Long story short, I’m looking to upgrade my car stereo deck. Trust me, on those long trips to Vegas (a good 4 hour drive), plain ol’ CDs, even mixes, just don’t cut it. Now considering that one MP3 CD will hold about 10 hours of music, on the other hand…
Anyway, I narrowed my choices down to two decks, the Kenwood KDC-MP8017 and the Sony CDX-MP450X. Sadly and strangely, even the esteemed google can’t find more than one review, a press release, and a few vendors for the Kenwood, and nothing but vendors (two, IIRC) for the Sony. ePinions, similarly, offers nothing for either.
So, if any of you own, have heard, have used either of these products, please let me know how they are. Besides that, any opinions or advice would be welcome.
If you’re dead set on a cd-based unit, and you’ve narrowed it down to those two, I’d get the kenwood. I’ve heard nothing but good about it, except for the price.
Don’t ever trust Sony with mp3s. Don’t ever trust Sony, period. I don’t know much about that unit you listed, but all of Sony’s other mp3 related products make you convert the files to the proprietary atrac-3 format. And the tools they give you delete the originals. Sony hates you. They love your money.
Another cd-based player to consider is AIWA’s unit. The price is right at 200-300. The quality is not generally considered as good as Kenwood’s.
You might want to look at harddrive based models, like the empeg (expensive!). Or the 6gig portable jukebox sold at http://www.thinkgeek.com (still expensive, but better).
We’re getting a boat here soon and I was thinking the same thing. I decided to get a Rio Volt instead of an installed deck. Check it out. You can use it by plugging it into an audio jack or using a cassette adapter.
Damn, TNerd, Lorelei is pretty damn cool. I don’t think I’d have the time or cash for such an undertaking though. All things considered, I guess I’ll go for the Kenwood deck, unless last minute reviews of either it or the Sony pop up to change my mind.
As for the Aiwa, some of the reviews I’ve read about it pretty much ruled it out. Long “booting” and gaps between songs (IIRC) are among the chief reasons.
Okay, I got a little more information on the Sony deck, and a corresponding question about the Kenwood one. The Sony deck has a buffer system where it’ll preload 5 songs and after these play, there will be a pause of about 20 seconds (this is based on testimony of a FOAF who actually has the deck). This is an improvement over the Aiwa CDC-MP3 which was reported to have a gap of 5 seconds or so between each track, but still not an attractive thing, IMHO.
So, any idea if the Kenwood deck has any similar issues? I’ll probably start looking for real this weekend, wish me luck.
Oh, and FTR, the Sony deck doesn’t require any atrac-3 conversion.
