I just installed my KD-HDR1 yesterday, and am pleased overall. I do like the HD radio stations for their sound quality, and the alternate channels available on some of them. Some of the stations broadcast the current song title/artist which is a nice feature. I'm in the Washington DC area, and we have several FM HD stations, but I have not tried the AM band for HD yet. There are several paragraphs that follow detailing a couple issues I had/have. Since they take so much text to detail, it makes it appear that I'm disappointed when I'm not. I'm happy with the reception and sound quality, and especially the built in HD tuner. Overall I give this radio a thumbs up
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Begin details of install and operation issues:
I had an issue during my installation. I tried to use the line out outputs to feed my car's built in amp, but the line levels were not loud enough (2.5V/20kOhm load full scale from the service manual). I had to use the speaker level outputs and install the PAC OEM-2 converter, which made the install very cramped, and added 13 more connections that had to be soldered, but once done it works fine. I complement Crutchfield for including all required adaptors and suggesting the purchase of the PAC OEM-2 converter.
I also installed their KS-PD100 iPod adapter. I'm a little disappointed with the control interface. I like to listen to podcasts, and navigating to them using the KS-PD100 requires navigating to Genres then scrolling through the list of genres until I get to Podcasts then scrolling by artist then selecting a podcast. This sounds simpler than it is because the 'scrolling' part is not like scrolling using the iPod. The KD-HDR1/KS-PD100 combination scroll at about one item per second. Eventually it starts to skip along the list, but it requires a lot of attention to control, and if in this process, you neglect to touch a control for a few seconds, you have to start all over again. The other problem is the display is only 8 or 9 characters long, and it doesn't scroll the podcast name across the display until too late, so you have no way to tell which broadcast of a podcast you're selecting because the identifier in each podcast title is well past the 8th or 9th character. This scrolling issue comes up anytime you want to select something near the middle of the alphabet in a long list. For example I have over 1000 artitst in my iPod, and if I wanted to listen to Led Zeppelin, I'd have to navigate to Artists, select, then scroll right past over 500 artitsts. Since the KD-HDR1/KS-PD100 started to skip through the list, this took me only a minute or two, but not as quick as using the iPod interface directly on the iPod.
I also purchased the KS-U57 RCA line input adapter, but was unable to install both it and the KS-PD100 iPod adapter. There's only one J-Bus connector on the back of the head unit, and no way to daisy-chain the two units that I can find. I wanted to be able to listen to, control and charge my iPod, and be able to listen to non-iPod players if or when the occasion comes up (e.g. friend's non-iPod player, and yes I'm aware I'd probably need an RCA to 1/8" stereo adapter).
I'm going to leave my KS-PD100 iPod adapter installed for now, since it is nice keeping the iPod charged and out of site, but I may go back and install the KS-U57 line input adapter instead.