DURABRAND WD268 Car Cassette Player

The factory AM/FM radio in one of the trucks I use at work went on the fritz. My employer, knowing that I am an experienced mobile audio installer as evidenced by my personal vehicle, asked would I be willing to put a replacement stereo in the truck if he were to purchase it. As I spend anywhere from 45 to 60 hours, on average, each week in this vehicle I happily agreed.

The unit I was presented with was the Durabrand WD268 AM/FM/Cassette receiver. My first impression was that it must have been the least expensive replacement unit he could find brand new.

There are a few features present on this unit not commonly found on stereos close to this price point such as separate treble and bass adjustments, a mute feature for times when an immediate volume decrease is desired or necessary, one set of low-level RCA preouts for sending signal to an outboard amplifier, and a CD/auxiliary mini-jack input on the unit's face.

There are more radio preset station locations than you'll likely ever use - 30 in all, 18 for FM stations and 12 for AM stations. That is divided up into 3 levels of FM station presets (FM1, FM2, and FM3 - each containing 6 presets) and 2 levels of AM station presets (AM1 and AM2 - again, each containing 6 presets). You will cycle through these 5 levels of presets in sequence via the 'band' button on the unit's face.

Operating the 'mute' feature defeats the output completely rather than drastically lowering like other units that I am accustomed to. Once the mute button is activated sound output is eliminated and the word 'MUTE' constantly flashes on the unit's display to alert the user that this feature is, in fact, in use.

The Durabrand WD268 also features a clock function. It does not, however, offer the ability to constantly display the time in place of other information. Instead, hitting the 'display' button on the unit's face will show you the clock briefly for 2 or 3 seconds then the unit will revert to whatever information is applicable to whatever mode the unit is currently operating in. This is a pet peeve of mine - a stereo's inability to constantly display the clock - and may not matter nearly so much to other users.

Installation was pretty straight-forward with all the applicable wiring in the unit's wiring harness being clearly labeled plainly indicating its purpose (speaker wire positive and negative and which speaker each was for, power, ground, constant, etc.).

Sound reproduction is on par with what you can expect for a $50 stereo. Simply put - it's tolerable. The unit is advertised to have a 60 watt total output, or 15 watts per channel across 4 channels, but after listening to this unit through the factory door speakers in a 1997 Dodge Ram 3500 truck I would have to say that is a peak output rating at best. *UPDATE* I finally had the opportunity to look through the owner's/installation manual. Durabrand rates the RMS output of this unit at 7 watts/channel across 4 channels. This explains why even on OEM factory-installed speakers this unit offers poor sonic performance.

Feature navigation is actually pretty intuitive and simple. There are four buttons arranged in a squarish design found to the left of the unit's display. The top and bottom of the square are your up and down volume controls while the left and right sides of that square manipulate the radio frequency backwards or forwards. A single button in the middle of the square cycles through the various sonic adjustments (bass, treble, balance, and fader controls) with the volume controls making your adjustments once you are in the mode you are wanting to adjust. To the left of this button configuration towards the edge of the unit's faceplate are two additional buttons that activate the mute feature and the display swap feature. Over on the right of the unit's face the buttons that activate your radio station presets are found. Their layout is somewhat odd but seemingly appropriate considering the somewhat strange look to the rest of the faceplate.

Cassette operation is much the same - being pretty much akin to every other average tape deck you've ever used. There are two buttons to the right of the tape slot that operate the fast forward and fast rewind. Pressing these two 'fast-wind' buttons together changes which side of the tape is being played. A third button found to the left of the tape slot ejects your cassette from the player.

I have not had the opportunity to use the CD/Auxiliary input feature so I cannot directly comment on its operation but I will assume that it is much the same as any other unit that offers such an input.

My first complaint about the Durabrand WD268 is that the unit's display is very dim. To say that it is difficult to read the displayed information in a daytime environment would be an understatement. Legibility is, of course, greatly improved in dim or nighttime settings but the near impossibility of quickly referencing displayed info in bright daylight could potentially lead to a hazardous situation if close scrutiny of the display becomes necessary while driving.

My second complaint is the unit's failure to remember volume settings when turned off. Instead of retaining whatever volume level you had set when the unit was turned off and returning to it when you turn it back on this stereo will be on a factory default volume setting when first powered on. This factory level is very low and almost inaudible.

My third complaint is this unit apparently has a very weak tuner. I base this assumption on comparison with other radios/stereos that I frequently use. The stations that I listen to regularly on my work route fade out and/or become unclear and full of static much sooner than I am accustomed to. Another of my work's trucks has an OEM Ford AM/FM/Cassette deck and a third truck has a rather beat-up Sanyo cassette deck that I purchased cheaply from eBay to replace the factory AM-only radio. Both the factory Ford unit and the well-worn Sanyo in the other trucks offer better tuner performance than this Durabrand WD268.

Volume settings range from a level of '0' to '63' as indicated by the unit itself. My experience has shown that the volume needs to be set somewhere above '30' or '35' before you can really hear what's being played. Heavy amounts of distortion seem to intrude at any setting above '55.' This lends credence to my assertion that the unit's advertised fifteen (15) watts per channel output is a peak rating at best.

As this was used as a direct replacement for a broken unit I did not have the opportunity to use the RCA preouts so I cannot comment on the relative signal clarity afforded by using them. Truthfully, however, I cannot realistically see anyone using this unit as the centerpiece to a really involved stereo system.

{To be completely fair I will admit to the layout in my personal car to be comprised of all Kenwood eXcelon components (head unit, one 4-channel amp, and one Class D monoblock amp) and all Diamond Audio Motorsport M6-series speakers (two sets of 2-way components and a single DVC 12" subwoofer) so I am accustomed to listening to top-shelf equipment}

All in all I reckon it's truly a matter of getting what you pay for. When you buy a stereo that's only fifty bucks brand new sub-par performance shouldn't be much of a surprise.