The Source

Listen to mp3s with CD quality sound

Sick of listening to grainy or low quality music in your car? Pioneer makes the tracks from your iPod® player sound like your listening to your CDs.  It's all thanks to our exclusive Advanced Sound Retriever.

A typical compressed audio track from your iPod is usually encoded at 128 or 256kbps. To scale down the size of each song, much of the high frequency information and harmonic frequencies is often cut out. This means that, depending on the bit rate of the compressed audio file, you’re usually only listening to a fraction of the information present in the original studio recording.

So while compressed audio has become the format of choice for many people, listening to your mp3 players may leave a lot to be desired when it comes to sound quality.

Pioneer engineers have worked to develop a technology that delivers compressed music the way the recording artist intended -- full of detail, warmth, and clarity.

Drawing upon seventy-plus years of sound quality passion, our engineers came up with an amazing new technology called
Advanced Sound Retriever.

Knowing that all audio compression codecs are based around mathematic algorithms, Pioneer engineers developed an algorithm of their own that restores many of the musical details that were lost in the compression process. Advanced Sound Retriever, or ASR, is compatible with any MP3, WMA or AAC digital audio file that is stored on a CD, iPod, or USB-compatible device.

By restoring the audio data, Pioneer’s Advanced Sound Retriever technology brings back much of the staging, depth, and vibrancy that is lost in the compression process.

So what does this mean in layman’s terms?

ASR restores information that is usually cut out in the compression process, restoring sound quality to near CD level. It improves stereo imaging and staging for a richer, fuller in-car experience. Finally, ASR restores the lower and upper frequency ranges that were missing from the compressed file, allowing for a wider, warmer sound.

ASR is included on the following Car CD Players:
FH-P800BT, FH-P8000BT, DEH-P700BT, DEH-P7000BT, DEH-P6000UB, DEH-P600UB, DEH-P5000UB, DEH-P500UB, DEH-P400UB, DEH-P4000UB

And is featured in our Home A/V Receivers.  

“iPod” is a registered trademark of Apple Inc.