Pioneer KEH-P2030 In-Dash Cassette Player

It's getting very challenging to find new cassette players nowadays, but Pioneer seems to be the only real game in town anymore. There are some cheaper brands still available out there that I wouldn't waste my time & money with, and there's always used, old stock, custom, or foreign options on the web (Sony still makes units for overseas markets), but you can't go wrong with this unit if you're a stubborn old audiophile like myself holding onto too many tapes to just leave them behind in the digital dust of modern electronics.I slipped one of these bad boys into my 1997 Dakota to replace the stock unit and noticed that lyrics from the radio stations were more clear. It sounds great even on the old set of biaxial speakers, but I will soon improve it even more with a new set of triaxials to get more mid range.This unit was designed to be plain looking enough to even be retro (and less appealing to possible thieves) but I deducted one star for the graphics display and missing MP3/Aux. input jack on the face. The graphics color is a muted amber green, almost impossible to see during bright sunlight and rather ugly at night IMO, and if you want an MP3 or Ipod Aux option you have to purchase a separate IP Bus cable to connect to. Rather than critique the features too much, here are some suggestions for Pioneer (and anyone else who will listen):1. How about changing the graphics display to one that is a more translucent LCD with blue/white or green digits? Or maybe even one that you can change the color and light level on? It would probably go better with most decors and be easier to see.2. Things can get a bit complicated, messy, and/or expensive if you want both an external CD player and an MP3/Ipod option, so it would be a no-brainer to include a 3.5mm aux. jack on the face of the unit to make things easier.3. Thank you so much Pioneer for continuing to support the cassette platform, and please keep up the good work. Perhaps we can even look forward to seeing some higher-end units that have a better tuner, tape player, and CD controls, maybe even a 1.5 DIN with bigger buttons??? One can only hope.Otherwise, pretty darn pleased for now, especially for the money. My local car audio dealer told me that cassette decks were no longer available, period. Maybe I'll do a drive-by visit soon and show him that some people still care.*Updated about 9 months later:I started digging more into the manual about six months later to see what was required for upgrading to play MP3's. It turns out that the product description on the amazon web page is highly misleading, and this particular unit has no MP3 abilities. To confuse the matter more than it needs to be, even though this unit has an IP bus connection, it is a stripped down version that only has MCD (multi-compact disc) playing functions, so apparently not all Pioneer decks that have an IP bus connection will play MP3's.This unit only has expandability to XM radio with an external tuner, OR for an external CD player plugged into the optional IP bus cable, and that's it. No AUX input or the ability to switch from MCD to AUX. Luckily I found a new KEH-P4020 that does play MP3's and fits my vehicle decor better, but it would have been great if Amazon had a proper description and/or Pioneer had at least included MP3 abilities, otherwise I may not have bought this item in the first place.Still a basically good solid deck for the purpose if you fully know what you are getting (or not).

I have not installed this in my car at this point. It is a spare for my '95 Buick and Olds station wagons. I have it working in a portable radio cabinet that goes back to the 1940's and connected with spare auto speakers. It functions great with a 5.25 am at 12 volts from a 110 ac converter. All functions operate as listed in manual. It has automatic reverse which should be indicated, but there is no mention of this feature in the written material. A great bonus to have! FM is excellent and cassette player works fine. I probably have only 2 hours of use at this date (1-19-15). Wouldn't it be great if Pioneer would make a model with an audio input like the Radio Shack (Pioneer mfg)) one had that I have had in my camper for about 10 years-and it is still working fine. CD's, DVD sound and small TVs sound much better through this sound system.

The product was very nice and I wish it would have fitted in my dash, as the product was advertised it would.

The front of the cassette player keeps detaching on it's own or when you touch the front to change something (station, volume or what-have-you) The sound is much better than the previous cassette player we had. So hopefully this is just our device.

I ordered this for my dad because he loves cassette and satellite radio and is anti CD. It says its XM ready but it does not have a place to plug in the XM adapter so its not. I ordered this and it is not compatible SiriusXM SXV200v1 Connect Vehicle Tuner for SiriusXM-Ready.

I've had the cassette am-fm player over a month and here's a few thoughts on my experience. I bought it to replace a failingDelco factory am-fm cassette in a 99 S10 pickup. For a small truck the factory cassette had an excellent sound quality, one of the best I've owned but it was starting to have mechanical problems while playing cassettes. The new radio/cassette did not fit my dash, as the Amazon website's calculator said-I had to buy a 20dollar adapter kit at Walmart to make it fit the truck's dash, else it was sticking out about 3" from the dash. It still sticks out rather than fitting flush, but it's not objectionable.The sound quality of the radio is great, the supertuner radios are high quality, and it has surplus power to drive all four factory speakers of my S10. It has many variations of adjusting bass,treble, fade and balance. Sound quality of tape player is very good, but this radio will not produce the same deep clear bass that the Delco factory radio does, no matter how I adjust the bass controls. Very close, but not as well. I may still try to find an exact delco replacement and just store this radio for later use. I've read that the factory radios are electronically matched to a vehicle's computer control module starting in 1998 or 1999, so you can't just go out and buy a junkyard radio or new one from elsewhere in all cases. If you get one of those, you might have to shell out as much as $100 to a GM dealer to get the new radio matched to your car's computer module.Good points of this radio: Plenty of power, I'm sure in a different vehicle with bigger speakers this radio would satisfy most listeners. I haven't driven it at night since replacing the radio but the dial looks well-lit and visible in the daytime.Things I don't care for : controls are small, hard to see for older folks like me. Cassette eject is a manual, push--in type button. Rewind/fast forward button's roles are reversed,depending on direction of tape travel, confusing. Clock is hard to set without the manual, and manual tuning of radio is difficult if you are driving-so you almost have to program all your stations first, and just push buttons to find your favorite.Overall, this radio is a good replacement, and a hard item to find these days because most folks want CDs and satellite radios. In fact this radio has the option to control satellite radio but I believe you have to buy the optional controller from Pioneer.

I have found that my poineer cassette player was a good purchase price wise and quality wise Easy to install gives good quality sound and i would surely buy another one .