I've recently gotten interested in the whole arena of mp3 players in your car, and wondered what other solutions, than the ones I've seen, are available and are halfway decent. I'm going to post links to the ones I know about, and then post a short summary on what I do or do not know on certain ones. I'd appreciate a discussion on your experiences with any of these players, one or several, and also any NEW PLAYERS you may know about that I do not have listed.
Hard Drive-based MP3 player
This player has a docking bay for your PC, works with any 3.5" IDE HDD, and the display looks great! ID3 tag support, as well they have been doing firmware updates on it periodically, and appears it is now a fairly stable player. It will also play any mp3 8-320kbps. For the price, this looks very tempting.
Anyone have experience with this player and how it does in real-world usage? What about hard drive skipping, anyone know if this is an issue with this player?
Also I don't know if this player has pre-outs for adding amps, or what speaker connections it has, or how well it would incorporate into a high-end car audio system, but I'm curious.
The other nice thing about this is the fact that this is a pull-out unit like the old 80's style pull outs. This serves for extra security, just pull it out every time you get out of the car.
Kenwood Z919 eXcelon MP3/CD Player
There are a few nice things about this player. First of all its by Kenwood, so preouts should not be a problem and incorporation into a full-blown high-end system would be easy. There are a few problems though. No ID3 tag support, and filenames you can only see the first 8 characters, plus it ALWAYS displays .mp3. Totally unnecessary if you ask me.
Even so, mp3.com gave it 5 stars. I've read other reviews which disagree, because of the difficult to use interface, and the inability to fast forward, or reverse through songs. There was also a slight delay when going from song to song, but skipping would not be a problem at all with this player, as standard CD players in cars have come a long way.
Also, this player plays standard audio cds, another benefit. Not to mention, this thing LOOKS awesome. This is one of the nicest looking players I've seen (pictures do not do it justice at all), even compared to standard car stereo cd players. The price on this unit, at $600+ (I've found it for $529 from some less-than-reputable online merchants) would probably not make this my first choice.
I would have posted a link to kenwood's information page on this unit, however they don't have one on their site.
Aiwa CDC-MP3 Player
This product has a little benefit of both of the above players. The price seems to be right (Under $300), it plays audio cds, as well as CD-R's with mp3's on them, and will incorporate into a high end system without a problem, because it has preouts for amps. This unit also plays cd-rw discs, but I find this to be unimportant.
I've heard that the interface is fairly easy to navigate, and it does support ID3 tags, which is good news. It also supports variable bit rates, 32-320kbps mp3's, which is also great since I listen to mp3's all the way from 128-320 on almost a daily basis. Long file name support (up to 32 characters) and 8 level directory structure is supported.
I've heard this product is somewhat cheaply made, which goes back to the whole, you get what you pay for theory, but I've also heard other people who have no complaints whatsoever with this unit. I don't really like the layout or the look of the player, the dial-knob for volume was very late 80's early 90's era, and I simply don't like it. I'd rather have a real knob or up and down buttons.
I don't know a whole lot about the ability to fast-forward or reverse through songs, anyone else own this and know about those features?
This unit also has a detachable face, which would be great for added security. This is something then Kenwood unit does not have. Also it has a front input jack for plugging in your rio player or whatever other portable device you have. This is something I don't think any of the other players have.
Empeg MP3 Hard-drive based player
This seems to be the crown of the hard-drive based solutions and has been in development for some time. The display is simply beautiful, available in 4 different colors. It also has USB, Serial, and Cat5 connectors (network connection) available on the back of the unit.
It can pull out easily from your car, just like the other unit mentioned previously. It also has a shock protected disk cradle, I imagine this would be pretty important for hard drives on the road.
One limitation I see immediately is the fact is uses 2.5" laptop hard drives, which would be somewhat costly. The unit itself, with or without a drive included, is also the most expensive of the bunch listed here. Also apparently you can add this to an existing radio and plug it into the empeg unit to take advantage of its visualizations.
This player also includes what appears to be one set of rca pre-outs however I don't think they are high voltage, so having a high-end cd player would still be somewhat necessary. This player just appears to be the nicest looking and most well developed.
One last thing, anyone have schematics/instructions on how to build your own mp3 player for your car, hard drive based?
SO! That's a lot of information. Any additional information/corrections are appreciated, I've listed what information I KNOW or have researched SOMEWHAT regarding these products. Any testimonials are also appreciated.
divinemartyr
I have also created a poll, regarding which is your favorite, please take into account, quality over price when voting.
Hard Drive-based MP3 player
This player has a docking bay for your PC, works with any 3.5" IDE HDD, and the display looks great! ID3 tag support, as well they have been doing firmware updates on it periodically, and appears it is now a fairly stable player. It will also play any mp3 8-320kbps. For the price, this looks very tempting.
Anyone have experience with this player and how it does in real-world usage? What about hard drive skipping, anyone know if this is an issue with this player?
Also I don't know if this player has pre-outs for adding amps, or what speaker connections it has, or how well it would incorporate into a high-end car audio system, but I'm curious.
The other nice thing about this is the fact that this is a pull-out unit like the old 80's style pull outs. This serves for extra security, just pull it out every time you get out of the car.
Kenwood Z919 eXcelon MP3/CD Player
There are a few nice things about this player. First of all its by Kenwood, so preouts should not be a problem and incorporation into a full-blown high-end system would be easy. There are a few problems though. No ID3 tag support, and filenames you can only see the first 8 characters, plus it ALWAYS displays .mp3. Totally unnecessary if you ask me.
Even so, mp3.com gave it 5 stars. I've read other reviews which disagree, because of the difficult to use interface, and the inability to fast forward, or reverse through songs. There was also a slight delay when going from song to song, but skipping would not be a problem at all with this player, as standard CD players in cars have come a long way.
Also, this player plays standard audio cds, another benefit. Not to mention, this thing LOOKS awesome. This is one of the nicest looking players I've seen (pictures do not do it justice at all), even compared to standard car stereo cd players. The price on this unit, at $600+ (I've found it for $529 from some less-than-reputable online merchants) would probably not make this my first choice.
I would have posted a link to kenwood's information page on this unit, however they don't have one on their site.
Aiwa CDC-MP3 Player
This product has a little benefit of both of the above players. The price seems to be right (Under $300), it plays audio cds, as well as CD-R's with mp3's on them, and will incorporate into a high end system without a problem, because it has preouts for amps. This unit also plays cd-rw discs, but I find this to be unimportant.
I've heard that the interface is fairly easy to navigate, and it does support ID3 tags, which is good news. It also supports variable bit rates, 32-320kbps mp3's, which is also great since I listen to mp3's all the way from 128-320 on almost a daily basis. Long file name support (up to 32 characters) and 8 level directory structure is supported.
I've heard this product is somewhat cheaply made, which goes back to the whole, you get what you pay for theory, but I've also heard other people who have no complaints whatsoever with this unit. I don't really like the layout or the look of the player, the dial-knob for volume was very late 80's early 90's era, and I simply don't like it. I'd rather have a real knob or up and down buttons.
I don't know a whole lot about the ability to fast-forward or reverse through songs, anyone else own this and know about those features?
This unit also has a detachable face, which would be great for added security. This is something then Kenwood unit does not have. Also it has a front input jack for plugging in your rio player or whatever other portable device you have. This is something I don't think any of the other players have.
Empeg MP3 Hard-drive based player
This seems to be the crown of the hard-drive based solutions and has been in development for some time. The display is simply beautiful, available in 4 different colors. It also has USB, Serial, and Cat5 connectors (network connection) available on the back of the unit.
It can pull out easily from your car, just like the other unit mentioned previously. It also has a shock protected disk cradle, I imagine this would be pretty important for hard drives on the road.
One limitation I see immediately is the fact is uses 2.5" laptop hard drives, which would be somewhat costly. The unit itself, with or without a drive included, is also the most expensive of the bunch listed here. Also apparently you can add this to an existing radio and plug it into the empeg unit to take advantage of its visualizations.
This player also includes what appears to be one set of rca pre-outs however I don't think they are high voltage, so having a high-end cd player would still be somewhat necessary. This player just appears to be the nicest looking and most well developed.
One last thing, anyone have schematics/instructions on how to build your own mp3 player for your car, hard drive based?
SO! That's a lot of information. Any additional information/corrections are appreciated, I've listed what information I KNOW or have researched SOMEWHAT regarding these products. Any testimonials are also appreciated.
divinemartyr
I have also created a poll, regarding which is your favorite, please take into account, quality over price when voting.
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