I am looking at buying the Panasonic in-dash MP3 player. Does anyone know anything about this stereo? Will it play regular CD's? Thanks for your reply.

 

I haven't heard much about the Panasonic. Which model is it? Any of them should read normal CD's though. I'm going with the Kenwood Excelon Z828 in my FD. Another good one to check out is the JVC KD-SH99. It is supposed to be a great deal for the money.

 

If it can play MP3s, it should play CDs. There are only a few boxes out there made to play MP3s from a hard drive. I was going to get an MP3 head unit, but when I started studying them, it seems that there are no high-end head units that can play MP3s. They are all middle of the road head units that have MP3 capability. This may have changed recently, but I looked in August of this year and decided to just live with burning my MP3s as tracks on CDs and buy a good head unit.

Dave

 

I have the JVC KD-SH99 in my 88 TurboII and I love it.
Heres a good review

I have seen the panasonic and it seems to get trumped by its competors. Almost all of the other MP3 decks have a load of features. For MP3, random across disc and ID3 tags w/ scrolling text are a must, IMO.

Hope this helps. I got my JVC about 4 months ago for $270 online. LMK if you need help getting yours

 

I have the aiwa CDC w/o the motorized cover and I really like it.

 

There are a couple of disk-based players that are worth looking at.

EMPEG Car - or Rio Car. This has been discontinued by Sonic Blue but they are still selling off their stock. Would work well with a good head unit. Also has nice amber lighting and real-time effects. This is a standard DIN unit.

Phatbox - by Phatnoise. This emulates a GIANT CD changer. It currently works with BMW and Audi stock head units, and with most Kenwood head units. Check in with them because they are adding more brands to their compatibility list. This is a very nice idea, and a good execution. Might fit in the FDs rear bins.

 

This site has lots of great info about all car audio mp3 players and a forum too!

http://www.highwaymp3.com

 

That's great. Thanks for the link.

 

I just recently got a system installed in my FD with the Kenwood Z828 head unit. Coincidentally, it actually matches gunmetal painted interior, heh... The head unit is ok imho... kind of overpriced and overkill for most people but I have no complaints about it's performance except that sometimes it will not read some CDRW discs. It has more features than you probably want to know about and it took me a while to figure out how to use most of them, but overall I'm fairly happy with it.