Finally got a deck I am reasonably satisfied with. Blew several breaks, evenings, and all of Saturday getting there tho -mad
I first tried a Sony MEX-BT2500 deck with bluetooth ($200). Surprisingly almost no diesel noise gets thru to the person you are calling, but the built in mic amplifies every little rattle to the point that it is unusable on the road, and voice sounded like in a cave (bosses quote "Darth Vader, could you please put Don on the line"). Also the person on other end got echoes if I turned the volume up enough for me to hear clearly. (had a demo deck that came apart easy, so I tried wiring in other mics (don't tell!), not much improvement tho). Also if you switch off the bluetooth during a call it was pain to reconnect. I tested the Sony BT5000 ($500) in store and same issues with picking up rattles, plus it has an awkward interface and looks too funky for my truck. Sony support had a great solution, "don't use the bluetooth when driving". I think they missed the point of having it.
I also tried a Pioneer DEH-P7900BT (external mic) deck in the store ($420). The menu was a bit cumbersome for on road use, and my wife seemed to have trouble hearing me, like I was in the distance. Also background noise, key rattling, and her voice echoing was getting thru, so I didn't try it in the truck. May have just been the demo unit though, only tried it at one store as the others I was at didn't have the mic connected.
JVC has a deck, CD BT1 that looks potentially awesome (approx $250), but nobody stocks it or has a demo unit, and I didn't want to eat shipping just to try it.
Out of frustration, I tried a cheapo Dual MP3/WMA cd deck, XDM6400 ($99), with it's Bluetooth addon, BTM60 ($50). I couldn't find the two paired up anywhere to demo, so just went ahead and tried it (risking best buys 15% restock fee). To my surprise it's a pretty decent deck, sound well above average quality for a low end deck, menus and buttons mostly intuitive and easy,and it has line in and USB jacks. The cool part is the Bluetooth works very well, and the speakerphone function is awesome. Talked over an hour to the wife on a bumpy noisy freeway without any "what did you say?" and you can set it to only use the front speakers so I could crank the volume without her getting an echo. The bluetooth unit and mic are together, about 2" square by 1/2" thick, and clip to the visor above you. Not very elegant but it works. You can switch from bluetooth to phone with a single button push and it will reconnect just as easy (can be set for auto or manual connect). It also has a mute button, not just a CD pause button, so you can easily mute the radio, something sadly lacking on many decks. Minor complaints; -no remote; -volume a little lower playing bluetooth mp3; -can't set clock as default display (but easy to select); -volume nob stiff and awkward for my thick calloused fingers to grab.
