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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Worth My Paycheck
Pros
High Quality Head Unit, fast mp3 player, and lots more
Cons
expensive, few minor irritations
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
An excellent head unit, but it maybe more than you need.
I bought this unit for $600 at Circuit City and am exquisitely glad that I did. I also put down an extra $100 for a four year full warranty. If I don't like how it's working, they'll swap it out.
Audio Quality
I am not the most fanatical die hard Audiophile out there. I simply don't have the money or the time to be. But music is a large part of my life, and the more accurate and clearer the sound produced by equipment, then the happier I am with it. And I'm very picky about my audio equipment. From the time that I replaced the head unit with the stock unit in my car, I could HEAR the difference already. The added power to each channel allowed for my stock speakers to hit higher levels with less distortion than the standard unit.
The equalizer on the system is EXTREMELY Customizable. The Excelon line is Kenwood's premier line of equipment. It is designed for high-end systems and show systems. There are 6 standard settings for different types of music such as rock, pop, jazz, etc. There are also presetting's for your speaker type: stock, aftermarket, etc. However you can, if you want and have the time, customize every aspect of the system by yourself. You can define your own crossover for each channel and sub. This is way more than I personally need, but I am sure any audio fanatic will be in heaven with this ability. I don't see the point to tweak my car's stock speakers, though I do plan on keeping this head unit for a long time and plan on upgrading the speakers to aftermarket speakers at a later point.
So Why Did I Buy It?
MP3 Quality
The unit is listed as being able to play back 128kbs mp3s on cdr/rw's. However, Using a wonderful program called Musicmatch, which I will revue later, I have ripped all 150 of my cds to my computer at 192kbs previously. What's the difference between bitrates? Well, on low-end speakers there is no difference. However, you can distinctly hear the bass drop off when comparing a 128kbs mp3 to a 160kbs, or 192kbs mp3 on my Cambridge Soundworks Microworks speakers (already reviewed). The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality. I can honestly say on my current equipment, I can not hear a difference between my cd's and my mp3s at 192kbs. What does this have to do with the head unit? Well, despite it claiming that it only works with 128kbs mp3's, the z828 reads my 192kbs mp3s fine.
The speed it moves through the directories and songs are not as fast as a cd, but they are ALMOST as fast as a cd. This was a key reason why I bought the unit. At the time of purchase, about two months ago, this was the FASTEST tracking unit on the market. The only time I have a problem with the tracking, is when fast-forwarding or rewinding IN a song. I am used to a cd, and it takes 2-4 times longer to fast forward through a song and 4-8 times longer to rewind. These speeds again may be exaggerated by the fact that I am using 192kbs mp3s instead of 128kbs.
Display
I wasn't too happy with the display; I felt the z929 and many others had a nicer display. I can't really complain about the button layout, just what they chose to display on the graphic faceplate. Display type C is completely graphical: There is a car race, only its more like 20 seconds of a f1 car racing around a track which repeats forever, and a boat ride with dolphins jumping. Neither of these really look that good, and have nothing to do with the music being displayed. There are also several other display settings with the typical audio bar graphs of the output, though the last two are interesting. One stretches them around in a circle, and the last one is sort of like the fire setting in winamps equalizer, only it?s monochrome.
It is impressive how distinguishable the images depicted are, but for all intents and purposes, they are trite and boring. They are great to wow someone for the first fifteen seconds in your car that they see it. They are great on the drive home from Circuit City, *note please try to pay attention to the road endnote*, but they are pretty tacky in the long haul.
Display type A is a text based display. You have a lot of options to customize this display. The screen is split into two parts horizontally (so there is a top and bottom). You can then cycle through what is displayed on the top and what is displayed on the bottom. My only argument is that the option to select the ID3 track name is only on the bottom and not the top!
This seems ridiculous to me. Of all the information, the date/time/clock/song name are the most important. And each of those can only be displayed on the bottom! The top can display ID3 Artist and album, just album, folder name and track name. However, if you want the unit to read the information of the cds then you have to burn the cd in iso 9660 mode. This means that all long file names are converted to dos names (so Tool-Reflection.mp3 becomes Tool-R~1.mp3). This means that displaying Track name is useless. When cycling through mp3s the track name is the MOST important. I don't need the album or artist floating by the top of the screen, I know who it is by the song! Hopefully I can find a program or have a friend write one up for me that swaps id3 tag information (artist with song title). Then it would display everything ok. It's just irritating that such an expensive unit as this would leave something as simple as track name out of the list.
Display type B is similar to A except that it only has an option for the clock or nothing on the bottom.
I would much rather have done without the nifty graphical faceplate, but I was looking at performance over aesthetics. However, the faceplate is detachable, and there is a programmable security key for it. These two options make for some nice protection for your expensive equipment.
Other Options
As I said before, this unit comes off of kenwood's high end line. It has built in abilities too hook up to just about everything out there. The unit is Sirrius digita radio ready, and has a source input for a TV. It's compatible with Kenwood's special amps and subs, dvd/tv displays, and multidisc changers. There are lots of other doodads and STUFF that you can get to go with it (and where would we all be without STUFF? I'd hate to think of it).
Helpful Hints
Remember, when burning mp3 cds they need to be in isp9660 format. My cd software defaults to Joliet. It will read Joliet cds, but it will not read the id3 tags. This is irritating since Joliet supports long files names of up to 30 characters.
Overall
This is an excellent piece of equipment, though it might be a bit much for some. The only Excelon model is around $100+ cheaper, but I didn't want to settle when I am already spending this kind of money. I plan on keeping this unit for a very long time. I am thrilled with it's performance, despite the disgruntlement?s that I have already mentioned. It's super rich in features and flexibility, and it is well laid out. The menus have a lot of depth, and this can be a very complicated unit to own, but superficially it is simple. Anyone can work the basic functions without getting lost or confused.
Besides, when I can fit ~10 whole albums (and that's at the higher 192kbs rate for my mp3s) I am not going to argue about complexity. You pop a cd in. There is a button, which moves folders up and down. Another one moves back and forth through songs. There is a button for volume. Everything works just like a regular cd player (plus the up and down folder button). So basic operation is still simple. I give it a 4.5 overall, but since there are no decimal points on epinions, I will give it a 5.
For more info on the Microworks speakers that I mentioned in this article please follow the link:
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-7DBC-68DB231-39172C59-prod5
Audio Quality
I am not the most fanatical die hard Audiophile out there. I simply don't have the money or the time to be. But music is a large part of my life, and the more accurate and clearer the sound produced by equipment, then the happier I am with it. And I'm very picky about my audio equipment. From the time that I replaced the head unit with the stock unit in my car, I could HEAR the difference already. The added power to each channel allowed for my stock speakers to hit higher levels with less distortion than the standard unit.
The equalizer on the system is EXTREMELY Customizable. The Excelon line is Kenwood's premier line of equipment. It is designed for high-end systems and show systems. There are 6 standard settings for different types of music such as rock, pop, jazz, etc. There are also presetting's for your speaker type: stock, aftermarket, etc. However you can, if you want and have the time, customize every aspect of the system by yourself. You can define your own crossover for each channel and sub. This is way more than I personally need, but I am sure any audio fanatic will be in heaven with this ability. I don't see the point to tweak my car's stock speakers, though I do plan on keeping this head unit for a long time and plan on upgrading the speakers to aftermarket speakers at a later point.
So Why Did I Buy It?
MP3 Quality
The unit is listed as being able to play back 128kbs mp3s on cdr/rw's. However, Using a wonderful program called Musicmatch, which I will revue later, I have ripped all 150 of my cds to my computer at 192kbs previously. What's the difference between bitrates? Well, on low-end speakers there is no difference. However, you can distinctly hear the bass drop off when comparing a 128kbs mp3 to a 160kbs, or 192kbs mp3 on my Cambridge Soundworks Microworks speakers (already reviewed). The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality. I can honestly say on my current equipment, I can not hear a difference between my cd's and my mp3s at 192kbs. What does this have to do with the head unit? Well, despite it claiming that it only works with 128kbs mp3's, the z828 reads my 192kbs mp3s fine.
The speed it moves through the directories and songs are not as fast as a cd, but they are ALMOST as fast as a cd. This was a key reason why I bought the unit. At the time of purchase, about two months ago, this was the FASTEST tracking unit on the market. The only time I have a problem with the tracking, is when fast-forwarding or rewinding IN a song. I am used to a cd, and it takes 2-4 times longer to fast forward through a song and 4-8 times longer to rewind. These speeds again may be exaggerated by the fact that I am using 192kbs mp3s instead of 128kbs.
Display
I wasn't too happy with the display; I felt the z929 and many others had a nicer display. I can't really complain about the button layout, just what they chose to display on the graphic faceplate. Display type C is completely graphical: There is a car race, only its more like 20 seconds of a f1 car racing around a track which repeats forever, and a boat ride with dolphins jumping. Neither of these really look that good, and have nothing to do with the music being displayed. There are also several other display settings with the typical audio bar graphs of the output, though the last two are interesting. One stretches them around in a circle, and the last one is sort of like the fire setting in winamps equalizer, only it?s monochrome.
It is impressive how distinguishable the images depicted are, but for all intents and purposes, they are trite and boring. They are great to wow someone for the first fifteen seconds in your car that they see it. They are great on the drive home from Circuit City, *note please try to pay attention to the road endnote*, but they are pretty tacky in the long haul.
Display type A is a text based display. You have a lot of options to customize this display. The screen is split into two parts horizontally (so there is a top and bottom). You can then cycle through what is displayed on the top and what is displayed on the bottom. My only argument is that the option to select the ID3 track name is only on the bottom and not the top!
This seems ridiculous to me. Of all the information, the date/time/clock/song name are the most important. And each of those can only be displayed on the bottom! The top can display ID3 Artist and album, just album, folder name and track name. However, if you want the unit to read the information of the cds then you have to burn the cd in iso 9660 mode. This means that all long file names are converted to dos names (so Tool-Reflection.mp3 becomes Tool-R~1.mp3). This means that displaying Track name is useless. When cycling through mp3s the track name is the MOST important. I don't need the album or artist floating by the top of the screen, I know who it is by the song! Hopefully I can find a program or have a friend write one up for me that swaps id3 tag information (artist with song title). Then it would display everything ok. It's just irritating that such an expensive unit as this would leave something as simple as track name out of the list.
Display type B is similar to A except that it only has an option for the clock or nothing on the bottom.
I would much rather have done without the nifty graphical faceplate, but I was looking at performance over aesthetics. However, the faceplate is detachable, and there is a programmable security key for it. These two options make for some nice protection for your expensive equipment.
Other Options
As I said before, this unit comes off of kenwood's high end line. It has built in abilities too hook up to just about everything out there. The unit is Sirrius digita radio ready, and has a source input for a TV. It's compatible with Kenwood's special amps and subs, dvd/tv displays, and multidisc changers. There are lots of other doodads and STUFF that you can get to go with it (and where would we all be without STUFF? I'd hate to think of it).
Helpful Hints
Remember, when burning mp3 cds they need to be in isp9660 format. My cd software defaults to Joliet. It will read Joliet cds, but it will not read the id3 tags. This is irritating since Joliet supports long files names of up to 30 characters.
Overall
This is an excellent piece of equipment, though it might be a bit much for some. The only Excelon model is around $100+ cheaper, but I didn't want to settle when I am already spending this kind of money. I plan on keeping this unit for a very long time. I am thrilled with it's performance, despite the disgruntlement?s that I have already mentioned. It's super rich in features and flexibility, and it is well laid out. The menus have a lot of depth, and this can be a very complicated unit to own, but superficially it is simple. Anyone can work the basic functions without getting lost or confused.
Besides, when I can fit ~10 whole albums (and that's at the higher 192kbs rate for my mp3s) I am not going to argue about complexity. You pop a cd in. There is a button, which moves folders up and down. Another one moves back and forth through songs. There is a button for volume. Everything works just like a regular cd player (plus the up and down folder button). So basic operation is still simple. I give it a 4.5 overall, but since there are no decimal points on epinions, I will give it a 5.
For more info on the Microworks speakers that I mentioned in this article please follow the link:
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-7DBC-68DB231-39172C59-prod5
