JVC KD-S890 Car CD / MP3 Player

JVC's KDS890 is an excellent CD/MP3 player for any automobile and for a good price. It plays back my CD-Rs without any trouble, and after several weeks of usage, I have experienced zero problems with any other feature of the product. The player only skips when I hit big bumps, and at ten years old, my car is no longer a smooth ride, so this player has good skip protection.

There are 18 available presets for FM radio, 6 for AM radio. An adjustable digital equalizer lets you manipulate Bass, Treble, Fade, and Balance from levels -6 to 6, and there are a few programmable presets already defined.

The display features four options -- track artist, track title, track time, and clock, which rotate as you press the button. The track artist and title scroll at the beginning of a track. When tuning in AM/FM radio, the display only rotates between the clock and the station, naturally.

Some high-quality Mp3-CD software like Nero Burning ROM seem to burn incompatible CDs, but Windows XP's default burning engine works great. Also, the player comes with options to play Mp3s in random order from within a single directory or using the entire disc.

The instructions included with the player do not explain how to produce compatible Mp3 CDs -- it took me several months to figure out. The key, as I mentioned above, is to avoid using higher-end recording software.