Kenwood Z-828 Car CD / MP3 Player
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Similar in In Dash Receivers
- MP3 / WMA Playback: MP3 Playback
- Additional Features: Animated Display
- Player Type: CD
- Controlled Devices: CD Changer
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Kenwood Z828, serious audiophiles... look here.
Pros
Great sounds, loads of setting options and displays, fully customizable, satellite radio avail.
Cons
Controls hard to get used to, not your simple to use MP3 player
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Love the deck for my uses. Loads of options, customizable features. Probably more than most listeners need, but plenty will be used by those with amps.
Let me start off by saying that this MP3 player was one of the first I saw on the market worth buying and I have had it for over a year now and couldnt have been more right.
Even to this day my deck still wows those who havent seen it before. The display and controls are some of the most customizable in the business. Now this feature(if you will) has turned some off to the product, including a couple car magazines who tested its breatheren (the Z919) in the Mazda MP3. The display does look quite cluttered and often confuses the new user. Once you get used to the manipulation and the controls that you use often you will come to love the deck.
I have my deck hooked up to a Alpine 5 channel amplifier and thus need many of the options available to the user. The audio settings (ie rock, classic, etc) were not of much use to me, but the customizable user settings were awesome. I could set up my frequencies as I liked for my musical style, bass, mid, treble and their amplification levels as well. It has a non-fading volume adjuster as well for those who use a separate amplifier for your subwoofer(s).
The amplifier outputs are 4.5V outputs which greatly enhance sound quality for those who are drawing lots of current and running large amounts of wattage, especially for those without capacitors. (read large wattage as 500W or above) I believe there are 3 pre-outs for amps on this deck but I wont swear to it, I havent had my deck out of my car since buying it.
The remote is bigger than most you will find on the market. I like this, others may not. I hate the small credit card sized remotes, they always fall where they arent supposed to be and are hard to read when more options/buttons are on them. My remote has held up well, still on the original batteries.
The visual displays are neat to those who havent seen the deck before, Im personally kinda over it. Looks need, makes people happy, but I could do without it. One feature I do like a lot is the manual flip down face. I had an Alpine, the 3 disc in dash CD player, a few years ago, the damn motor broke on it! CD that was in the deck played great, sounded wonderful, but the cost to fix it was prohibitive so I got a new deck. So Im a proponent of non-motorized car stereo.
MP3 quality is great. Sound is as good as your recording allows. Title, track, length, artist can all be displayed as they are typed in at the time of MP3 recording. One thing to note, however, is the slow nature of this player. The time to read the disc and then move from track to track is noticeable. I dont have a problem with it, but I can see where some would get impatient with it, especially those who like to switch around songs a lot, but then again the MP3 player will cut down on your time just due to the fact you can put over 240 songs on one CD!
Bottom line: I love it, I recommend it if you have the money and a burner to put your MP3s on disc with. Also, you might want to make sure you have a need for a deck as such. Lots of features here for people with multiple amps and high end equipment, so it may be more than most people need.
Even to this day my deck still wows those who havent seen it before. The display and controls are some of the most customizable in the business. Now this feature(if you will) has turned some off to the product, including a couple car magazines who tested its breatheren (the Z919) in the Mazda MP3. The display does look quite cluttered and often confuses the new user. Once you get used to the manipulation and the controls that you use often you will come to love the deck.
I have my deck hooked up to a Alpine 5 channel amplifier and thus need many of the options available to the user. The audio settings (ie rock, classic, etc) were not of much use to me, but the customizable user settings were awesome. I could set up my frequencies as I liked for my musical style, bass, mid, treble and their amplification levels as well. It has a non-fading volume adjuster as well for those who use a separate amplifier for your subwoofer(s).
The amplifier outputs are 4.5V outputs which greatly enhance sound quality for those who are drawing lots of current and running large amounts of wattage, especially for those without capacitors. (read large wattage as 500W or above) I believe there are 3 pre-outs for amps on this deck but I wont swear to it, I havent had my deck out of my car since buying it.
The remote is bigger than most you will find on the market. I like this, others may not. I hate the small credit card sized remotes, they always fall where they arent supposed to be and are hard to read when more options/buttons are on them. My remote has held up well, still on the original batteries.
The visual displays are neat to those who havent seen the deck before, Im personally kinda over it. Looks need, makes people happy, but I could do without it. One feature I do like a lot is the manual flip down face. I had an Alpine, the 3 disc in dash CD player, a few years ago, the damn motor broke on it! CD that was in the deck played great, sounded wonderful, but the cost to fix it was prohibitive so I got a new deck. So Im a proponent of non-motorized car stereo.
MP3 quality is great. Sound is as good as your recording allows. Title, track, length, artist can all be displayed as they are typed in at the time of MP3 recording. One thing to note, however, is the slow nature of this player. The time to read the disc and then move from track to track is noticeable. I dont have a problem with it, but I can see where some would get impatient with it, especially those who like to switch around songs a lot, but then again the MP3 player will cut down on your time just due to the fact you can put over 240 songs on one CD!
Bottom line: I love it, I recommend it if you have the money and a burner to put your MP3s on disc with. Also, you might want to make sure you have a need for a deck as such. Lots of features here for people with multiple amps and high end equipment, so it may be more than most people need.
