JVC KD-SX980 Car CD / MP3 Player
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Similar in In Dash Receivers
- MP3 / WMA Playback: MP3 Playback
- Player Type: CD
- Controlled Devices: CD Changer
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JVC KD-SX980 - A sub-$200 answer to your mp3/cd in-dash headunit question :)
Pros
Excellent playback, catchy display, detachable face-plate protection
Cons
Faceplate may seem a bit flimsy, easy to break the opening mechanism
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
This deck has all the high-priced bells and whistles, yet manages to retain a pricetag of well under $200. A definite winner!!
The Introduction:
Ever since the portable MP3 technology blew up a few years ago, I've wanted to have my music on the go. I tried numerous times, a portable CD MP3 player, a portable Iomega Hipzip digital audio player, etc, all of which failed me miserably in delivering the promise of having hundreds of music files on one cd/disk/mem card. Then, in-car stereo got its introduction into the MP3 market. And just this year, as I was putting together my car audio system, I decided that I just HAD to have MP3 functionality in it. However, everything I looked at was either too expensive for my college-student budget (Pioneer DEH-7400), or too mal-designed (Aiwa, Sony, Jensen, Kenwood). Then, on one of the car audio webpages (www.highwaymp3.com), I read about the JVC and all of its features. I got sold on it, ordered one without much thought, and installed it in my car. The outcome? A BIG two-thumbed salute ;) What's so great about this unit?
The Features:
The JVC KD-SX 980 offers unprecedented quality for an unprecedented price. For the first time in this young technology, you can spend less than 200 bucks, and actually get something that out-performs most everything else, even with the higher price tags. The JVC has two of the most searched for features in MP3 decks, yet features which are often omitted in the other manufacturers' design sheets. I'm talking about Random-In-Directory, and Random-All. Yes, you can divide all your MP3's into subdirectories, and then choose just one directory to be played from! On top of that, the JVC offers scrolling text (ID3V1 compatible), displaying all of your songs titles, artist names, and album names. The deck also handles CD-Text, so that your regular CDs can display titles of the songs as well(this feature drew a lot of ooh's and aah's out of my friends' mouths, I guess it's just that exciting :)). Of course, the JVC deck features a full-resume function, so that you do not lose your groove if you step out of the car and turn it back on later. It also has an Attenuate function, for use when you need to actually speak to your passengers, or pick up that ringing cell phone. The amplifier stage features 4 channels of 19 Watts RMS power, with peak power of 50 W / channel. The deck also has 5 built-in Equalizer presets, and one user-adjustable (Bass,Treble,Fade,Balance,Loudness) preset. It has 18 FM presets/6 AM presets (divided into 3 FM/1 AM bands), and Sequential-Station Memory (for those long trips, the stereo can actually automatically store into memory 6 of the strongest stations at any given moment). There is also an External line input jack on the front, to plug in a line-out of any audio device (MD, MP3, etc.).
But all of these are just specifications. Now, what do I REALLY like about this stereo?
The Pros:
I've owned the deck for about three months now. Never once have I had it skip while driving on some pretty bad roads, never once did it shut down or go into protection on me, and it actually made my stock speakers sound a whole world better than my stock stereo. On top of that, the multi-colored display is just beautiful eye-candy (if you don't like that sort of thing, too bad ;)), but it offers a dimming option so you can tone it down a little. Also in the display there's an included visualization bar, that dances to the beat of the music. All in all, I'm in awe :) The included wireless remote control makes life much easier, now my lazy hand can just rest on top of the armrest and control all of the deck's vital options (power/attenuate/equalizer preset/volume/source/station presets/band/track/directory/tuning). Is there ANYTHING wrong with this deck?
The Cons:
If I had to be picky, I would say that maybe perhaps the detachable face seems a little bit flimsy when being put back on. The whole opening mechanism seems to throw the face down pretty hard, and when putting it back, the clicks and noises almost make you feel like you're about to break the whole mechanism. But like I said, that is just me being naturally picky :)
The Conclusion:
If you're looking for a good quality MP3 deck with all the bells and whistles, but aren't looking to spend more than 300 dollars, get this one for half of that. Believe me and hundreds of other satisfied JVC customers, when we say this is the deck you want. Just on a sidenote, if you're paranoid about this thing breaking down on you, my uncle works for JVC's repairs department, and says he hasn't seen a single one of these decks returned for repairs so far. To me, this means great reliability. Good job, JVC!
An update (Oct 6, 2002):
Well, it's been over 5 months now since I've bought my JVC deck, and to this day, I'm very pleased to say, I'm extremely satisfied! Perhaps the only thing that irritates me a little is the fact that you have to make sure that the disks you play are clean and free of scratches. Sometimes, a dirty disk may cause the tracks on it to skip. This problem is most visible on the last tracks of CDs; however, a good wipe of the disk surface takes care of the problem. I'm not sure if anyone else has had a problem such as this, maybe it is just my unit, but even then, it's not serious enough to sway my opinion of this player as a whole. Continue to check this review out for any further updates, and thank you for reading my opinion so far!
Ever since the portable MP3 technology blew up a few years ago, I've wanted to have my music on the go. I tried numerous times, a portable CD MP3 player, a portable Iomega Hipzip digital audio player, etc, all of which failed me miserably in delivering the promise of having hundreds of music files on one cd/disk/mem card. Then, in-car stereo got its introduction into the MP3 market. And just this year, as I was putting together my car audio system, I decided that I just HAD to have MP3 functionality in it. However, everything I looked at was either too expensive for my college-student budget (Pioneer DEH-7400), or too mal-designed (Aiwa, Sony, Jensen, Kenwood). Then, on one of the car audio webpages (www.highwaymp3.com), I read about the JVC and all of its features. I got sold on it, ordered one without much thought, and installed it in my car. The outcome? A BIG two-thumbed salute ;) What's so great about this unit?
The Features:
The JVC KD-SX 980 offers unprecedented quality for an unprecedented price. For the first time in this young technology, you can spend less than 200 bucks, and actually get something that out-performs most everything else, even with the higher price tags. The JVC has two of the most searched for features in MP3 decks, yet features which are often omitted in the other manufacturers' design sheets. I'm talking about Random-In-Directory, and Random-All. Yes, you can divide all your MP3's into subdirectories, and then choose just one directory to be played from! On top of that, the JVC offers scrolling text (ID3V1 compatible), displaying all of your songs titles, artist names, and album names. The deck also handles CD-Text, so that your regular CDs can display titles of the songs as well(this feature drew a lot of ooh's and aah's out of my friends' mouths, I guess it's just that exciting :)). Of course, the JVC deck features a full-resume function, so that you do not lose your groove if you step out of the car and turn it back on later. It also has an Attenuate function, for use when you need to actually speak to your passengers, or pick up that ringing cell phone. The amplifier stage features 4 channels of 19 Watts RMS power, with peak power of 50 W / channel. The deck also has 5 built-in Equalizer presets, and one user-adjustable (Bass,Treble,Fade,Balance,Loudness) preset. It has 18 FM presets/6 AM presets (divided into 3 FM/1 AM bands), and Sequential-Station Memory (for those long trips, the stereo can actually automatically store into memory 6 of the strongest stations at any given moment). There is also an External line input jack on the front, to plug in a line-out of any audio device (MD, MP3, etc.).
But all of these are just specifications. Now, what do I REALLY like about this stereo?
The Pros:
I've owned the deck for about three months now. Never once have I had it skip while driving on some pretty bad roads, never once did it shut down or go into protection on me, and it actually made my stock speakers sound a whole world better than my stock stereo. On top of that, the multi-colored display is just beautiful eye-candy (if you don't like that sort of thing, too bad ;)), but it offers a dimming option so you can tone it down a little. Also in the display there's an included visualization bar, that dances to the beat of the music. All in all, I'm in awe :) The included wireless remote control makes life much easier, now my lazy hand can just rest on top of the armrest and control all of the deck's vital options (power/attenuate/equalizer preset/volume/source/station presets/band/track/directory/tuning). Is there ANYTHING wrong with this deck?
The Cons:
If I had to be picky, I would say that maybe perhaps the detachable face seems a little bit flimsy when being put back on. The whole opening mechanism seems to throw the face down pretty hard, and when putting it back, the clicks and noises almost make you feel like you're about to break the whole mechanism. But like I said, that is just me being naturally picky :)
The Conclusion:
If you're looking for a good quality MP3 deck with all the bells and whistles, but aren't looking to spend more than 300 dollars, get this one for half of that. Believe me and hundreds of other satisfied JVC customers, when we say this is the deck you want. Just on a sidenote, if you're paranoid about this thing breaking down on you, my uncle works for JVC's repairs department, and says he hasn't seen a single one of these decks returned for repairs so far. To me, this means great reliability. Good job, JVC!
An update (Oct 6, 2002):
Well, it's been over 5 months now since I've bought my JVC deck, and to this day, I'm very pleased to say, I'm extremely satisfied! Perhaps the only thing that irritates me a little is the fact that you have to make sure that the disks you play are clean and free of scratches. Sometimes, a dirty disk may cause the tracks on it to skip. This problem is most visible on the last tracks of CDs; however, a good wipe of the disk surface takes care of the problem. I'm not sure if anyone else has had a problem such as this, maybe it is just my unit, but even then, it's not serious enough to sway my opinion of this player as a whole. Continue to check this review out for any further updates, and thank you for reading my opinion so far!
