miwa

alright .. over the last week, I have obtained the first component to my new car audio system ....



now, if u'll notice up in the right hand side, the **** sez mp3 .. thats right! it natively plays mp3s off cds . .. which means all my mp3 cds are in good use now .. sup! the unit, if anyone cares to score their own, is a kenwood excelon z828. it'll pick up cds, cdrws, and it even picks up unclosed cds. for those who are semi into car audio, it's got 3 sets 4.5v preouts, crossover control, and a pseudoEQ. cd and md changer control as well.. not that I'd use em. also ready for sirius satellite radio guess I'mma gonna have to pixor up a satellite antenna for that. and a high resolution display similar to pioneer's organic EL. So why did I pick THIS instead of the plethora of mp3 players from aiwa, jvc, sony, etc? well.. cuz kenwood keeps it real and its their SECOND generation mp3 player which reeks of improvements. on top of that, it has the above mentioned features that the others can only aspire to have. .. so anyway, on to the evaluation

cons:
1. well, its really a bizzatch that it doesn't read full joliet filenames. it chose to follow iso-9660-2 standards and read only 32char filenames. while thats all good, its pretty damn annoying for it to show up with dreamd~1.mp3. personally, I think 32 chars is a little too short for a song name .. AND you can't use spaces.

2. its a little small for what it does and I really wish the screen was a little bigger

3. the folder browsing feature is a little unintuitive and so are the rest of the controls .. so it took me a while .. then again I guess maybe its cuz I'm used to pioneer controls.

4. there's a 2 second pause in between mp3 files. this can get slightly annoying if you had tracks that are supposed to flow into each other.

3. pretty damn expensive

pros:
alright.. enuff *****ing
1. this **** is AWESOME!! can u imagine the implications? you push in an mp3 cd that u always had and boom! the **** plays!! you can burn it in anyway you want with many folder sublevels .. but u'll just make life difficult for you so burn with one level folders. no more listening to repeat tracks on a cd just during a drive to work . welll.. yea.. u COULD have a cd changer.. but hell .. this is cooler

2. the high res display is pretty phat. it changes and displays spectrum analyzers, clocks, calendars, icons, and/or small little videos of an f1 and a sailboat race. oh .. and dolphins too.

3. it WILL read ID3 tags. and display em scrolling or non scrolling looks like I'm gonna be ensuring id3 tags are
intact on all my mp3s from now on its a ***** .. but hey

4. its a pissed ass base to build upon. it didnt' forget to push out a 96db S/N ratio to keep things clean along with all the other stuff to build a system on.

5. the colors are mad cool ... coool blue

6. its a kenwood!

7. expensive means exclusive keeps yo azz separated from the common mp3 players out there

8. I could go on .. but it'll be even more of a bore







and damn .. this new interface with adding images and s'nit is slick

jz983

what is the decoder speed(s) on that? is it only 128kbit? or does it play 128,192,256...kbit? thanks

miwa

does em all .. even variable bitrate ones .. doesn't say so in the documentation but it will do it.

mr tl

im guessing you dont have amps yet? i bet youll hear a HUGE difference when you use those 4.5V outs

i heard that kenwood was one of the first companies to use that folder navigation thing, and they were praised for it

how much was the unit itself? the new alpines go for under $600. i probably would have taken the alpine

doesnt have a rotary volume knob? i hate that

looks pretty slick in the dash though. you should try putting a pocket under to take up some more space

good song your listening to

miwa

oh hell yea!! the rest of the system is on its way but I need to save up for a good amp. no sense letting 4.5v go to waste right? what WOULD have been really nice is if it had balanced outputs and 16v outs like the new eclipse cd8061 that is due out soon

the unit itself was for 475 surprisingly.
[plug] thanks for the heads up from stylin silver sled who introduced me to 'true audio' here in miami
[/plug]
it was only 10 more than the cheapest online quote I've found at carstereotime.com. I didn't go alpine because well, to my and my installer's knowledge, there isn't an mp3 player from them yet is there? and when they do release one, it was supposed to be in the 1G area.

no rotary, sorry. + and - is good enough for me actually

heh, thanks, I'm considering something nice under there. don't know yet. dakota digital stuff? maybe phoenix gold's own remote displays? doesn't make sense for an EQ because the unit already is bristling with all that. any other ideas?

and yea, dido is awesome. all her songs still rock except for the one eminem bastardized. dont get me wrong .. eminem is all good but I reaaaly didn't like how overplayed that song got.

Stylin Silver Sled

Looks good man! And if I am not mistaken, that looks like Dennis in the drivers seat of your ride? Am I right? Congrats! and enjoy!

miwa

hahah.. no .. actually it was me a friend snagged the shot from the back.

LarryB

Does it work with your stock speakers and amp untill you get new stuff?

miwa

yup .. although I dont think the sub is kicking.. I've tried to feel for the sub vibration and its almost non existent so I suspect its out for the time being. but because I've messed with the kenwood EQ settings and their "Q" settings for 'type of speaker,' I've been able to get a pretty close match to getting max efficiency out of them. to the untrained ear, the lack of bass is not obvious unless you play some bass music that demands it.

mr tl

eclipse is doing 16V?? jesus..i didnt know that

alpine released an mp3 deck. im pretty sure its available now. but who cares...yours looks good

you need to eventually fill up that dash. dont bother with add on eq bs - it'll just diminish the sound quality youve got right now.
i liked the idea of a pocket, not sure how it would look though

miwa

thanks .. and yea.. I know .. I did a double and a triple take and I'm looking again and again to see if its a misprint. its not being sold yet so I couldn't really verify off fujitsu-ten's webpage but thats what car audio and electronics mag is claiming. on top of that, you get balanced outs.. which means u can have the wires pass RIGHT NEXT to your alternator and well.. it wouldn't really care! on the flip side, I've always drooled over pioneer's ODR line just because its capable of the same thing

my2sense

nice install.. who did your custom faceplate holder/bezel, how long did it take, and how much did it cost?

miwa

thanks, dennis of 'true audio' in miami, FL the install costed under 100 including the custom faceplate. it took a decent part of the afternoon

since you're in CA, I'm sure you can find a guy who would do it for a reasonable price.. or maybe streeteffectz will start taking mail order requests