Rockford Fosgate RAV DVD1 Car DVD Player

**Note: this review has been updated after receiving one of my two identical units from Rockford repair and further research**

I purchased a refurbished unit from the Rockford Fosgate store on Ebay (called "HighDesertAudio"). I received a nice, clean looking unit complete with all accessories and manual. I bought this unit because the price was very low and is one of the RARE units to feature built-in digital surround sounding decoding (I have 5.1 surround sound in my Honda Accord). The RAV-DVD1 is a "preamp-only" unit but does feature a 20W output for the center channel.

Note: Later, I bought a NEW identical unit and verified that the quality problems were not restricted to my refurbished unit.

First off, the appearance of the unit is generally attractive, and mine sports a dark chrome finish, more similar to a highly shiny black chrome. The display is clear and has a high-quality appearance. The motorized panel opens smoothly and has a detachable face. Overall the appearance is classy but I don't like the volume knob so much. The unit features a nice looking gold-colored copper chassis!

Unlike other units the volume knob (which features a center button sporting the Rockford symbol) has ribbed edges instead of, say the "rubber pad" type used on Alpine for example. Illumination for the BUTTONS is RED while the info display is mostly white with blue accents.

The CD/MP3/DVD audio is clear and the output voltage is high (~5V) and has a low output impedance.

The unit features (1) wiring harness for basic wiring and also the dimmer function, and (1) more for the RCA outputs. A nice hard plastic case protects the faceplate when removed and a matching trim bezel is provided along with standard mouting bracket. The manual is mostly helpful and clear.

HERE IS WHY THIS UNIT IS UNIQUE:
-Built-in Dolby Surround, Digital, and DTS decoding!
-Nice appearance
-Built-in adjustable high/low pass crossovers, AUX input, and center channel RCA output
-Bass, mid, and treble levels and "Punch" boost button
-Center button to scroll through functions
-Clock and display for currently used speakers
-Dolby Surround/Digital/DTS indicators

HERE IS WHY THIS UNIT DESERVES A "NOT ACCEPTABLE" RATING:
(Several major engineering "no-nos" I discovered)
1. The DVD mechanism (Korean Raymedia RL-C500) has a max initialization time of 30 s! That means that each time you switch over to a CD/DVD you will have to wait about 20s* for it to start up! (*I measured 20s on my units)
This means that the (Rockford or China?) designers selected hardware with poor performance. I have never seen a DVD mechanism that requires so much time to initialize.
2. The unit has some serious hardware and software design flaws. In my brand new unit the DVD mechanism took a disc which somehow became "stuck" and could not be ejected in case it could not load, as is normally done in better units on the market.
Thus the unit sat there and made a grinding noise until I was able to power it off, back on, and finally eject the disc.
The controller softare seems to need some refinement to handle disc loading errors, instead of sitting there spinning the plastic gears for 30 seconds.
3. Noise: My refurbished unit produced a strange "tick-tick-tick" sound from two audio channels, unrelated to the cooling fan or DVD mechanism. Rockford repair denied any problem with it, although I viewed it on my oscilloscope and could easily record the audio channel noise if I had to.
I will assume this means Rockford repair did not know how to handle the problem, as it was not hard to reproduce it outside a vehicle. Actually, I did find a small amount of the same noise in my new unit, but on a much less noticeable scale.

SUMMARY:
Basically, this unit is a "good idea done poorly" and I would not recommend this. Evidently, I found out the hard way why it's selling so cheaply.
Rockford Fosgate was helpful and friendly, but evidently cannot fix a poorly-engineered unit.

Also, it can behave badly and things like loss of audio output and difficulty loading/ejecting can occur. Also painfully slow track-to-tack and startup time for discs.

I predict reliability of this unit to be below average by my experience in car audio sales/installation & engineering.

You can see the DVD loader used and the specs here: http://www.raymedia.co.kr/eng_productdd.htm

I even called Rockford Fosgate and asked about the quality and return rate of this unit BEFORE I bought it...and was assured it was ok (spoke with George).


Thanks for reading and I hope this is helpful to you. I have to say this was one of the most frustrating units I've ever had, which is unfortunate because it contains several unique features.