Entry-level price, with features I didn't expect.

I bought this Pioneer DEHP-3000 CD player about 2 years ago, when I first got into car audio, and I must say it's an excellent value.

Quality.

The unit is solidly constructed, it's hefty, only skipped about maybe 2 times I can remember, when going over some nasty roads with potholes, more like asteroid craters, every 2 seconds, so that's understandable, and expected. It played all my store bought CD's, even CD's with light to moderate scratches, and CDR and CDRW discs fine. Detachable face is nice, and for me, you had to sort of wiggle it back and forth to get it off, but after you break it in after a couple weeks, the face pops off easily.

Features.

Back 2 years ago, a fancy display and screensavers were just coming into being, now there's as common as anything. The display is extremely easy to read in nighttime, a slight pain in the daylight, but if you memorize all buttons and features, it didn't really hinder me, but it is an annoyance.

Sound is powerful and clean, due to Pioneer's MOSFET 45 internal amp chip, which pumps out 22 watts of RMS power, 45 peaks watts, into 4 channels. All you need for years of listening pleasure.

You get the cool 5 preset equalizers, with Pioneer's EZ EQ function, and you can custom set your own equalization setting, very cool. Even more so is the advanced tweaking you can do to customize the bass, mid, and low frequencies, something that is useful, and I didn't expect that level of quality of a head unit that is $200 dollars or less. I paid $229 when I got this 2 years ago.

Another thing nice is the DFS alarm, DFS means Detachable Face Security, where if someone tries to open your door, when you detach the face and lock the doors, an alarm will sound through your car speakers, and you can adjust the loudness and delay time of that also. For me, it never worked, probably cuz I don't have power locks, but maybe also to the fact that I had Best Buy install it, but now I know better, and do everything myself now.

Radio stations come in nice and clear, thanks to Pioneer's Supertuner III system, stations I couldn't get on my factory radio came in nice and strong, but mostly I listened to CD's so radio wasn't a big importance to me.

Summary.
As my first CD player for my car, it's great for a adult who want's a CD player to replace their tape deck, or factory radio, with enought features for anyone who want's to add external amplifiers, which by the way, has 2 set's of 2.2 voltage preouts for amplifiers. Not too shabby.