[Thomme]

Hey -

Just discovered this forum. Great reading! Got my '04 Seaside Pearl #9 a month ago, and loving it so far - especially now that I know how to turn off the backup & seatbelt beepers!

Anyhoo, 2 questions:

#1 Anyone know exactly what comes out of the front center speaker? Does the stereo system use it, or is it strictly for phone and chimes and such? Just wondering because I'd LOVE to someday install a DVD Audio or SACD player, and have multichannel music going on in the car. Can I assume that speaker can be used like the center channel of a home theater system once a suitable player is installed?

#2 My mobile phone provider is Verizon, which has great overall coverage, but no Bluetooth phones. In theory, they're releasing the Moto V710 someday soon, and it will have Bluetooth with HFP. What are the odds it'll play nice with my car?

 

[rdrast]

The Motorola V600 works fine with the Prius, so I'd imagine the 710 series will as well. That is, if Verizon ever actually "approves" it.

For other reasons, I had been asking Verizon if they would ever encourage and then support Bluetooth phones for the past two years. The answer has been consistently "No". In some cases, they have gone as far as stating they "Don't feel the technology is mature enough".

When I finally took delivery of the car, I also switched providers from Verizon. An added benefit, is that GSM phones have 5 to 10 times the battery life of the CDMA/TDMA technology phones.

If you ever do decide to switch carriers, be advised that Verizon charges the $175 "Early Termination Fee" even if you switch on the day your contract expires after being a customer for years.

 

[Victor]

If you ever do decide to switch carriers, be advised that Verizon charges the $175 "Early Termination Fee" even if you switch on the day your contract expires after being a customer for years.

Thats bad. You should say "The contract will not be extended beyond the current termination date" or similar, then dispute the $175. :wink:

 

[rdrast]

If you ever do decide to switch carriers, be advised that Verizon charges the $175 "Early Termination Fee" even if you switch on the day your contract expires after being a customer for years.

Thats bad. You should say "The contract will not be extended beyond the current termination date" or similar, then dispute the $175. :wink:

I agree it's bad. The "Verizon" catch is, if you do that, cancel the contract to go to a new carrier, then the number cannot be transferred. Catch-22, horribly bad business practice. Whatever. After that lovely information from them, I cancelled my house phone service, and DSL service as well from Verizon. Now I'm trying to get my company to switch away too

 

[Thomme]

Steering the thread back on track...

Thanks for the phone info. Anyone know anything about Question #1 regarding the center channel speaker?

 

[Victor]

Re: Steering the thread back on track...

Thanks for the phone info. Anyone know anything about Question #1 regarding the center channel speaker?

AFAIK, the Navi and other Voice prompts come from the driver side door speaker.

 

[Joel]

Re: Steering the thread back on track...

It's the 9th speaker for your overall audio system.

Thanks for the phone info. Anyone know anything about Question #1 regarding the center channel speaker?

 

[Thomme]

Mystery center speaker

Right, I realize it is part of the stereo system in some way, but generally speaking, with stereo audio, the left channel sound comes out of all the speakers on the left side of the car, and the right channel sound comes out da right.

So what comes out of the center speaker? Does the stereo system actually sum the L & R channels to create a mono channel? I kinda fail to see the point. Stereo sound is meant to be, well, stereo.

My only guess as to the usefulness of a speaker with that placement is that maybe it's the speaker you hear out of when you're using the Bluetooth phone feature, and it's designed to eliminate speaker-to-microphone feedback since it's angled away from you.

On the other hand (and this is what I've been driving at), it would be ideal for a 5.1 system, such as with a DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD player. Just wondering if anyone has further knowledge on that topic, such as can it be done, has anyone done it, how would one do it, etc.

 

[d3z]

#2 My mobile phone provider is Verizon, which has great overall coverage, but no Bluetooth phones. In theory, they're releasing the Moto V710 someday soon, and it will have Bluetooth with HFP. What are the odds it'll play nice with my car?

The V710 will work with for making and taking phone calls. It does not support the phonebook transfer, which is annoying, since there doesn't appear to be any other way to create/edit phonebook entries in the car.

 

[Jonnycat26]

If you ever do decide to switch carriers, be advised that Verizon charges the $175 "Early Termination Fee" even if you switch on the day your contract expires after being a customer for years.

There are ways around that $175 fee....

I had been a Verizon customer for two years, and they called me up with an offer to renew my contract. At that time, I knew I was going to buy a bluetooth enabled Palm Pilot, so I told them I didn't want to because they didn't have any bluetooth phones.

The sales rep then told me that they'd have bluetooth phones in the fall (this was the summer of '02). Needless to say, by the time spring '03 rolled around, no phones were available.

So I emailed their customer service line asking what the story was with bluetooth and got back the standard "not mature enough yet" BS. An interesting aside, Verizon did offer one bluetooth enabled phone years ago. They still support it, and you can still find it on eBay.

I then replied to their reply, pointing out that they did offer a BT phone at one point, and they replied back saying that they don't currently offer one now, but they might in the future. I then pointed out that according to their rep they should be selling them already, and they replied back that sometimes the market forces unanticipated changes.

The long and short of it is, after about 28 exchanges they decided it'd be much easier to prorate my termination fee. I ended up paying a 38 dollar termination fee, which I considered reasonable and switched to Cingular and picked up a Siemens S56. I highly recommend that phone to anyone who wants a feature packed BT phone. It can not be beat.

Cingular so far has been pretty good. I've not had any calls go straight through to voicemail, which was a constant problem with Verizon. The rollover minutes are a nice feature, and service is cheaper. And someone mentioned earlier, GSM phones do have much better battery life. Without BT enabled on my phone I can probably get a week of "normal" usage out of it. With BT enabled, 2-3 days.

 

[Thomme]

Verizon vs other companies

In the Los Angeles area, Verizon service seems head and shoulders better than all others in terms of signal strength and overall reliability. I think the "which cell service is better" debate largely depends on where you live. Since it's more important to me to have reliable service than it is to have a swanky Bluetooth phoone NOW, I'm sticking with Verizon.

So getting back to question #1... anyone? Bueller... Bueller?

 

[dpurcell]

Re: Mystery center speaker

So what comes out of the center speaker? Does the stereo system actually sum the L & R channels to create a mono channel? I kinda fail to see the point. Stereo sound is meant to be, well, stereo.

Nothing comes out of MY center speaker -- at least not anymore. I wanted to improve the sound. So, I went to a car stereo place that has a good reputation and replaced the eight other speakers and had sound absorbing padding put in the doors to make the car quieter. The center speaker is only a 3" speaker. The tech said that he didn't think he could find a replacement 3" speaker that would be worth putting in. So, as you say: "Stereo sound is meant to be, well, stereo." The tech recommended just disconnecting the center speaker. We did that. I haven't noticed anything lacking. The navigation voice, etc., comes from the left door speaker. So, that's no problem.