GerardPRO5 said:the shop manual indicates that it's either a Clarion, Panasonic, or something else (not Nakamichi).
if it was Nakamichi, Mazda would have made a big deal marketing the cars because of the stock systems...
Not really as Nak has a very small fallowing compared to Kenwood in the aftermaket. Remember most people still shop at best buy.
Also consider that Alpine has made BMW and Honda radios and electronics for year yet they only advertise Bose.
Also keep in mind that Nak or whoever has to build the radio o mazdas specs and that spec may not be on par with what nak wants there name associated with. Much like the recent fall through with Honda and B&W speakers. Honda wanted to be able to throw the B&W name around even on cars not so equipt and B&W, being the high quality company they are, told honda to go to hell.
GerardPRO5 said:think about it...Nakamichi is years ahead of Kenwood in terms of sound quality and high fidelity, but Mazda emphasizes the Kenwood stock system in the MP3 and Mazdaspeed.
...but a Nakamichi stock sound system...we don't need to emphasize that.
Nak isn't really far ahead of Kenwood. They both have had there fare share of bad reliability records and each chose a different path. Kenwood decided to make more radios that more people wanted. AKA bulls*** dancing lights and stupid sound circuits with no actual point. Nak has tried to take the high road and set themselves as a no nonses deck for audiophiles. Kenwood could easily best them with there simply overpowering ability to throw money at a situation but that wouldn't be profitable so they wont.