PERFORMANCE AUTO & SOUND – PASMAG.COM
74
CLARION
CZ401
high and low pass crossovers. And finally, if
your car has steering wheel controls, there are
adapters available to make them work with the
CZ401, via a dedicated plug on the rear panel.
CONTROLS AND FUNCTIONALITY
When designing a head unit’s controls and
display, the layout, placement and feel of the
controls are critical, as is the readability of the
display. Optimally, you want a unit that can be
used virtually blind, and when you look at it, the
information should be easy to find and clearly
displayed. Clarion goes to great lengths in the
regard with something they call their H.M.I.
or Human-Machine Interface. The result is
a design that places frequently used buttons
in logical and easy to find spots, incorporates
a rotary volume control, and a bright (white)
character display on a black background. I
have to say that in my opinion, they got it
almost perfect. This folks, is basically how it
should be. Well done.
If I were to pick nits, I suppose it would be
nice to have a bit more flexibility on what’s
displayed, and to be able to control things like
scrolling speed, but that’s being pretty unre-
alistic for a product in this price range. The
CZ401 is intuitive, the menus were easy to
navigate, and I could even drill down to fairly
obscure adjustments like the filter Q of the
equalizer without needing a manual. While I’m
on the subject of the EQ, I should point out
that while Clarion doesn’t make too big a deal
of the feature, this is a powerful tuning tool. There are three bands, Bass Mid, and
Treble, and within each band you can select one of three available frequencies. Boost
and cut is adjustable in 2dB steps, with an adjustment range spanning 28dB. On top
of that, the Q of the boost is adjustable on the Bass and Treble bands as well. Have a
look at the accompanying graphs to see what I’m talking about.
MEASURED SPECIFICATIONS
AMPLIFIER
CEA-2006A Power per channel (all channels driven, @ 4 ohms)
18.5 watts/ch X 4
A Wtd S/N Ratio (ref to 2V/1W @ 4 ohms) Amplified output
-82.6dBA
THD+N @ 2V/1W @ 4 ohms 1kHz
0.08%
Frequency Response (-1.0dB)
20Hz – 20kHz
PREAMP SECTION
Max Usable Output Voltage
5.0Vrms
A Wtd S/N Ratio ref to full output voltage
-92.8dBA
Output Impedance
236 ohms
Frequency Response (-1.0dB)
20Hz – 20kHz