Long Beach, Calif. - Pioneer is dropping its Premier car audio brand that has been offered as a limited distribution label for more than 20 years.

The company will end its dual brand strategy of Premier products for select retailers and Pioneer branded products for mass distribution. Instead, the company said it will strengthen its Pioneer brand.

"We will cease production of Pioneer Premier products at the end of 2009." said director of marketing for mobile entertainment Ted Cardenas.

He added, "We're not exiting any categories, we will continue with the same types of products." The Premier line offered superior features to the standard line but in recent years the feature differences had narrowed. Premier CD players allowed a two-year warranty vs. one-year and shipped with an iPod cable in the box rather than as an option, as on the standard line, said Pioneer.

Cardenas said the Premier brand diluted the Pioneer name and caused some confusion globally as Premier has been offered only in the U.S. and Canada.

Going forward the warranty on all Pioneer products will be one year, he said. (premier products carried a 2 year warranty.. this is what will affect the consumer with this move)

The move is also expected to result in overhead cost savings to Pioneer in packaging and inventory management. No layoffs at Pioneer are expected as a result of retiring the brand.

Pioneer said it will continue to support any Premier products in inventory or that are sold through the end of 2009 with the same technical, service and warranty support.

i love my premier but i gotta agree that the decks are very very very close unless you get the best of the best of premier.

that's a shame. a damn shame.

aside from a warranty duration change, ipod cable and a different name plate.....i doubt you will even notice a difference

WOW! See below

aww that suck i always choose Pioneers over Alpine even till today(passed up a 9887 for $150 and got a 980bt for $180)

good news is pioneer dealers will have access to the better stuff so prices should go down.

yea i guess we can look forward to that but i got the deck that i want(980bt)so ima stick with it for awhile has all the features that u need without even needing to run a EQ at all