Around Christmas time, the radio in the Element started to… not work… The radio would always tune itself to FM 99.1MHz – CHRI, otherwise known as the local Christian Family Radio station. (Or as I like to call it “Radio You Can Have Faith In!”)
Now, it’s not that I’ve got anything against Christians (I kinda am/might be/was one?), or the music. Well. Maybe I’ve got something against the music. Anyway – 99.1 was never programmed into the presets, so I have no idea why it always tuned itself to that, but it was mildly annoying.
What was the real problem though, was around the same time – the button to select the auxiliary input stopped working. This was a real problem, since I use my iPod about 95% of the time while I’m in the truck.
Good riddance!
Behold my JVC KD-R800!
So why’d I get this deck?
– iPod Connection – no more gooseneck/cables/fiddling around
– iPhone Integration – Operate iPhone/iPod right from the dash
– Has the aforementioned iPod integration, and a CD player… (not so common on USB decks now!!)
– BlueTooth Speakerphone – because no-touchy laws come in the fall
– Bigger/better/newer than the stock deck
– Been doing a lot of roadtrips, and it looks like I’ll be doing a lot more in the near future
Some of you may remember the stereo from my Prelude, which was definitely a much more high-budget affair, and a lot more work – but it wasn’t difficult. Installing this deck wasn’t difficult, though I did entrust some retail mongers to do it (*gasp!*) – but I did supervise the affair. The problem is the OEM (Alpine?) deck uses Balanced outputs, and doesn’t actually drive the speakers – there’s a little amplifier in the passenger kick-panel area that does that – and the new deck doesn’t output a balanced signal… which means my OEM subwoofer barely does anything anymore. Granted, it’s nothing like what was in da ‘Lude, it definitely is important to the sound-image, and other other speakers don’t even come close to covering for it.
I’ve got to figure out what to do next. It’s possible that getting a balun will do the trick, but given used/big sub-woofer amplifiers seem to go for $20-$50 on eBay, and the built-in sub itself isn’t bad (the amp was anemic, but we’d go around that) – this is the other option.
Otherwise, the deck itself is pretty nice. It’s easy to operate blindly, it has a decent BlueTooth speaker-phone, and works well with the iPod/iPhone.
Some interesting issues crop up though:
1. With Firmware 3.0 on the iPhone, there’s now A2DP support (BlueTooth Audio), which ironically makes the iPhone play music over BlueTooth even though the dock cable is connected. Solution: Manually select the output from the iPod.app, or connect the Dock cable after the BlueTooth has paired.
2. Browsing 300+ albums/songs/artists is just too much for a linear scrolling list. The jog-wheel works, but not at this scale. I need to make Alphabetized playlists or something.
3. There’s 2 USB ports. iPhone goes on one, BlueTooth goes on the other.
4. There’s 2 USB ports. One is on the back (cabled to my glove-box), the other is on the faceplate.
5. There’s 2 USB ports. I’ve ALWAYS got to unplug SOMETHING when I detach the faceplate. I’m hoping I can find a 12V (with big regulator) USB hub that’ll let me connect both to the back port so I don’t have to use the front USB port at all.
6. It doesn’t swallow a CD when the ignition is off. My old JVC did. Mildly annoying, not a big problem.
Things to learn to cope with and fix and stuff. I still want to replace all the OEM speakers with some co-axials, but the higher priority is to just get the sub working again. But now I’m off to the drive-in with my girlfriend.
