Put a CD into your in-dash head unit and let it play 13 hours of your favorite songs straight. Imagine that, you can drive up the coast of, say, California and never change CDs. That's a reality now, thanks to the audio compression technology known as MP3 that has become wildly popular among Internet users. Kenwood, the first company to offer MP3 in a car deck, has incorporated a second-generation MP3 technology into the Kenwood Excelon series with the new Z828 unit.
This is a seriously sexy deck, dominated by a fine pitch 144 x 24 dot matrix display. The large matrix has two lines of scrolling text with selectable bold or regular characters. You have control over the display's complexity, with three levels from full-on video animations down to the plain text only style. Surrounding the display are the controls which are laid out in a pattern that makes it easy to find what you need. The only negative about the control surface are the labels for each button. They are white screen-printed labels on clear plastic, making them difficult to read.
At the push of a button, the faceplate drops down to reveal the CD slot. You can then remove the faceplate to keep it with you when you leave the vehicle. A convenient carrying case is provided for protection. As an additional security precaution, a 4-digit PIN code can be programmed to prevent unauthorized use.
The CD mechanism has a variable servo gain; it plays virtually any disc (CD, CD-R, CD-RW) and plays through scratches in the disc surface and bumps in the road without skipping. Of course the big news here is the ability to play your custom ripped MP3 discs. ID3 tags are supported, with scrolling labels for the embedded tags showing the name of the album, artist, and song (if the MP3 has the ID3 tag embedded during encoding). If you prefer, you can use the folder and file names instead of the ID3 tags. For full long filename support on the display, the disc must be burned with ISO 9660 Level 2 naming format, which most ripping software provides. Otherwise, the names will be truncated to 8 characters with the ~ character and a digit at the end. Kenwood recommends encoding MP3 files with a fixed bit rate of 128 kbps, but you can play files encoded up to 320 kbps and variable bit rate files too. Random play is available within each folder, but not across the entire disc. When you press the repeat button, it cycles between repeating the current file or repeating the entire folder. The files and folders are played in the order that they were written on the disc. Unlike some MP3 players, this unit remembers the file and time index it is playing when you switch to a different source or turn off the power. So when you return to MP3 play, it starts at the same point where it left off. You can "fast forward" or "rewind" within an MP3 file, although the time index does not display when doing this, making it tough to know how far you have gone until you let the playback start again. Navigation can be a bit of a challenge, since the files must be read each time you switch to a new file or folder. It takes about three to four seconds before the title of the file or folder is displayed, so you will want to keep your disc structure simple with few if any folders inside other folders. Files with extensions other than .MP3 and empty folders are ignored. The Z828 has a stellar EQ section, with three bands of quasi-parametric equalization and a volume-dependent loudness control. Each band has cut and boost in eight steps, along with selectable center frequencies and Q settings (Q settings available on the lows and mids only). Q is the width of the filter, with a lower number being a wider filter that cuts/boosts more frequencies above and below the center frequency. You can set your own EQ for each source separately, or you can choose one of the factory presets labeled "Rock," "Top 40," "Pop," "Jazz," and "Easy."
Also provided are low pass and high pass filters, which allow you to use separate external amps for lows and highs without using an external crossover. These cut off the lows at the front/rear line outputs and cut off the highs at the non-fading output. The highpass filters on the front/rear outs have eight selectable cutoff frequencies (40 Hz, 60 Hz, 80 Hz, 100 Hz, 120 Hz, 150 Hz, 180 Hz, and 220 Hz), while the low pass filter on the non-fading out has three (50 Hz, 80 Hz, and 120 Hz). There's also a separate adjustment for the level of the non-fading output relative to the front/rear outs. Dual zone control gives you the capability of sending a different audio signal to the rear outputs for video games, DVD playback, etc. With a 4.5V swing on these outputs, you won't have to worry about having enough signal-to-noise ratio feeding those amps in the trunk.
Kenwood's CR-2 tuner is included, which can pick up the weakest stations without any trouble and has great rejection of multi-path noise. Three FM bands and one AM band have six presets each, yielding a total of 24 stations that can be programmed. Custom names of eight characters can be programmed for each station preset, and you can search the stations by name. Auto programming of the stations in each band can be done for those times when you are away from home. The deck is also ready for Sirius Satellite Radio, expected to be online by October 2001. This is a digital radio broadcast that will be beamed to all corners of the continental U.S. from three satellites in orbit, supplemented by ground repeaters. You can sign up to receive it for $12.95 per month. The quality of this broadcast will be much better than analog radio in most cases, and you will never have to change the station because you have driven out of range of the transmitter. There will be up to 100 channels of music, news, sports, and entertainment with NO COMMERCIALS! The channels will be organized by genre, similar to DMX. It will require a separate controller (not yet available) that connects to the rear of the deck. Remote control is provided by the RC-520, a large remote with an alpha-numeric keypad that makes entering names for radio stations and discs much easier than through the buttons on the faceplate. All major functions are accessible via the remote.
Connections to the piece consist of four sets of gold plated RCA jack pigtails and a wiring harness with a high density connector for all of the hard wiring so that you can make all of your crimp/solder connections before the deck is mounted. The RCAs provide stereo line level outputs for front/rear/non-fading, and an AUX input. Four powered outputs with 22 watts each of continuous power can be used if you don't have external power amps. Power control wires are available for turning on your power amps and deployment of your motorized antenna, and a dimmer wire connects to the light switch to dim the display at night. Also provided is a control line for Kenwood amps that have a built-in selectable bass boost.
Kenwood is leveraging the headstart they have on MP3 in the car audio industry, with what appears to be the most mature deck of its kind. If you have been saving your pennies for the MP3 deck of your dreams, you can't go wrong with the Z828.