JVC KW-XR810 Review
Ordered it from Crutchfield, and installed it this week in my 2010 King Cab SE, along with the HD Radio tuner, 6"x9" Alpine SPR-69C speakers in front and 6.5" Alpine SPS-600's in rear.
Pros:
1. Very easy, intuitive navigation, especially for all the features, including large dedicated buttons for preset radio stations -- which was important to me since I listen to the radio a LOT. Menu and Back buttons make the nested menus easy, especially when using USB mass storage (up to 20,000 songs). Can Hide infrequently used menu options (such as AUX input) using Setup. Can readily "customize it" to meet your preferences. Once you've tweaked your setup, it's very easy to use.
2. Looks great! Color matched my dash lights VERY well, with separate settings for the display and the buttons, including totally different setups for night and day. Display is fairly customizeable, as well, in addition to choosing Negative and Positive backlighting.
3. Great internal equalizer provides 3 different adustments for each of at least 3 frequencies in each of the 3 broad ranges (High, Mid, Low) -- making it more like a 9 or 10 band equalizer. Can finetune it to your speakers and the cab's acoustics -- your tweaking is automatically saved as a USER preset that's easily accessed via a dedicated EQ button. Some of the preset EQ modes aren't all that hot -- Dynamic boosts things too much, for example, but Vocals does a great job of separating and enhancing those. The BASS EQ preset will make the Alpine 6x9's thump pretty well...
4, Strong internal amp and certainly not "over-rated" at 20 watts -- it will produce 20 watts with little noticeable distortion. With good aftermarket speakers, you may not (I don't) need an amp or separate sub, though I'm sure it would sound even better. Multiple LOUD settings to enhance low volume, but I don't use them -- just tweaked the EQ. You could boost the volume even more by jacking up the input volume (see #5 below), if you use sources other than the radio most often.
5. Adjustable input volume for each input source (Aux, USB, CD, etc) other than the Radio, so you can get same output volume from each source withour jarring (and possibly harmful to your ears or speakers) volume changes when switching sources. You're essentially baselining and comparing everything to the Radio input. If you don't listen to the radio much, you could really make this thing rock by cranking up the volume for the other input sources. Even the Aux input sounds good, though it doesn't quite compare to the 24-bit Digital-to-Analog (DAC) converter in the headunit.
6. Clean, great sound, though I didn't try it with just the stock speakers. With these Alpines, it sounds crystal clear when playing a CD, for example. With all the adjustments, you can tailor it to the type of music you typically listen to. Surprising bass with these nice Alpine speakers, also. The stereo in my truck now blows away the Pioneer/Bose setup in my house!
7. Attractive, without being flashy. Looks almost stock... hopefully won't attract the attention of theives!
CONS:
1. Couldn't transfer phonebook from my old Casio Boulder. Easily paired up to it, and Bluetooth works great otherwise. I just dial out using Phonebook on my cell, and the headunit takes over. Could still manually dial using headunit, but it's more cumbersome. Sounds great -- callers say it sounds like I'm just using a headset, without echoes, road noise or other distractions.
2. Didn't recognize my Sansa Clip MP3 player - perhaps because I also have a micro-card in it. Bought a 8GB USB flash drive that works great, and use it on the rear USB, hidden in glove compartement. (The tiny Bluetooth adapter stays in the front USB and isn't very noticeable at all.)
3. File names and folders still limited to 25 characters, which initially required some some renaming of the files where the name of the song was long. This has little impact on the display, however, since the Tags (Artist, Album, Song Title) can contain up to 128 characters. Can select to scroll long tags once, repeatedly, or turn scrolling completely off.
4. FM radio reception isn't really any better than stock, though the sound is clearer with less static on normal AM/FM. AM reception seems better than stock, and much clearer overall. HD radio sounds GREAT, though HD stations and their range are still limited. I saw HD as an investment in the future, without subscription charges, especially since the FCC just recently approved the HD stations to increase their broadcast power (i.e. range) ten-fold or something like that.
5. Glossy faceplate and buttons show fingerprints and dust, and makes it look "less stock" than it would if it had a textured finish. Otherwise, matches stock dash very well. At night, with the colors adjusted and stored via setup, it looks like it came from the factory instead of having a multi-colored light show...
Overall, I'm VERY, VERY pleased with the upgrade. The improvement in sound (not counting flexibility of two USB inputs, AUX, HD radio, etc.) over the stock single-CD (non Rockford-Fosgate) system are simply incredible. IMO, this JVC simply has the most features available at this price point in a double-DIN deck, and the sound won't disappoint!
Ordered it from Crutchfield, and installed it this week in my 2010 King Cab SE, along with the HD Radio tuner, 6"x9" Alpine SPR-69C speakers in front and 6.5" Alpine SPS-600's in rear.
Pros:
1. Very easy, intuitive navigation, especially for all the features, including large dedicated buttons for preset radio stations -- which was important to me since I listen to the radio a LOT. Menu and Back buttons make the nested menus easy, especially when using USB mass storage (up to 20,000 songs). Can Hide infrequently used menu options (such as AUX input) using Setup. Can readily "customize it" to meet your preferences. Once you've tweaked your setup, it's very easy to use.
2. Looks great! Color matched my dash lights VERY well, with separate settings for the display and the buttons, including totally different setups for night and day. Display is fairly customizeable, as well, in addition to choosing Negative and Positive backlighting.
3. Great internal equalizer provides 3 different adustments for each of at least 3 frequencies in each of the 3 broad ranges (High, Mid, Low) -- making it more like a 9 or 10 band equalizer. Can finetune it to your speakers and the cab's acoustics -- your tweaking is automatically saved as a USER preset that's easily accessed via a dedicated EQ button. Some of the preset EQ modes aren't all that hot -- Dynamic boosts things too much, for example, but Vocals does a great job of separating and enhancing those. The BASS EQ preset will make the Alpine 6x9's thump pretty well...
4, Strong internal amp and certainly not "over-rated" at 20 watts -- it will produce 20 watts with little noticeable distortion. With good aftermarket speakers, you may not (I don't) need an amp or separate sub, though I'm sure it would sound even better. Multiple LOUD settings to enhance low volume, but I don't use them -- just tweaked the EQ. You could boost the volume even more by jacking up the input volume (see #5 below), if you use sources other than the radio most often.
5. Adjustable input volume for each input source (Aux, USB, CD, etc) other than the Radio, so you can get same output volume from each source withour jarring (and possibly harmful to your ears or speakers) volume changes when switching sources. You're essentially baselining and comparing everything to the Radio input. If you don't listen to the radio much, you could really make this thing rock by cranking up the volume for the other input sources. Even the Aux input sounds good, though it doesn't quite compare to the 24-bit Digital-to-Analog (DAC) converter in the headunit.
6. Clean, great sound, though I didn't try it with just the stock speakers. With these Alpines, it sounds crystal clear when playing a CD, for example. With all the adjustments, you can tailor it to the type of music you typically listen to. Surprising bass with these nice Alpine speakers, also. The stereo in my truck now blows away the Pioneer/Bose setup in my house!
7. Attractive, without being flashy. Looks almost stock... hopefully won't attract the attention of theives!
CONS:
1. Couldn't transfer phonebook from my old Casio Boulder. Easily paired up to it, and Bluetooth works great otherwise. I just dial out using Phonebook on my cell, and the headunit takes over. Could still manually dial using headunit, but it's more cumbersome. Sounds great -- callers say it sounds like I'm just using a headset, without echoes, road noise or other distractions.
2. Didn't recognize my Sansa Clip MP3 player - perhaps because I also have a micro-card in it. Bought a 8GB USB flash drive that works great, and use it on the rear USB, hidden in glove compartement. (The tiny Bluetooth adapter stays in the front USB and isn't very noticeable at all.)
3. File names and folders still limited to 25 characters, which initially required some some renaming of the files where the name of the song was long. This has little impact on the display, however, since the Tags (Artist, Album, Song Title) can contain up to 128 characters. Can select to scroll long tags once, repeatedly, or turn scrolling completely off.
4. FM radio reception isn't really any better than stock, though the sound is clearer with less static on normal AM/FM. AM reception seems better than stock, and much clearer overall. HD radio sounds GREAT, though HD stations and their range are still limited. I saw HD as an investment in the future, without subscription charges, especially since the FCC just recently approved the HD stations to increase their broadcast power (i.e. range) ten-fold or something like that.
5. Glossy faceplate and buttons show fingerprints and dust, and makes it look "less stock" than it would if it had a textured finish. Otherwise, matches stock dash very well. At night, with the colors adjusted and stored via setup, it looks like it came from the factory instead of having a multi-colored light show...
Overall, I'm VERY, VERY pleased with the upgrade. The improvement in sound (not counting flexibility of two USB inputs, AUX, HD radio, etc.) over the stock single-CD (non Rockford-Fosgate) system are simply incredible. IMO, this JVC simply has the most features available at this price point in a double-DIN deck, and the sound won't disappoint!
