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Car MP3 Units: Preferences (1 Viewer)

Scott Wong

Second Unit
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Oct 30, 1999
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421
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Scott Wong
I've heard not so great things about Sony .mp3 players. I actually have a Sony portable CD/MP3 player and it doesn't like VBR files. It handles most with no problem, but every so often it gets to a track that it really doesn't care for. :frowning: I've heard nothing but good things about /////LPINE in-dash .mp3 players. :)

Scott.
 

Seth_L

Screenwriter
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Apr 5, 2002
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Angelo,

The JVC 909 handles VBR fine. The time will get screwed up though if you FF and RW within a track. Of course that seems to be true of all the car mp3 units I've tried so far.
 

Trenton McNeil

Second Unit
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Apr 30, 1998
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262
Yup. VBR is great. FF/RW on MP3 tracks is annoyingly slow as well, which is no good for long songs or audio book mp3's...

Other small problem is that if you FILL a CD-RW completely, it tends to skip a bit near the end of the disc. Not a big issue with the low low prices of CDR media though.

I love it!
 

Angelo.M

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Checked out the JVC earlier today with a test disc of VBR file. Handled it no problem. Didn't sound that bad; color me impressed. Didn't see/hear a huge difference between the JVC and similarly (but more) priced Pioneer and Kenwood. I think, though, that Alpine may be calling me.
 

Scott L

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I stay away form anything Sony car audio. They have always focused more on looks and little gimmicks rather than build quality. Who'd want anything in their car labeled "Xplod!"
 

Angelo.M

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Update: bought an Alpine 9807. Haven't installed it yet, but it had, IMO, the best mp3 file navigation system in its class. It came down to Pioneer 5500 and the 9807, and I think I made the correct decision. :D
 

Trenton McNeil

Second Unit
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Apr 30, 1998
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262
I have heard very good things about Alpine file navigation, too. Wish you luck installing, and looking forward to your review!
 

Angelo.M

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Trenton:

I promise a review as soon as this thing is in. This will be my first head unit install, but it looks pretty easy to do. Famous last words.
 

Angelo.M

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Took a while, but the Alpine 9807 is now installed in my wife's car.

This is a CD-player head unit that reads CD-R/RW, MP3 CDs and WMA CDs. In our limited experience with it thusfar, we have limited the software to variable bit rate MP3 files, which the unit has no problems decoding (in fact, the unit can display the bit rate during playback, which is a neat little feature).

I'll limit our impressions to the basics. Aesthetically, this was the best unit we saw in the showroom and it does not disappoint now. The text is clear, the navigational menu symbols make sense, buttons are large and the silver finish is great. The remote is ergonomic.

The navigational system is the best of any of the units we played with in the showroom. It's intuitive, and the little icons let you know what 'level' of the file heirarchy you are searching in. The push of a single button toggles between various text info, such as filename, track name, artist, album or folder name. Very easy to use. Tag info is displayed properly and scrolls.

The sound is a very, very noticeable improvement from the previous aftermarket unit (Sony, which wasn't that bad). Haven't played around with the MediaXpander tweaks, but 'out-of-the-box' the unit sounds great. There's no sub or additional amplifier in the car, so I can't speak to those issues. The unit is compatible with XM Radio and Nokia's Mobile Hub (whatever that is), but we use neither.

I apologize for the lack of depth in this review, but we're very happy with the choice. Everything about this unit--most importantly, the build quality as perceived during simple operations like pressing a button or turning a knob--is an order of magnitude better than the previous unit.

:D
 

cafink

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Carl Fink
What's a VBR file?

Edit:

When I read "VBR file," I though of a file with a ".vbr" extension, but I just realized you probably mean a Variable Bit Rate MP3, don't you?
 

Jonathan Burk

Second Unit
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May 31, 1999
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Jonathan Burk
I'm on my third MP3 deck for my car, and the Alpine 9815 absolutely rocks.

I'll never forget driving around 6 months after installing my first one, and realizing I still hadn't set a single FM preset! I totally stopped listening to the radio.
 

Angelo.M

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Henry: thanks for the advice, but I'm already quite happy using CDex for ripping to .wav and encoding to .mp3.

Yes, VBR = variable bit rate.

The only glitch I've noticed on the 9807 is that, in between track, there sometimes is a brief (1 second) amount of sound prior to a new track starting. I wonder if this is a problem with the way my CD was burned.
 

cafink

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Carl Fink
I spent the weekend shopping for an MP3 player for my car, and found this thread most helpful. Because price was a much more important concern for me than bells and whistles, I ultimately chose the JVC KD-S890, mentioned earlier. I've had it for less than 24 hours, but so far, it's performed flawlessly.

I made MP3s with high bitrates and low bitrates, CBR and VBR, ID3 tags and no tags, v1 tags and v2 tags. I mixed 'em all together on discs in various ways and the S890 has handled everything perfectly.

It can shuffle tracks within a folder or across the whole disc. The manual notes that a disc with many files may take a long time to read before playback begins. So far, the most I've tried on a single disc is 65 MP3s but it handled that more than quickly enough for me. I think a complicated directory structure might slow it down, but mostly I like to just throw a bunch of MP3s on a CD with no folders or directories and put the thing in shuffle mode, so it's not a concern for me.

So, if anyone else is looking for a car MP3 player and is budget-conscious like me, I can thus far give the S890 a great recommendation based on my limited experience. No problems whatsoever so far.

Thanks all for the information. Thanks especially to Henry Carmona for the links to those most useful resources on getting the most out of the MP3 format. I checked all of those sites out and learned a lot. It's appreciated!
 

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