Aiwa CDC-MP32 Car CD Player

I drive a 1994 GM automobile that came with a Delco factory FM/AM cassette head unit. Listening to the radio was getting too boring. And I wasn't about to hook up a portable CD walkman up to my cassette deck just to be able to hear a limited selection of songs. That was just too ugly. I wanted something that would play solid data CD's full of MP3 music files...I can fit up to 130 or more tracks on one MP3-CD as compared to 18 songs per audio CD.

The solution... I decided to get the Aiwa CDC-MP32 head unit as a Christmas present. It's the step up model from the CDC-MP3, with features including an automatic retracting faceplate, and slightly more watts per channel than its counterpart. It plays standard audio CD's as well as MP3 data CD's. Also has of course an AM/FM tuner but no cassette (magnetic media has had its day).

Installation was easier than I thought. I bought the required mounting kit and wiring and antenna harnesses to enable the speaker/electrical wiring in my Buick to connect to the head unit. First, I removed my factory head unit. I then installed a mounting kit so the small head unit would fit in the large gap created by the removal of the factory unit. Then after soldering the color-coded Aiwa wiring into the wiring harness I purchased, I plugged everything in, turned it on, and I finally made steps to having a modern car stereo system.

So far so good. The first thing I noticed about the CDC-MP32 was that it required a little bit of adjustment to produce a full range of sound on my factory speakers. The default bass settings are weak. I pumped up the H-BASS to Level 2 (out of 3), which does seem to add a bit of kick in the low end frequencies. I moved the Fade to the rear slightly because my factory front speakers aren't too receptive to huge amounts of bass. Now that the sound was more what I was looking for, there were a couple performance issues to look at.

I attend a prominent midwestern university in Indiana, and the roads in this town aren't too nice. I immediately noticed that driving on these roads caused my songs to briefly pause or skip. I was angry. Apparently this head unit has no kind of anti-skip buffer technology. After all, it was designed for an automobile, shouldn't it be able to perform without skipping when I hit a small pothole or cross railroad tracks? As far as I'm concerned it is a defective product that shouldn't have passed the design specifications... but as long as I'm not driving on terrible roads this isn't a problem.

It is also cumbersome to browse through a large selection of MP3 files as they take a few seconds to load and start playing. It can sometimes take 2 or 3 seconds after you hit the Play or Song selection keys for the MP3 to actually start playing...whereas if you were listening to MP3 files on your computer they would start playing on demand. I have no idea if this delay is caused by it somehow buffering the music file, but like I said above I do not believe this theory because of how often the unit skips when my car hits a bump.

One other quibble I have is of the design of the faceplate. Instead of a circular knob, the volume control consists of an up/down button. The display has a lot of wasted space for the 'beat meter' thing and has a bright blue bar that is always illuminated. Driving at night, this is a huge distraction because the blue light is so intense. I have considered covering it with electrical tape but figured that might damage the retracting faceplate in some way. They could have made the face plate more aesthetically pleasing and less obnoxious, but I don't suppose this hurts the overall performance of the unit. It is an inconvenience, though.

As for sound quality, FM radio reception was excellent with my car antenna hooked up. FM doesn't hold a match to an audio or MP3 CD sound quality, however. Bass and treble output is pretty clean and crisp. The CDC-MP32 has two RCA pre-outs in case I ever want to add a subwoofer in my trunk (yeah, right). I have noticed distortion on my factory speakers when bass is turned up too high; this could be because my factory speaker impedances are 9 ohms, the unit is designed for 4-8 ohm impedance I believe. Therefore my next big upgrade will probably be some new rear 6x9" speakers, if I think it's worth it I'll get new front door speakers if I have the money.

I am fairly happy with the automatic retracting faceplate. Although it probably isn't designed to prevent a determined thief, I would rather have a blank head unit than having to detach a faceplate every time I leave my vehicle. So far I have had one rare instance of the face plate not unfolding when I turned on my igition. I had to manually shut off my ignition and turn it back on to get it to unfold. Thankfully that has only happened one time.

Other than these small complaints, I am pretty happy with the CDC-MP32. I would expect less skipping out of an automobile CD deck...the portable Walkmans have done better years ahead of their time and can take a lickin' while pumping out your jams without a hitch, whereas the CDC-MP32 will skip when it has to. I also with the controls were more intuitive--I would prefer a volume knob instead of a button--and I still haven't figured out how to set the time. The steering wheel control is also pretty flimsy and works half of the time. And that damn bright blue light drives me nuts at night. Aiwa could have done a better job...there are probably other brands that have engineered an MP3 CD player unit without all these flaws, and more features as well.