OK I talked with their head tech Jim and learned a lot of great things. Unfortunately he confirmed that the ZR4 heads need to be installed, but only because the self-diagnostics would pick up that they weren't plugged into the main interface. Also, I thought I read somewhere on this forum that the ZR4 was LED based, but in fact it is a
diode based system. He was actually very surprised that people thought it was LED, so that was good to learn. He said when they tested the new ZR4 against the ZR3, the ZR4 was blocking a lot of guns that the ZR3 couldn't. They will also be coming out with an update on June 1st to tweak everything. I mentioned to him that I'm installing tire pressure monitors to make sure that the front heads stay level and he really liked that idea. I also mentioned to him that I was going to custom mount the rear head and when he asked why I told him
"because you guys forgot to make yours adjustable" to which he admitted was an issue, and they would look into improving that. We also spent a lot of time discussing the addition of a new 'ZR4-less' 9500ci, and he liked that idea also and said he'd pass it onto the person in charge of approving such an idea. I am confident that they will add this new model for a 2009 CES release and as I told him, people can still go out and buy the ZR4 system and add it to the new model. All in all it was a long conversation and we both learned a lot. Once I install my 9500ci I am planning on meeting with him in person to show him some of the improvements that I'll be making to the stock unit. They could probably add the tire pressure monitor feature for less than 75.00 and have it as a upgrade option, and I am confident that at least a third head could be installed on the same plane as the front two without any interference issues, as well as making dummy head inputs that the interface would accept so that the ZR4 heads wouldn't need to be installed. All in all it was a great conversation and he said that more testing videos for the 9500ci would be released soon
