Hun-Speak

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July 17, 2003

The Joys of an In-Dash MP3 Player

Around my birthday, I was looking for a present for myself. My in-dash cassette player was showing its age and I was getting sick of messing with my Car Discman just to listen to CDs. On top of it all, I had recently subscribed to EMusic so I was getting a lot of albums in MP3 format only. I decided to get a CD deck with MP3 capabilities for my car. Since I've been a fan of Kenwood and have always had good luck with them, I had my eye on their KDC-MPV619. It was the end of the model year, so not only did I get a screaming deal on it ($199) it also came with free installation. Sold!

I'm not going to go into much detail on the other features of this deck, I'm going to focus on the MP3 playback. It has the typically excellent Kenwood radio reception. The removable face-plate comes off and goes back on with ease. The LCD display can have up to 67 different background colors (you can even cycle through all of them or have it change depending on the time of day). It plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs without problems. You can even use it as a controller for a Kenwood CD changer or a Sirius satellite radio system. It pumps out a solid 22W per channel with less than 1% total harmonic distortion (50W per channel maximum). That's plenty for me.

Enough about that. The MP3 capabilities are where its at. This deck can play back discs burned in the ISO9660 Level 1 or 2, Joliet, or Romeo formats. It plays the files (and directories, for that matter) on the disc in alphabetical order. If you want an album to play with the tracks in the right order, you need to make sure the filenames begin with the track number (01, 02, etc.). I have my CDs organized so the root directory is the artist name with the albums in directories under that. From the way the player goes from one directory to the next, it will play all the albums for a particular artist before moving on to the next artist.

You can either navigate the disc directly by directory via the FM and AM buttons or you can put it into Album Select mode by hitting the 5 button. In that mode, the current track keeps playing while you search. Then you can use the FM and AM buttons to do from one directory level to the next and the << and >> buttons to choose a directory within that level. Hitting the play button will play that disc. Hitting the 5 button again will cancel Album Select mode. It's much harder to explain than it is to do. You just have to be careful that you don't spend so much time admiring the deck as you surf through Album Select mode that you take your eyes off the road.

The LCD screen can display just about any information you would like about the disc it is playing. Hitting the DISP button cycles through displaying the track number, disc name (if any), folder name, file name, song title & artist name, album name & artist name, track time, or the clock. Whew! If you need more than that, you might need some kind of therapy.

It only takes a few seconds for the CD to spin up and continue playing the MP3 it was on when you turned the car off. It does from track to track and directory to directory quite quickly. The sound quality is excellent. I've never had it even come close to skipping. I've got about five MP3 CDs in my car, each with around 12 albums on them. That's a lot of music. Since we live far away from any major cities, it's hard to find a good radio station. With my MP3 player, I don't have to worry about it any more.

Of course, there are a few caveats:

• The player will only display ID3v1 tags, which means that track names, etc., are truncated at 30 characters. For most songs, that's no problem. I have some (especially blues songs, for whatever reason, such as B.B. King's All over Again (I've Got a Mind to Give Up Living)) that are much longer. It's not really a problem; it just looks a little funny.
• I also wish there was disc-wide random-play. It will only randomize tracks in a given directory. Of course, you could dump everything into one directory (be careful of the 255 track per directory limit) and then you'd have disc-wide random-play. You'd really have to be careful how you name your tracks to do that though.
• To my mind, using the FM (top) button to go to the next directory and the AM (bottom) button to go to the previous one is counter-intuitive. I would have preferred it the other way around. Maybe that's just me.
• The only other problem I've run into is that every so often, it won't want to display ID3 information for a track. That's pretty rare though. I think I've only seen that once or twice out of 60-odd albums.

The MPV-619 has since been replaced by the MPV-622, but the basic principle still applies. If you've got a growing collection of MP3s and spend any time at all in your car, you would do well to get a MP3 player. If you don't have a lot of MP3s, but do have a bunch of CDs and a computer for ripping, encoding, and burning to CD-Rs, an MP3 player is a lot more convenient than swapping CDs or getting a CD changer. MP3s might not have the sound quality of CDs, but if you encode at a decent rate (I used 128k, try different rates to get the best size/sound quality compromise for you) you won't miss it, especially when you factor in road noise.

Buying tips:

• When you begin shopping for an MP3 deck, make sure to find one that will support a wide range of encoding rates. Some cheaper ones limit you to only a few. Make sure you're happy with the display and control layout. You'll be using it a lot.
• The ability to display ID3v2 tags would have been nice.
• Bring along a number of discs in different formats (MP3s, regular CDs, CD-RWs, etc.) When you go shopping to see how the player handles them. Just because a player claims to handle different formats doesn't mean that it does it well.
• The last tip? Do like I did and wait until the end of the model year. The new model probably won't be that much different and you'll save a bundle as stores try to clear out inventory.

Bottom line: there are few purchases I've ever made that I am just as thrilled with six months later as I was when I first bought it. My CD/MP3 receiver is one of those purchases. It's a great investment for the music lover on the go.

Note to anyone from the RIAA: All of my MP3s were either ripped and encoded from CDs I already own or they were from my EMusic subscription. Save your legal threats for someone else. Better yet, go jump in the lake.