LISTENING
I keep repeating this, but for a unit at this price range, I didn’t expect the sonic per-
formance to be as good as it was. Music on regular CDs sounded really open and natural
with good detail, no sense of compression and without any audible noise. In fact, I was
fairly amazed at how noise-free the unit was, with no sound whatsoever between tracks
or when playing a “digital black” track, even with the volume wide open. While doing my
listening, I changed CDs fairly frequently, and I did notice that the CZ401 isn’t the fastest
unit I’ve used when it comes to how long it takes to get audio output from the time you
load a disc. Most discs I tried would begin to play within about 15 seconds, which is about
5 seconds longer than average. It was mildly perturbing, but certainly not something that
was a real problem. The controls and buttons operated smoothly, with good tactile feed-
back and without any digital “zipper noise” that has plagued other lower priced products
in the past. The tuner also worked very well, with strong performance on both AM and FM
stations. The HD tuner also performed brilliantly.
ON THE BENCH
Regardless of the type of product I’m reviewing, I always do my listening first, and then
bring the unit to the bench to see if the measured performance specs correlate with what
I heard. I’m happy to say that in the case of the Clarion CZ401 the unit sounded great, and
the measured specs came out equally as impressive. You’ll recall I mentioned how quiet
the noise floor was, and for good reason – the signal to noise performance of the preamp
section was about as good as I’ve measured in recent memory, at an exceptionally low
-92.8dBA. I’ve measured home audio CD players that weren’t that good!
Frequency response is quite flat as well, and all of the EQ and crossover filters worked
precisely as advertised. The output impedance was a touch on the high side at about
236 ohms, but considering the preamp output voltage measured a full volt higher than
advertised, I’ll take it.
CONCLUSION
The Clarion CZ401 represents one of the highest performance units I have ever tested under
the 250 dollar (US) price point. It will serve perfectly as a replacement for a factory radio, or as
the cornerstone of a very high end audiophile system. This kind of performance and function-
ality isn’t generally found in this price range, so kudos to the Clarion team for developing an
affordable, great sounding, uncommonly good product. If you’re considering a replacement for
your existing single DIN radio, this Clarion should be at the top of your shopping list.
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