Is What Anne Korin Said True?

[Brian Vita]

> I've noticed the quality of factory stereos going downhill over the
> last 10 years or so.  Lotsa luck trying to find one with a good AM
> section, even the FM sections are getting pretty bad.  Seems they're
> concentrating on CD/mp3/satellite radio with AM/FM almost being an
> afterthought.

[Brian Vita] Personally I'm waiting for the AM/FM/HD/SAT(XM)/CD/WMA/MP3/USB
deck for the replacement in my car.  The closest that I've found is a unit
from Dual that does all but the XM.  I'm not too happy about losing the
steering wheel remote as a result.

My 2003 Pathfinder came with AM/FM/CD Changer/XM.  The XM had major software
issues from the get-go.  The dealer had no idea what XM was and, although he
tried earnestly, was less than helpful.  Around the 4 swapout of XM head,
they started handing them to me as I could do the XM swap faster than they
could.  Around #6 Nissan corporate enlisted me as a beta tester and actually
refunded me the cost of the XM upgrade (which I kept).  They finally got me
a working XM box.  Now the CD changer is wonky.  Oh well.

One of the annoying features about the factory radio is that it was made OEM
by Clarion.  The Nissan's owner's manual had two paragraphs in it about the
radio which did not address any of the radio's features.  Clarion would not
talk about the radio at all when I asked them for info on the radio.  I was
constantly annoyed that the RDS display only showed the first 12 or so
characters and would not scroll.  On XM I could flip between
Artist/Title/Station.  On FM all I could get was station info (ie. MAGIC
106.7) but not song or title info.

Brian