New Head Unit Review: JVC KD-A4970 *USB*

[Vanished]

Ok well I did some seriouse research, as I usually do with most my car parts. This time, I was looking for a new aftermarket head unit for my car to replace my old "rickety" kenwood, and I wanted to make the right choice. originally inspired by my girlfriends new alpine CDA-9851, I was thinking alpine all the way. Being only 17 and on a tight budget, I decided that I should look on ebay for a good deal. Most of the alpine decks were 250 without shipping or customes to Canada, so I decides maybe alpine wasn't the best choice. But what other decks could I get for under 250 that had the features I want, like mp3 compatible, 18+rms wattage, detachable face, so on and so forth... I considered eclipse, pioneer, another kenwood. But nothing clicked.

Until, I typed USB into my ebay search. The head units that came up were either Eclipse (memory card, out of budjet), kenwood or pyle. Then i found a JVC. My buddy had just gotten a JVC deck, and I liked it. After doing some research, I concluded that the new JVC decks were trust-worthy and dependable. Maybe not a car audio leader, but that had USB imput, and it was hightly respected head unit.

I decided up-on the JVC KD-AR870, and found a couple on ebay that had bids starting at 100 dollars. I read the online manual and reviews, concluding that yes this is what i wanted. I won the bid at $192.00 CAD including shipping via UPS standard. All in all the price came out to $240.00 after customes.

So now I will give a review on this deck. First off, the installation. I chose the hack away-at-my-harness, for it was the cheapest and the guy before had already done it with my kenwood. Hookup was easy with the help of the JVC guide and the MX-3 wiring diagram.


Now this deck has the standard features like 20rms watt x 4, USB, MP3/WMA, detachable face, i-pod/cd changer hook-up, three 5-volt preouts, sub preout (all gold plated), 3 band EQ and sub controls, satelite radio ready, remote etc...


The first thing that I liked about this deck was the clear dispaly. It has 3D, 24 bit color variable display that displayed pictres and movies. I burned some pictures using the software including witht the deck onto a CD and uploaded them to my deck. Great feature, and i can change it to any color i want, but only one uniform color can be displayed.

After getting used to the controls, I popped in a burned Mp3 cd I had made, with about 100 songs in differntly categorized folders on it. Now heres a feature I realy like, if you hold one of the "change folder buttons", you can change a folder, and the proceed to scroll throught the songs on the CD or USB drive, 6 songs per page, and then choose the song you wish to lisen to. very usefull!

Another hightlight is the line input. I got a Headphone jack to RCA cord that i can plug into it. (http://www.dak.com/reviews/2026Story.cfm) I take the headphone end and plug it into any mp3 player including i-pod, and my passager or me can control it. This cord i had from a while ago for my home theater amp and mp3 player. This was quick and easy, and the cord was cheap.

And finaly, the main reason why i bought this deck: the USB input. Any memory stick or any usb mass storage devide that doesnt' require software is attachable into the deck via a USB port in the side of the unit. It's quick and easy to update my USB thumbdrive on the pc, and listen to the lastest tunes on the deck by simply pluggin it in and selecting USB on the deck with the SRC (source button) which switched from USB-ipod-cdchanger-cd-fm/am/sat radio-line input. It's great and very very handy.

Some other bonus feature include things like being able to name CD's and radio stations, dimmer effect that will make the disply negative or positive coloring depending on what time you set it for so it's visible in day or night lighting. The sound quality is very good as well, and the EQ setttings make a huge difference. It has the standard "loud" setting to make the music sound that much better at lower volumes. By pressing the "DISP" button I can change it to display the current song title, a picture, movie or a graphic sound meter. All of these incude the current time, track info and source (even movie, for about 5 seconds when you change the song)

The only things i dont' like is the fact that only one color can be displayed at once, the faceplate is not motorized, there is not a built in cross over for ALL speakers (only sub), and the radio stopped working for some unknown reason until i reset the deck (works fine now..my wiring was pinched, it may have lost connection..)

As you can see, the good outways the bad by far. Any car enthusiast will enjoy this deck. It has more usefulll features that alpine, better and more pre-outs, and has better display and graphics. Not to mention the value of this deck! Look on ebay if you want one, especialy if your in the states (would of been 175 USD shipped if i lived in the us). I recommend this deck to anybody who is intersted in the features that it has.

I hope you found this review semi-usefull, for it is the first one i have ever written. Feel free to ask any questions, or add anything to this. Here is the JCV website with a list of specifications.

http://mobile.jvc.com/product.jsp?model ... =52&page=2

and some pics of it in my car (exuse the dirtyness..)

[Cy]

Great Review and sounds likes a Great deck.

[Vanished]

thanks..any one else care to comment?

[PATDIESEL]

Sounds like a good deal to me. The only thing I would worry about is the sound quality from a 3 band EQ, but if you are not looking to hear Eric Clapton in concert like quality I say it is WELL worth the price. The USB is a nice touch. I didn't even know they made headunits with USB ports
I'm not a big fan of all the colored lights and silver faces, but that one looks pretty tame. I just hate the ones that stick out so badly that all you see when you get in the car is the huge ugly silver CD player.

[Vanished]

AH, yes the lights are something that look ugly in the pics but in real life it's very nice. The buttons are red, and the nob is a very dim blue, and the display is veriable as I mentioned.

As for the deck color, everything is black exept the numbered buttons and the nob. Very tame indeed.

Another thing to add: The numbered buttons on the bottom double they're feature as to what ever shows up on the screen in the menus. So, if "Select'' apears on the screen above button three, then you press that button to select your option. You can choose your EQ's this way.

Speaking of the EQ, its Parametric. Basically there are three sections: Bass, mid, treble. Each 'section' has 3 or 4 freaquencies that you can vary, but only one in each section. You can also change the 'Q' of each frequency (how wide the varied frequency is dispersed to other frequencies in the section)

[Typhoonk]

try taking your ipod and the usb computer hookup and pluggin it into the jvc deck............

let us know what you find.....

[Vanished]

try taking your ipod and the usb computer hookup and pluggin it into the jvc deck............

DID IT!

and..IT WORKED!

It played the songs, and showed the name and artist...BUT, if you tried to view it as a list the names were all garbled because thats just what ipod does.

It also charges the ipod! Very cool..i'm not sure if all 1600 songs were playable, but I assume so.

So now when the battery dies when running the line input off the ipod, i can use the usb hookup. My gf likes being able to search through song on her ipod, so this is prefered ALTHOUGH the sound quality and the output are higher when using the usb rather than line input.

[ScooterBovine]

So this head unit comes with a front channel preout, a rear channel preout, and a subwoofer preout?

Nevermind, I found the answer. Well, you convinced me, and I just bought one. It has everything I wanted, and the signal to noise is great, as well as the FM sensitivity! Not to mention that it is BLACK! My current Alpine is silver, and it's annoying...

[lakersfan1]

Sounds like a good deal to me. The only thing I would worry about is the sound quality from a 3 band EQ, but if you are not looking to hear Eric Clapton in concert like quality I say it is WELL worth the price. The USB is a nice touch. I didn't even know they made headunits with USB ports

First off .... Eric Clapton? What are you? 60 years old?

Second, since when would an audiophile actually use a deck EQ? That's what 30 bands are for.