Has anyone heard any more about the availability of car MP3 CD players? Like the Kenwood.

I know that Awia have one in the UK, but this is ****. Any decent ones around?

Or does anyone know when Kenwood are realising the Excelon Z919 in the UK.

 

There's a new Kenwood MP3 player, but it's only available in Japan at the moment. Available in the UK early next year....


Dan

 

Is the Aiwa one poor quality? The features all sound right - 4V triple preouts, CD/CDR/CDRW/CDMP3 compat etc, reasonable price, some favourable feedback on uk.rec.audio.car. Have you heard/experienced bad things except for letsbuyit.com not delivering?

I was interested in one when availability improves as a possible "upgrade" to my Kenwood CD headunit! Do you think you would really notice any quality loss in a car - I ask because I have noticed that with the average mid-price separates system in a house (like mine), a old/budget CD player with good interconnect sounds as good as an expensive DVD player said to have good audio performance with its factory patch cable. Obviously not as good as when good interconnects used on both, but the difference was nowhere near as much as using good amp/speakers/cable etc and not as much as I would have thought. Is the quality playing-field more "level" with CD players than it is with something like speakers or amps? Presumably, making a CD headunit sound good is not that difficult, but making it excellent would be really difficult - hence expensive? I know if the source quality is rubbish you are lost, but is the quality of headunit the bottleneck here or is it the rest of the system? Have you heard the Aiwa? - if its crap I'll just get a CD changer hence my interest.

[This message has been edited by john banks (edited 12 December 2000).]

 

I haven't heard the aiwa. I just have never liked them and wouldn't want it near my car. Just a personal preference.

I think I have seen a picture of it and it didn't look very nice either.

If you hear it, let me know what you think.

 

I use MP3s for the Scoob, usually either burnt onto CD or recorded digitally onto Minidisc (got a **** hot digital audio card -of course!!)

I'll be honest - the only thing that lets MP3 down, is that any old 'philistine' can record an audio track in MP3 format, therefore, (in my experience, of course!) the fades are 'premature' or the track has been recorded badly (either at a lower sample rate, usually 10KHz - rather muffled!), or it has a dodgy '70s fade. ie. rather quick and abrupt!

Having said that, the quality is usually OK, considering that I'm usually listening to THAT turbo whistle ;-)

Dan

 

Gentlmen,I can tell you right now,hold off on the Aiwa CDC-MP3.I just installed one of these Sunday in a friends truck.[one of the baffle jobs John]When it was all wired,the face had no power.Blank.After playing with it for a while and triple checking the wiring,we were pretty heated.We inserted the cd for the 4th time and he slammed the face shut,and WHAM! It started working.
We finished the install and it pulled the same stunt.Worked great as long as you didn't shut it off.
Bad face-to-unit connections.We called Crutchfield and they said they recieved a notice from Aiwa about this defect.They're sending him another one,but I doubt it will be much better.
Bummer.Now you know.

 

If you are really serious about MP3 in the car, then get am Empeg (http://www.empeg.com).

I've had mine for about 3 months now, and it is simply the best piece of in-car kit I've ever bought.

Before you ask, yes it is expensive, at nearly a grand, and you also need external amps, but it's the dogs dangly bits.

If you don't feel you can justify the money, then wait for a little while, as Empeg have just been acquired by Diamond aka S3 aka SonicBLUE. They have promised that there will be a new version of the unit carrying RIO badging that costs a lot less.

Andy.

 

Naah, if you're really serious, build your own.

LIMP -

 

I've just installed an Aiwa MP3CD and everything works perfectly - no front panel problems. It played a CD-R with MP3 files on (like it says on the box).

It also keeps working when you fold the front panel down to put a CD in.

I'm pleased with it.

Kevin.