Review on Pioneer CD-MC20 Auto-EQ Microphone: Optimize Car DVD Receiver Audio Performance by Nick Nunez

I have a 2013 Ram 1500 Crew Cab with Pioneer AVIC-8200NEX with Infinity REF-3002cfx 3.5" on dash, MB Quart PVM216 component kit up front and kicker 44KSC69304. the rear is a Pioneer GM-D8604 and the Kicker 10CVX102 subwoofer is a Pioneer GM-D8601 I had an ear tuned EQ that definitely needed some tweaking but figured why not let Pioneer do that with their auto EQ mic ". I didn't have to take measurements. It was a big mistake. I let the mic do its thing and set up the timing and EQ for my truck. Then I jumped in and turned it on to see how it worked. I... read that time equalization would work for people but that the auto EQ was bullshit so I wasn't expecting much it was absolutely awful I heard each speaker clearly and separately t. It's like I have 4 different sources and everything was pretty muted. However, I first checked the installed EQ and it was absolutely flat. Apparently didn't do anything. But then why did it sound so terrible? The time adjustment did not work. I went and checked what he had set for each speaker. The rear passenger speaker was somehow 20cm closest to my position as opposed to the front on the driver's side. The passenger and the rear driver were the same distance from me, but that's okay. He installed my subwoofer, which is under the rear passenger seat, about 8 feet away, which is longer than the actual cabin length. The time alignment was very strange and made no sense. Finally, I go and check the settings for each speaker. He increased the passenger level to +2dB, the rear passenger level to -3dB and then set my subwoofer to -12dB. It was -1 dB on the front driver's side and +1 dB on the rear. So the front shots made some sense at least. But the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous that I didn't even want to leave it for more than a day. It was terrible. It used to be good and comfortable to hear at about 8 volumes and still talk in the car. If I was alone I would turn it up to around 10-12. If I just wanted to listen to music with the window open it would be before 3pm which would be quite loud. The windows are closed and the traffic will be 20-25 and if I were about 65 mph on a freeway with all four windows 25-30 would be enough to hear all the singing and music with no issues. The new settings sounded like absolute crap with windows down and windows up, I had to turn it up to 15 to hear well, but then the separation of each speaker was increased. It didn't last long. I removed time equalization and auto-eq but it was so awful I'm not even sure about my own settings anymore. I'll probably just reset everything and do it from scratch to make sure using this mic didn't mess it up even if I disabled it in the settings.