Kenwood KDC-MP919 Car CD / MP3 Player
Out of stock |
Similar in In Dash Receivers
- MP3 / WMA Playback: MP3 Playback
- Player Type: CD
- Controlled Devices: CD Changer Mini Disk Player Sirius Ready
- Overview
-
Reviews
-
Compare Prices
User ReviewRead All Reviews »
Good Quality Deck
Pros
Excellent overall, great sound, many features
Cons
Screen display Mediocre, No RDS, difficult to program stations and menus
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
An excellent deck with more features than you'll probably use, with great sound backed by a top leading company.
Having played with this deck about 3 weeks now, I feel I've had it long enough to make an objective review. The unit itself is great with many features, but plan on spending some time trying to figure out how to use it! After installing it I was cruising down the road, intending to program the radio stations into memory, usually an easy task (you hold in the button). Not so with this radio! I ended up having to read the manual to learn the complicated menu sequence for programming the stations. I don't think still I could do it again without referencing the manual.
Speaking of the manual, I don't know if this is a translation from Japanese or what, but it is horribly written, very incomplete, and light on details. My chief complaint is that it mentions a feature and how to turn it off or on, but it offers no explanation of what the feature does. You are left to trial and error to figure the usefulness of the many features. Sadly, this is the case with many electronic devices today, but certainly is not excusable. That said, plan on keeping the manual in the glove box - the radio is cryptic enough you will refer to it often (at least if you're planning on using the more advanced features.)
I mentioned the deck is feature laden, and it certainly is. It plays your MP3s off your CDs and can display the Title and Artist (Either ID3 or Filename) and the clock at the same time, a nice feature. The display screen is more functional than graphical, used for information mainly. The only way to display the different graphics would be to turn the deck off and have it in mask "demonstration" mode, supposedly what would be showing in a store. The Pioneer radios with their OLE displays certainly are more fun to look at, though you either have to turn on an annoying feature which "blinks" your display to negative every 10 seconds or accept that the pixels will not remain uniformly bright over time. Having learned of that drawback, I was instantly more satisfied with my display, believing it may be the better choice over the long term, even if it is less flashy in the short term.
The deck can control a multitude of Auxiliary sources, like a Sirius radio tuner or CD Changer, along with like 6 others most people would probably never use(DVD, Game, etc.). One of the deciding factors for me to buy the deck is the "D-Mask" faceplate, when you turn the car off the face flips around, showing only black. Since most people, myself included, fail to take their face with them 100% of the time, this is a good deterrent to a "casual" thief who might just be looking in the windows. A warning though, most thieves know this trick, for best security you should set the "code" and always take the faceplate in with you. Thankfully, if you detach the faceplate the radio does not "flip" but returns to its normal position, showing the face has been removed. (Also - motorized faceplates on car stereos are an easy thing to break. You would be best to buy service agreement with this deck, especially for its cost).
My only regrets on the radio is that is lacks RDS, where radio title information displays on your screen from stations which support it. Probably a minor complaint, as my friends with radios that support it say they have yet to find a radio station which broadcasts this information. Still, for a deck with this many features (and this amount of money) it would have been nice to include it should the data ever be broadcast. Certainly the unit could have been easier to use, but once you learn the ropes it's no big deal. All in all, it's a great radio that will probably do more than you want or need, with a great sound.
Speaking of the manual, I don't know if this is a translation from Japanese or what, but it is horribly written, very incomplete, and light on details. My chief complaint is that it mentions a feature and how to turn it off or on, but it offers no explanation of what the feature does. You are left to trial and error to figure the usefulness of the many features. Sadly, this is the case with many electronic devices today, but certainly is not excusable. That said, plan on keeping the manual in the glove box - the radio is cryptic enough you will refer to it often (at least if you're planning on using the more advanced features.)
I mentioned the deck is feature laden, and it certainly is. It plays your MP3s off your CDs and can display the Title and Artist (Either ID3 or Filename) and the clock at the same time, a nice feature. The display screen is more functional than graphical, used for information mainly. The only way to display the different graphics would be to turn the deck off and have it in mask "demonstration" mode, supposedly what would be showing in a store. The Pioneer radios with their OLE displays certainly are more fun to look at, though you either have to turn on an annoying feature which "blinks" your display to negative every 10 seconds or accept that the pixels will not remain uniformly bright over time. Having learned of that drawback, I was instantly more satisfied with my display, believing it may be the better choice over the long term, even if it is less flashy in the short term.
The deck can control a multitude of Auxiliary sources, like a Sirius radio tuner or CD Changer, along with like 6 others most people would probably never use(DVD, Game, etc.). One of the deciding factors for me to buy the deck is the "D-Mask" faceplate, when you turn the car off the face flips around, showing only black. Since most people, myself included, fail to take their face with them 100% of the time, this is a good deterrent to a "casual" thief who might just be looking in the windows. A warning though, most thieves know this trick, for best security you should set the "code" and always take the faceplate in with you. Thankfully, if you detach the faceplate the radio does not "flip" but returns to its normal position, showing the face has been removed. (Also - motorized faceplates on car stereos are an easy thing to break. You would be best to buy service agreement with this deck, especially for its cost).
My only regrets on the radio is that is lacks RDS, where radio title information displays on your screen from stations which support it. Probably a minor complaint, as my friends with radios that support it say they have yet to find a radio station which broadcasts this information. Still, for a deck with this many features (and this amount of money) it would have been nice to include it should the data ever be broadcast. Certainly the unit could have been easier to use, but once you learn the ropes it's no big deal. All in all, it's a great radio that will probably do more than you want or need, with a great sound.
