Hopefully this is everything you wanted to know about the deck and more, if you have other questions I can try to address them.

Sorry about the wait, work's killing me. Where do I start? I think what everyone is most interested in is how the deck works with MP3s. As HondaGuy said, there are a lot of decks out there that are slow at reading MP3s. Unfortunately Pioneer didn't surprise me. It take about 4 - 5 seconds to change tracks / change folders / initialize the CD. It's not fast, but while I have been using it I haven't thought to myself, dang, this thing is slow. I would say the most annoying thing about waiting a couple seconds is when you are looking for a certain folder or track and you have to wait the 5 seconds realize isn't not the one you're looking for, wait another couple seconds and so on. You can choose to view the folder name, file name (ie. coldplay.mp3), and then ID3 tag attributes like Artist, Song Name, Album, etc. I think it has a 16 character display. I wish it would scroll automatically, but you have to press a button for 2 seconds if you want the name to scroll. It doesn't read winamp play lists if anyone was wondering.

Initial impressions when I took the deck out of the packaging... It looked like it was made more cheaply that my previous Pioneer deck. I bought my previous deck in 1998, but I spent more money on it too...

Installation was a breeze. I used Lucid's aftermarket harness and that made things easy. I bought the PAC SWI-X from him too. As someone has said before, the PAC doesn't work well with Pioneer decks - just because they use the up/down/left/right arrows. The buttons I have now are:

Mute = Mute
Volume Up = Volume Up
Volume Down = Volume Down
Ch = Next folder / Next sequential radio preset.
Mode = CD mode -> Radio Mode -> Power off -> Radio mode.

That's another thing. Pioneer is goofy such that two buttons are used to switch between radio and CD. One button switches from CD to radio to power off to radio. Another button switches to CD to power off to CD. There isn't one button that allows you to switch from CD to radio back to CD.

The PAC is easy to program to I might change volume up/down to folder up/down, I don't know yet...

Back to the deck. Like I said, it's easy to install. I was a little leary because crutchfield's website said I would need to make modifications for it to fit. That is untrue. It was a very snug fit, but that was because I fit two crossovers behind / under the deck. However, once you jam all of those wires back there and put the fold down cover back on, I think the stereo looks great - like it was built for the S2000.

On a side note. Does anyone know of something that would allow me to keep the S2000's stereo fold down cover up, but still allow me to use an IR remote? Like an Ir repeater of sorts? I've seen them for houses, but I would really like one for the stereo.

I love the deck's display. It has about 10 of those annoying screen savers. The volume goes from 0 to 60, I'm not a big fans of that - it takes too long to go from loud to soft.

There are a lot of features. SLA (if your CD are generally a lot louder than the radio you can adjust it so everything is the same), Equalizer (low, mid, high), HPF (high pass filter if you have a sub), separate bass and treble controls (for increasing bass / treble. It also allows you to change what frequency each plays. Bass is something like 40, 63 100, 160 Hz and Treble is something like 2.5k, 4k, 6.3k, 10k Hz), separate sub woofer controls, balance, loudness.

I'm doing this all from memory so I might be forgetting some things. I've been playing MP3 CDs for more that 98% of the time I've been used the deck. I haven't played a normal CD in it yet nor have I preset any FM stations...

Overall I'm happy with the deck and would buy it again.

Sorry I didn't organize my thought better, it's late and I'm tired. If anyone has specific questions let me know. I'm in the process of buying a digital camera, so I'll take pictures if I can.

Also, incase anyone is curious about pricing of stereo component here's what I bought and how much everything was (I didn't look around much, but I thought these were good prices):

P7400MP - $280
Infinity Kappa 60.3cs - $170
Lanzar Neo 5.1 rear speakers - $80
PAC SWI-X with Lucid harness - $70
I had everything else...(amp, sub, amp kit, etc.)

 

Thanks for the review. This's what i expected from the Pioneer. I'm leaning towards the JVC SH-99 after using & seeing it in person. Track to track was almost instantaneous. Load up's around 4 seconds I think.

 

Interesting........I will have to bring this up with my Boss at work.(seek times)

As for the PAC mod.......well if you get a different remote such as a steering wheel remote or the LARGE remote they both have a MODE button. It scrolls cd/cd changer/tuner/off/cd/cd changer etc! Just borrow one from somebody or from a shop for 5 min to program your mod. Learned that one in the 2.5 years of using the PAC mod.

Though from what I have heard the SH-99 is a bit more difficult to use from a user stand point.