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Hd car Equipment... Very Strange  

post #1 of 7
2/26/06 at 5:34am
Thread Starter 
I did some looking this weekend for a new Head Unit for my car..

Even though there's only one station in my area that is broadcasting in HD,and they are only broadcasting their analog station,which I have no interest in, I wanted to get a HD ready radio just in case other stations switch to HD,especially if they start to multicast..

With all the talk about HD radio lately I thought there would be a good selection,there isn't..

Kenwood offers quite a few units but first it's Kenwood,and the HD receiver is OVER $400..They have to be kidding...

Panny offers some,but it seems their older model offered more HD choices then their new 2006 models,very strange..

JVC has a built in HD radio model coming out in March(around $300)...Thats a maybe for me...A big maybe..

Nothing from Clarion or Pioneer...Again very strange..

Alpine offers a few and has a receiver for $200+..

In my case none(except maybe the JVC) of them are worth a look right now..I wish I knew if any other stations in my area was going to jump on the HD bandwagon in the near future,by the time they do it might be time to upgrade my HU again anyway.. :) So I guess I go the no HD ready HU right now...

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post #2 of 7
2/26/06 at 7:40pm
Just thought I would add, I picked up the top of the line Alpine that has the built in HD radio receiver. The sound is great, the fact that it tells you what is playing is great, but the manual does not tell you how to switch to the sub channels and I have not figured it out yet and I want to because some of the stations in my area have sub channels
post #3 of 7
2/27/06 at 1:09am
Thread Starter 
Your model may not get the sub channels..Thats another thing I found out,not all these HD radios pick up the multicasted/sub channels.They just pick up the main analog channel...

BTW I ended up buying a 2006 model Pioneer,it's not HD ready but it has everything else I was looking for...
post #4 of 7
2/27/06 at 6:54am
Looked around over the weekend, and did not see any HD Radio receivers. Lots of XM and Sirius. Just no HD Radio.
post #5 of 7
2/27/06 at 7:41am
Thread Starter 
Yeah,thats one reason I got the Pioneer.. I have XM in my car using a SkyFi 2(use to have a SkyFi 1) and with this Pioneer I can use the Pioneer direct connect receiver..I'll hide it under a seat,it will look cleaner..The SkyFi was nice but I found out that after a week I wasn't using all the extras on the display anyway,the stock ticker,sports scores,etc..

All I care about is the artist name and the channel.. The Pioneer receiver is good enough for that..

HD ready HU would have been nice though,I would love to give it a try when it hits big time in my area..But that could be years from now..
post #6 of 7
3/4/06 at 11:12am
I have the Kenwood DDX8017 touch screen with the HD Radio and I like it alot. I don't see what is so bad about Kenwood.
post #7 of 7
3/16/06 at 7:55pm
The JVC radio is pretty good. I just got mine yesterday and had it installed in about 90 minutes by myself. The sound quality is awesome... you can clearly hear on most channels the change over from analog to digital... it gives it a little extra boost... no major volume jump or anything, but there is a noticeable difference.

There is one spot in my area where there is poor reception (a little bit of static on analog FM, but nothing major)... I drove through that area today and I could hear it going back and forth from digital to analog... it was a little anoying, but it certainly allowed me to hear the quality difference.

One of the stations scrolls weather and traffic during commercials... it's pretty cool. But right now I am happy with the radio. I won't be leaving town until next weekend... should be interesting to see how far out I can get before the HD signal drops. I'll be traveling up into New York State. So it should be interesting to see if I get better reception on analog channels as well... I would loose the FM analog with my factory radio once I got into the mountain on Route 17 around route 209 exit a few miles past Middletown. Since it's on the other side of a mountain, I'm not expecting it to last, but who knows, maybe it will be able to hold onto the analog longer.

Has anyone made a map of coverage? It would be really cool if we could get a Google Earth plot going for the New York area... and other areas around the country as well... let people plot on a map where they loose the digital reception for certain stations with a note about what equipment they are using...
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