog car audio’.
Sound Quality 7.0
Appearance/Display 8.0
Ease Of Use/HMI 10.0
Features 10.0
Value For Money 10.0
Overall rating 9.0
Easy winner of a Talk Audio Recommendation.