Dual Electronics XHD-6425 Car CD / USB / MP3 Player

This is a great way to get an intro to HD radio.

Installation is straightforward, it should mount directly in most cars with DIN mounting (I recommend a mounting kit and harness connection to make installation easier) and the wiring colors are standard when using the aforementioned harness connection (there's also a wiring diagram in the manual). In addition to the standard connections, there are also pre-outs for front and rear amplifiers (but no separate sub out).

Unlike a higher end brand like Pioneer, there's not a lot of setup to go through (there are a few functions that can be accessed by holding down the volume knob for 3 seconds, but everything else is by direct button control).

Apart from the standard radio controls (tuning, scan, presets, bass/treble/balance/fader) you have a display button (can show you the radio station's call letters and the artist or song being played, if the station is broadcasting that info), an HD scan button (will only search for HD stations), preset scan, EQ (lets you use a bunch of preprogrammed equalization curves), mode (cycle between Radio, CD, USB and Aux inputs), phone (if you've purchased the optional Bluetooth module) and of course forward and reverse. The multi function volume control is small and does not protrude very far, and will probably be difficult to use when wearing gloves. It does, however, have a knurled knob, so you can get a good grip on it. The panel design is somewhat busy and does not really have a high quality look (not that it looks terrible, but it's obviously not from a tier 1 manufacturer).

Since the primary advantage of this unit is the built-in HD radio, that's what I'm going to focus on in this review. I did listen to a CD and it sounded good, and I haven't yet had a chance to use the USB feature (you can connect a USB flash drive or hard drive and play the music directly).

I'm going to assume that you are familiar with HD Radio (if not, there's a good article on Wikipedia). This is my first experience with HD radio, so I can't tell you if this unit is typical, but it appears to support the important features. When the radio first tunes in a station broadcasting HD channels, you'll first hear the analog station and then the digital once it locks in. If there are additional channels, tapping the forward button will tune them in. You can memorize up 18 FM presets (HD, analog or a combination) in three banks, and 12 AM in two banks.

The preset scan will cycle through all the presets in the current preset bank, stopping at each for about five seconds or so.

Sound quality appears to be fine, although specifications for AM radio (both regular and HD) leave a bit to be desired. I rarely listen to AM, so this wasn't a big concern for me. FM HD sound quality varied a bit from as good as the analog FM to a little bit better (this depends on how much compression the station is using, and whether they're broadcasting either one [simulcast] or three HD [multicast] channels). It's not a night and day difference, but there's a definite improvement.

I have noticed that the FM analog reception is a little weaker than my previous head unit (the Bose/Acura unit that came wtih my car). In addition, there are some stations whose digital signals I am unable to receive, even though the Dual is able to determine that the station is broadcasting in HD. Additionally, the HD signal can sometimes take a long time to lock in, so that when you use the preset scan you will hardly hear anything before it skips to the next station.

HD signals are broadcast at 1/100th the power of their accompanying analog signals. While this is supposed to be equivalent in terms of range, in my experience it's not. If the digital signal gets too weak, it will fall back to analog. If you're listening to subchannels HD2 or HD3, there is no analog fallback, and you will just have silence.

This unit does not have the ability to lock out HD channels, so if you're in a fringe area you may get frequent switching back and forth between analog and digital. The display is a simple dot matrix, and there is no animation (which to me is an advantage, I don't need any distractions when I'm driving). The volume button and presets are fairly easy to find without looking, but the other controls are probably not.

The included wireless remote is functional, but the layout is not ideal and could also benefit from an ergonomic redesign. The inclusion of a remote is an advantage, however, as it enables you to program an IR steering wheel remote interface such as Peripheral Electonics PESWIX.

In summary, while this is not the best HD radio out there, it's certainly worth the price, especially for the features included.

Update 6/9/08

After living with this radio for a few weeks, I've become a bit annoyed with some of its faults:

1. The lack of an HD lockout is becoming a big deal. There are some stations that I can receive in analog, but the digital signal is not strong enough. Because this radio picks up on the fact that there is an HD signal, but is unable to lock it in, I am unable to receive these stations at all in certain spots.

2. Contrary to what I posted above, the display is not actually a dot matrix display, but multi-segment made to look as if it's dot matrix. While this is not a disadvantage in and of itself, it does explain the primitive display (8 segments). And the radio is not smart enough not to scroll in certain modes. For example, if you select the artist or song name using the display button, even if the current name is 8 letters or less, it will still scroll.

JVC currently has a radio that appears to have similar features (except USB and bluetooth) that sells for about the same price. The model number is JVC KD-HDW10, and it may be worth a look before buying this Dual radio.