Anyone else have the Aiwa CDC-MP3 head unit?

I figured it would be mediocre (I don't expect quality from Aiwa), but I couldn't pass up a $299 player that would handle burned mp3s (and show ID3 tags to boot).

Now that I have it, here are my thoughts:

Sound quality is decent, more than acceptable.
Plays MP3s! In a league by itself.
Skips too often with my harsh suspension.
Features are decent, could be improved.
Display is tacky as hell. Feel like I'm in vegas when I'm playing music.

The biggest gripe I have is with the display, especially the blue LEDs that _FLASH_ when you adjust anything. There's a myriad of colors, and they're all bad.

I'd probably pay up to $100 for a decent, conservative replacement faceplate. I tried taking the faceplate apart to maybe replace the blue LEDs with amber, but didn't get very far (didn't want to break anything).

Anyone else have this unit?

-Kordos

My buddy had this unit in his car and I noticed that it didn't handle file names very well. Even though it said that it supported ID3 tags, it limited it to the size of the name and that in my opinion is the most important part. Who wants to only see 01-Led.Zep- ?? Not I. IMHO the unit plays sound decently but the quality of the unit is sub-par. Im just going to wait until a better unit comes to the market.

Is the Kenwood unit supposed to be any better? I know it's much more expensive, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with it. Mazda is putting into their Protege MPS, hmm, i wonder what audience they're shooting for?

The Aiwa's display is limited to 25-characters, but since it accepts ID3 tags (song title, artist, album), you can break it up pretty cleanly.

The navigation is somewhat annoying at times - two numbers index the track, so 003-002 would be the second track (alphabetically) on the third album (alphabetically). Of course you can name your tracks with "01-" etc. to get the correct ordering.

The Kenwood is a lot more expensive... $750 vs. $300. After listening to the Aiwa and being reasonably satisfied, I can't imagine what's that much better about the Kenwood besides the display.

-Kordos

This is what I did to my Land Rover Discovery (daily Driver)

I installed the ALPINE 7863 CD player ( very nice!!)

This player is AI-NET changer compatible, but Alpine sells an adapter plug to plug into the AI-NET input and coverts to a RCA input.

I bought a Microsoft MP3 player and I just ran a line to the RCA adapter!!

WORKS GOOD!!
Nice thing is that I can disconnect the Portable MP3 player and use it when I work out, or when I need it on the road!!

This is the only approach I would take with out buying Cheezy equipment!!

I am able to switch from tuner, CD PLAYER, and AUX or CHANGER (which ever you set)

Cheers!

If you don't mind me asking, how much did all that run you? It sounds like the most practical solution...:D

Sorry for the late response,,

The Stereo was 300 bucks (60 watts by 4 and sounds great!!)

the MP3 player, you can get from 100 bucks up

and the Alpine connector was about 12 buck special order from Cicuit City!

Good Luck!

ELIBEEMER

My son has the same radion and today I visited Sony's website and they have introduced an MP3 model for around $400. This also has the ability to use the neat little remote that Sony has instead of the junk one that comes with the Aiwa MP3 radio.

We installed it in his 535i and it sounds okay only Wish we would have waited a month and gotten the Sony!