Panasonic CQ-DF401U Car CD Player

Well, I finally decided I couldn't make it another day without a car stereo. Sounds pretty dramatic, doesn't it? In my small town, where the only radio station is half static and plays a mixture of Barry Manilow and Kenny G, the situation was getting pretty drastic. I'm young, I have a cute red car, and I needed some decent tunes to enjoy my twenty-minute daily drive through the sticks on the way to work.

Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about stereo equipment and less than nothing about car stereos.

My fiance, who says the most charming and clever things, told me "I'll get you a stereo and put it in for you, because you could never do it yourself." As a proud feminist, I knew that was a dirty lie! Of course I could do it myself!

I set out on the Internet as I always do when I need to make a purchasing decision. Unfortunately, this wasn't much like comparing fabric softeners. Even the sites for novices were so above my head I felt like a pretty big idiot. After an hour and about ten sites, my eyes starting to blur and I started to make vague threats at my computer screen about synthesizing its subwoofer. But it was just an empty threat because I didn't know how to synthesize anything.

Maybe Barry Manilow wasn't that bad.

I continued reading and came across a glowing recommendation of Crutchfield.com. I went to the site and was incredibly pleased to find a feature called "What fits my car?" Simply put, you enter your make and model and the site eliminates any models which don't fit your vehicle. That was the first and biggest hurdle in my purchasing decision and once I cleared it, I was well on my way to choosing a car stereo.

Unfortunately enough, my late-model Neon will work with virtually any stereo, so I was left with a list of hundreds of CD players.

So I set out into the lengthy and numerous helpful pages at Crutchfield.com and figured out a few things.
1) I wanted a CD receiver with changer control so I could add on a changer when I had some more money.
2) It's probably going to be awhile before I have more money so I should buy a fairly new model, as opposed to a clearance model, so that it will be current technology longer. What that current technology is, I have no idea, but newer is generally better. I think.
3) It had to be pretty cheap (as opposed to some of the $1000+ models with pages and pages of incomprehensible gibberish).
4) It had to look pretty!

Based on those highly technical and well-thought-out specifications, I chose the Panasonic CQ-DF401U CD Player/Receiver with CD Changer Control.

Here's a blurb of text taken directly from the product page at Crutchfield.com.

"Owners of compact vehicles, check this out! The built-in MOSFET45 amp chip of the CQ-DF401U delivers the punch of a MOSFET component amp without taking up valuable real estate."

Isn't that amazing? I mean, it's truly incredible that all I can understand out of that entire impressive statement is that as a compact-vehicle owner, I should check it out.

But no, my lack of technical knowledge doesn't stop there!

For a full ten minutes, I sat scratching my head and pondering that age-old question. "Where does the CD go?" There wasn't a slot and the site information kept telling me to buy a Panasonic 6-disc changer with it. Did this thing even play CD's by itself? If it didn't, why was it called a "CD Player/Receiver"?

My Internet skills save the day again! On eBay, the same model is for sale by a person who realized that we're not all stereo geniuses and pointed out that the detachable front comes off and the CD goes behind it. Please, feel free to laugh at me. I'm a little slow.

The Panasonic CD player was $219 at Crutchfield.com. Although it was a bit cheaper at other sites (I saw $189, $199, and $205) I specifically needed the promised installation kit and customized instructions in order to help me install it. The web site said that installing this model into my Plymouth Neon would be "E-Z: Easiest Installation"... "This is one you can handle, even if you've never installed car audio equipment before." I personally struggled a bit, first trying to comprehend the directions and later wondering if a "soldering iron" is really a household tool. Eventually, and with a little help from my father (who, incidentally, can't believe anyone would be without a soldering iron) I had the stereo working in my car.

The Panasonic CQ-DF401U CD player is pretty easy to operate. Because the unit also has CD changer controls, some of the buttons are useless to me right now, but anybody can operate the basic features of changing tracks on a CD, adjusting volume, or changing the radio station. The unit itself has an attractive silver design with a blue LCD display and a blue backlight that makes it look eerily beautiful in the dark.

It also has a remote control. They all do. I don't know why. I can't even begin to guess why you'd use a remote control for something a foot away.

Here are some of the technical specifications as quoted from the web site:
- Alphatuner V
- 18 FM/6 AM presets
- seek tuning
- front and rear sets of preamp outputs
- subwoofer outputs
- loudness
- CD changer controls
- MOSFET45 amp chip
- 23 watts RMS/45 peak x 4 channels
- CD frequency response 20-20,000 Hz
- CD signal-to-noise ratio 96 dB
- FM sensitivity 11 dBf

I'm not sure what any of thse numbers mean, but I can tell you this - this stereo sounds excellent in my car. My factory radio didn't sound too bad when I could pick up a radio station clearly and I credit that to a decent set of factory speakers. However, with this new CD player, my entire car is filled with great quality sound. It's crisp, clear, and makes all the difference in my car audio. I can definitely hear a difference between my stereo and a friend's very, very expensive model, but I feel that for what I paid it's a good choice.

The face of the unit feels a bit cheap and the buttons seem like they'll wear out quickly. Only time will tell if that turns out to be the case.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this Panasonic CD player - and with myself for installing it. Maybe next time I'll install myself some speakers.

Pass the soldering iron, please!