Hi all

I know this debate has probably been done to death before about buying headunits from the States to use here in the U.K. becuase of the tuner frequency goes up and down in different steps than it does on H/u's over here, hence some FM radio stations cannot be tuned in to.

But...

I quite fancy the Pioneer DEH-P8400MP CD/WMA/MP3 Player which costs around £400 over here and can be bought for around $400 from the U.S. including shipping. Having looked at this h/u on both U.K. and U.S. ICE websites, I cannot see any difference in the two and the model number (DEH-P8400MP) is also identical.

Would it be too good to be true that the tuner in both of these would be identical too therefore meaning that I would be able to tune into all FM stations? Maybe some ICE retailers in the U.S. stock this headunit for export to Europe?

Are there any more potential differences in these two headunits that I should be aware off as I don't want to take the risk of buying it and finding out that something's not right.

Thanks in advance,

Gavin :)

ttt

US - FM tunes to odd - so you can't tune to 95.8 Capital for example. MW tunes to even, so you can't get 909 5 Live in the UK. Also, goods shipped from the US have to have the invoice detailing the cost and description of goods, so you'll get taxed, vat'ed, import dutied and generally charged to the hilt unless you buy it over there and take it back yourself.

Any use?

?

Hey...I'm on.D)

Hate ta tell ya Gavin,but the radio won't work there.D(that's a good price on it though...from who?

Drop me an email when you find the time...mosif@gwi.net

Hey Steve, good to see you're around again :) Ordered the STI yet? ;)

Just remember that $400 will need 4% duty adding, plus 17.5% VAT - call it $490. Dollar rate of 1.4 on your credit card and you're looking at around 350 quid.

If it goes wrong, that 50 quid will be soon missed.

I have bought stuff from the states, but the difference in price needs to be bigger: prices in $ that equate to £ are marginal on saving you money...

surely u can get an expander unit for it? this is what i have on my jap head-unit.

Christian,

Different problem: it's not the range, it's the interval in stepping on the tuner. The tuner steps up on .2 MHz steps, not .1 like in the UK, so you miss anything that falls on the wrong boundary...

Cheers,
Nick.

I had a similar problem, only in reverse - I want to source a deck from Europe, namely a changer.

The way I see it - if you can source it locally, it's better to do it that way - you won't have any support nightmare if the deck goes wrong. Plus with different region's tuner frequency and stepping, unless you're sure that the stepping can be changed on the US deck, you will be screwed on your radio...

As for me, I have no choice - Kenwood doesn't make any MD decks in North America, and I want the MDLP changer, and of course, seeing that Kenwood has CD+MP3 deck over in North America, I would rather use that instead of sourcing one from out of region. But nobody has any firm answers to whether the european/japanese changer will work with a north american head unit :(

You need to find out if the unit supports a feature called "channel space selection", This enables a tuner to switch between US/UK frequencies. E-mail a few US dealers and ask if the unit you want can support this feature.

Its also worth looking at the manufacturer sites in Singapore and Malaysia. I did a quick check on the Pioneer Singapore site and they list a unit P8450MP that supports channel space selection. NB. you probably won't get LW or RDS on an import unit.

Hope this helps.


Paul