# Clarion CZ702 Review



## madmanmostafa (Mar 21, 2012)

I figured I'd post since no one really has put any sort of review of the unit.

I ordered it some time ago and it arrived about a week or so ago for under $200.

The box is a standard radio box. Upon opening the box and removing its contents, you immediately notice the plethora of available cables just waiting for some audiophile to tap into and maximize. Unfortunately, I'm just going to use the standard 4 speakers in my little Insight and replace my older Kenwood unit.

Installation was fairly straightforward. It's just wiring up the harness like you would everything else. I bought the external microphone which I installed behind the steering wheel and plugged it into the headunit. Everything is labeled on the back of the unit so it is hard to mix up what goes where.

On first boot, it's very easy to start up. I just chose Normal instead of the 2-way or 3-way and I was ready to go. During the install, I had already plugged my iPod in and my Aux plug. So once I started it up, it booted to the Tuner and I pressed the larger Source button and went to the iPod. Out of the box with no settings the head unit made the music sound a Lot better than my tuned previous unit (to my surprise). Because I don't have too much time to go through each setting and fine tune it and set the distance each speaker is from the driver and all that good stuff, I just chose the Excite preset. I was surprised at how decent is sounded. 

My sound system is running on some pretty crummy speakers, and even on the Excite sound, it was sounding great until I turned it up passed 20, in which I heard the speakers being maxed out. Though, it was pretty loud at that point anyway and I wouldn't normally turn it up that much. Though, I could definitely tell this thing had a lot more room to go in terms of audio quality if I decided to install tweeters, an amp, and actually decent speakers.

Pairing up the phone to the headunit was pretty straight forward. You just search for the device on your phone and click Pair. If you have an android phone it does it without you having to insert a pin. After you just need to approve its address book requests. In terms of the Bluetooth functionality, this is the primary reason I bought it. It was sported as the only head unit that had Android Pandora support. To my dismay, it was the same as every other headunit out there. To use Pandora you have to have an iPhone. Though, normal audio streaming over A2DP worked great. I just couldn't see what I was listening to and select the playlist. Even the next track function worked great while doing normal Bluetooth streaming.

Making calls on the thing isn't super great though. I wish it supported voice commands. Maybe it does but I just haven't figured it out. But to make a call, you need to be on the Bluetooth audio streaming source and press the Menu button. After you twist the volume Knob and find your Address book. It only shows one contact per twist, which is an address book of over 300 isn't very productive. I ended up just looking at my previously dialed list and called my brother to test the audio quality. Considering I don't usually call too many different people, going to the previously dialed list is faster than the alternative. Ultimately, if this supported voice commands, such as saying "Call Father" and it went through, I wouldn't care about the poorly selectable address book. Beyond that, I would have expected that if I received a SMS that I would hear it on the unit. Instead my phone silently vibrates without any noise. My previous Bluetooth ear piece even would make a little beep when I received a text. I'm surprised this one didn't.

Finally, setting up the other settings in the device is pretty easy. You just hold the DISP button and press the next and previous track buttons to go through the settings. Thankfully, disabling the color cycling was pretty easy. I haven't gone through the custom colors to perfectly match my car yet, but the presets available are pretty close. I just stuck with the Orange for now until it's actually night time to really see how close it is.

Overall I'd rate the unit fairly highly. I'd say 9/10. It lost half a point because it doesn't support Pandora on Android and another half point because it doesn't support voice commands to select a contact and going through the address book on it is pretty poorly set, even though it's from Parrot. But it gets a definitely high review because it is an incredible value and a lot of function and customization support.


Update:

I forgot to mention the music in the car has a peculiarly wide sound. I have Logitech Z900 for my computer's audio system. I have my music going through an optical cable. When you press the Effect button, it goes from 3D to 4 Speaker to 2 Speaker. The car's sound system is like I have it on 3D where it points the voice in a different space than the other instruments. It's an odd thing to describe until you sit there and listen to it. I've listened to a few different songs. I especially notice the effect when I'm listening to music on my iPod.


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## jpswanberg (Jan 14, 2009)

Thank you for the review, any of the background noise during quiet passages that was mentioned in the Australian review? JPS


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## madmanmostafa (Mar 21, 2012)

jpswanberg said:


> Thank you for the review, any of the background noise during quiet passages that was mentioned in the Australian review? JPS


It probably isn't right comparing this again to my home audio system which has optical inputs, but I do hear some static on quieter songs. I especially hear it with classical music even on pieces where I know my home system doesn't make the sound.


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## ledvedder (Oct 24, 2012)

I just installed this unit in my van. I choose 2 way, since I only have 6 speakers and no sub. What's weird is that this setting seems to cut all the bass out of the rear 6x9 speakers. I was checking the fader and balance to make sure I had the speakers wired correctly, and when I faded to just the back speakers, I realized they were just playing highs. All the lows seem to be from the front door and dash speakers. Is this normal? I was wondering why it seemed like the cymbals were behind me.


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## thomasluke (Jun 10, 2011)

ledvedder said:


> I just installed this unit in my van. I choose 2 way, since I only have 6 speakers and no sub. What's weird is that this setting seems to cut all the bass out of the rear 6x9 speakers. I was checking the fader and balance to make sure I had the speakers wired correctly, and when I faded to just the back speakers, I realized they were just playing highs. All the lows seem to be from the front door and dash speakers. Is this normal? I was wondering why it seemed like the cymbals were behind me.


you need to go back and choose normal. selecting 2 way means you have a tweeter and woofer. 
It has yours rears crossed over pretty high. most likely high enough to run a tweeter.


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## mongar (May 6, 2012)

How do you guys like the quality of the fm? I've had this for a few months and the fm just doesn't seem all that good.


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## ledvedder (Oct 24, 2012)

I'm confused, because normal mode shows a setup with a subwoofer. If you look at page 9 of the manual, http://www.clarion.com/us/en/MungoBl...7/CZ702_EN.pdf, 2 way mode was the closest to my speaker setup (rear, front door, dash). The other 2 modes (normal and 3 way) have subs. The different modes have settings that apply automatically to all the filters. It had the high HPF set at 2K. As I changed that setting, finally setting it to passthrough, it brought the bass back into the rear speakers. I found that a bit odd. I double checked both the balance and fader to make sure all the speakers were wired correctly, and they are. Now, I'm also wondering if the time alignment settings aren't affecting the correct speakers, since the filters seem to be on the wrong speakers.


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## fit_tuner (Aug 14, 2006)

ledvedder said:


> I'm confused, because normal mode shows a setup with a subwoofer. If you look at page 9 of the manual, http://www.clarion.com/us/en/MungoBl...7/CZ702_EN.pdf, 2 way mode was the closest to my speaker setup (rear, front door, dash). The other 2 modes (normal and 3 way) have subs. The different modes have settings that apply automatically to all the filters. It had the high HPF set at 2K. As I changed that setting, finally setting it to passthrough, it brought the bass back into the rear speakers. I found that a bit odd. I double checked both the balance and fader to make sure all the speakers were wired correctly, and they are. Now, I'm also wondering if the time alignment settings aren't affecting the correct speakers, since the filters seem to be on the wrong speakers.


all modes will include sub

you should be running it in normal mode. 2way mode is for active cross overs, so separate tweeter, mid, sub.

to make things simple, you could just run dash speakers and rear speakers, or front door speaker and rear speaker.


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## Alrojoca (Oct 5, 2012)

Does anyone know if this unit can play AAC/MP4 files from a flash drive or even the CD (apparently the CD only plays MP3 and WMA not sure if this is the case for and Ipod either limiting to those audio file types only.


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## Alrojoca (Oct 5, 2012)

Bump

No AAC files playback offered then?


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## a390st (Nov 11, 2013)

I was told no by a nearby dealer, but I don't know if they were really that familiar with this unit when I asked. It had just come out. I assume you can use your iPod to play AAC's without any trouble, but as I understand it you would be using the iPod dac, rather than the head unit dac.


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## WestCo (Aug 19, 2012)

Thank you for the review


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## pimpmyboat (Jul 26, 2011)

I think it can run acc files. I had it running acc files off my ipod and off a flash drive (im pretty sure)


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## atownmack (Mar 20, 2013)

I have this headunit. Two complaints I have are it is hard to read the screen in direct sunlight, and I wish the EQ was more than just 5 bands parametric. I would like 7 or 9, although 5 is workable if you use a wide Q.


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## Alrojoca (Oct 5, 2012)

The AAC files from a flash drive would be important to me.

As far as the display I have always used the negative screen display. Black letters on white background, if it can be changed, on other units I have done this and have 0 issues with light reflections or any of those issues


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## atownmack (Mar 20, 2013)

Alrojoca said:


> The AAC files from a flash drive would be important to me.
> 
> As far as the display I have always used the negative screen display. Black letters on white background, if it can be changed, on other units I have done this and have 0 issues with light reflections or any of those issues


How do you get this setting?


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## Alrojoca (Oct 5, 2012)

atownmack said:


> How do you get this setting?



I do not own one of these, if it can be changed, it should be on the display menu, colors, face display. I would scroll and check if you can find it.

Let us know maybe post the steps here or section on the Menu to change it.

Or maybe someone owning one of these can try it and post if it can be done.


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