looks much cooler than it performs.
Written: Jun 07 '04 (Updated Jun 08 '04)
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Pros: Good looks and plenty of power.
Cons: Skips, difficult installation, tiny buttons... too many to list
The Bottom Line: deceptively good looks, but a terrible performance
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| bobbyslav's Full Review: Audiovox CDH-1000 Car CD Player |
This CD player was nothing but one big long headache. First I have to make clear that it might be actually better than what I experienced, because I actually bought it refurbished from Overstock.com for about $60. I've already reviewed that store, but I'll say again - really shifty place - unclear policies, terrible customer service, and bad products. Now back to the Jensen player. I am writing this review because I've seen these players all over the place, and most of them are refurbished. So I would like to warn you what you are getting yourself into.
The reason I bought it was of course the way it looks. I mean Jensen is a half way decent brand, and this model has acceptable specifications - S/N 85db (90 and above is the standard for CD), 22 watts RMS power, 75 db stereo separation (again the higher the number the better). But most of all I really liked the stealth face. The problem with that though is that it's a pretty obvious face, and if anyone was really looking to steal it would hardly be fooled. It might actually be a bad feature, because someone might actually think this is a high end player.
Normally I start with the bad things about the product first, but this time the good ones are so few that I'll get them out of the way real quick first.
The good: plenty of power, the sound is relatively clean, and the radio reception is ok. The face looks pretty cool and the included remote control, although quite useless, makes you feel like you own a high end player. Hm... I am trying really hard to think of anything else good to say here, but I think that's about it.
Now let me get to the problems. Well the biggest one is that this unit skips constantly even over the smallest bumps on the road. Once again, I bought a refurbished unit so that might have had something to do with it, but there are a lot of refurbished units out there, which to me doesn't speak very well for the model. Let me make clear what I mean by small bumps - the light reflectors on the road and of course everything else. Sometimes even just the vibrations from the engine at idle would make it skip.
Next problem was the installation. The wires on the back only have one harness that attaches to your car's harness; the end that goes in the player is permanently attached. That means that you have to somehow balance the player while soldering the wires to the adapter necessary to fit your car.
The other very annoying thing was the eject button. While there is a nice big button on the front face designed to open the stealth cover, it does not eject the disc. There is a second button hidden on top of the sliding face, which you must press to eject the CD. First of all this makes the ejection a two-step process, and second - the eject button is really small and poorly designed, making it very hard to find and press while driving. No matter how cool the stealth place might look, this alone is enough to make you hate it.
Next comes the idiotic resume play on this unit (actually I found out that all Jensen models operate the same way). When you turn off the disc and then turn it back on, it doesn't start from the place where you left off, like most normal players, but instead it goes back to the beginning of the last track you were listening. Now I realize this is a little better than some bottom low end players that take you all the way to the beginning of the disc, but still it is really bad.
The clock is my other complaint. On another Jensen model I've had before, and also on my current Panasonic, there is a function that lets you select what you would like the display to show - the clock, or the track and time information. This unit doesn't have this and you always have the track info. If you want to see the time you have to press a button on the little plastic thing with the buttons. Which lead me to the next problem. The plastic thing that rotates to reveal or hide the buttons is very small and cramped. The buttons are similarly sized, very small and placed very close together, it is almost impossible to find the button you need without looking for a while at the unit.
Well I feel like I am missing other small annoying things about this unit, but I can't think of them right now and I think I've covered the major problems.
I hope this helps, and again - don't be fooled but the relatively good looks of this machine. There is a reason why a stealth face model is selling for so little. I returned mine after a week.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 65.00
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Epinions.com ID:
bobbyslav
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Member: Bobby L
Location: Columbia, SC, USA
Reviews written: 133
Trusted by: 4 members
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