From David.S.Baker@tek.com Wed Apr 8 21:26 PDT 1998 Received: from fw1.tek.com (fw1.tek.com [192.65.17.16]) by mickey.ee.pdx.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA10689 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 21:26:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fw1.tek.com (root@localhost) by fw1.tek.com with ESMTP id VAA15636 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 21:26:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from auspex.vnd.tek.com (auspex.vnd.tek.com [128.181.189.30]) by fw1.tek.com with ESMTP id VAA15630 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 21:26:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from modtestpc3 (modTestPC3.vnd.tek.com [128.181.190.48]) by auspex.vnd.tek.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA08893 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 21:26:41 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <352C4D83.1554@tek.com> Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 21:24:35 -0700 From: David Baker Reply-To: David.S.Baker@tek.com Organization: Tektronix X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: thunder5@ee.pdx.edu Subject: [Fwd: Re: Help!! Poor FM Reception - Clarion ARX3170] Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: message/news Content-Length: 4287 Status: O X-Status: Path: news.tek.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!207.172.3.49!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!nntp.earthlink.net!usenet From: Todd Matsubara Newsgroups: rec.audio.car Subject: Re: Help!! Poor FM Reception - Clarion ARX3170 Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 21:40:31 -0700 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Message-ID: <3529AE3C.52721067@earthlink.net> References: <3528B6B8.4C9D@uq.net.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.178.16.204 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; U) Xref: news.tek.com rec.audio.car:173940 Unfortunately, aftermarket units do not receive the attention that OEM units do as far as tuner performance. I guess because most aftermarket users are concerned with overall sound quality and tape/cd performance, the tuner section is taken for granted. This type of tuner performance testing is a major part of my job, and to this day I still cannot figure out why the same tuners are not used in OEM and retail applications. OEM tuners outperform most aftermarket units by a significant margin, even with their considerably overall lower cost to produce. Of course you can check the usual - antenna, antenna ground, etc. but there is probably nothing wrong with your vehicle or equipment...you have simply found the achilles hell of aftermarket head units. For auto manufacturers, customer complaints are listened to closer than one thinks - although the channels that they receive the information through is still questionable to me. But there is definitely input, and the various problems are addressed depending upon the weight of the complaint vs. overall customer satisfaction or sales. In this case, the customer could be the final end user OR the auto manufacturer themselves. Our company works with the most diverse list of auto manufacturers as far as stereo companies goes, and I have seen how much the customers value tuner performance. Our testing involves duplicating specific problems such as strong adjacent signal interference, multipath interference, weak signal, strong signal, and a few others. These are tested in real-life situations, and the information gathered is vitally important for future development. I know that all other manufacturers do similar testing. To try keep this post unbiased (although I always have and always will refuse to go by anything but raw data and evidence) I won't mention any other brand names as far as tuner performance of current units goes. But even with more than one manufacturer's line of head units there are big differences among their own products. Sometimes even the cheaper units have much better performance than the high-end ones. This is all a result of tuner pack circuitry, layout, positioning within the unit itself, other components inside the unit, etc. I can say that so far, the Clarion units I have tested have been on the better side (at the very least). Although, as I mentioned above, there are differences between levels of units which makes direct comparisons of competitor units sort of confusing and irrelevant. Some of the best performances I have seen (ever) are the previous and current body Honda Accord with the in-glass antenna, the current 3 series BMW and the current E class Mercedes. Note that these are all OEM units. If you ever get a chance to drive one of these cars through an area that you have reception problems with, you may be quite surprised at their performance. Well I hope this general information helps clear up some confusion. That's my $.00000002 for now ;) Todd Matsubara Product/System Engineer Engineering Division Clarion Corporation of America Brendan wrote: > I've been scouting the newsgroups and I have a question that > hasn't been answered by anyone out there fully. > > Hopefully someone who's much more experienced about decks can > answer this. > > Why is my new Clarion ARX3170 Tape Deck have such poor FM reception > compared to my previous stock Tape Deck? > > Is it something to do with the aerial? Or is it the Clarion unit > itself? Or something in between? > > Any replies to my e-mail below would be most welcome. > > -- > > >>> Remove the "nospam" to reply <<< > >>>E-mail: bwong@uq.net.au<<<