Electronics : JVC KD-G351 CD / MP3 Player With Aux InUSB Front Input

Rating: - A good buy
I need to make it clear at the outset, this is a budget buy and it makes no pretence as a high end car audio device.Installation was easy with the ISO connectors and the sound is as good as the Sony system it has replaced on my car's dashboard.The USB system works well although it takes a while to begin reading my pen.My main whinge is that the scroll button is at the furthest left[I do not have steering audio control on my car], which make it difficult to sometimes access.Overall a good product and the one to buy on a constrained budget.
I have to mention that I have only recently acquired it and should anything develop I shall update this review.

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Rating: - Nice. Very nice.
I bought this to replace my old MP3 CD player, having been swayed by the prospect of having 8GB of music at my disposal!

Before I continue I should point out that so far I've only used the USB port. I haven't tested CDs, the radio or the AUX input.

The first thing to point out is that the photos of the machine don't do it justice. For something that costs so little it really looks very nice indeed. The buttons and knobs feel solid and reliable and the whole package looks very swish sitting in your dashboard. The exterior is a lovely glossy black, with red and blue lights on the controls and a sharp white on black display. The display is *very* bright, so I would suggest using the "dimmer" option to tone it down a little. Even on the dimmest setting the text is still easily readable in daylight. One negative is the position of the USB port, on the right-hand side, meaning that if you have a large stick it can obscure the display slightly.

Having installed a few of these things now I knew what I was doing and what to expect, which is a good thing - the installation instructions are almost laughably bad. If you've never done it before either get someone who knows what they're doing to install it or get hold of some in-depth tutorials from the internet.

Having got it installed I popped in my 8GB stick and waited. And waited. It does take a long time to read the stick before it starts playing - up to a minute. After this, however, it played perfectly. You can easily move between folders and tracks by using the controls, however these are a bit small and hard to find while driving. It seems to be reading the folders in an unusual order - not by folder name or date but seemingly at random. It's not a major problem - you could just number your folders if you like things to be kept orderly. I haven't since I just tend to use the random function, so I don't really mind. Still, if you're looking for a specific track it can take a while to hunt through the folders until you find the correct one. The device will read MP3 tags and gives you a choice of how much (or little) to display.

Sound wise it's superb. The 4x50W amp is beefy enough to sound good through almost any speakers, and it gives you bass, mid and treble to fine-tune the sound to your tastes. It also gives you a selectable output gain, so you won't inadvertantly blow up your speakers by setting it too loud.

Plus points:
Good looks, controls feel solid.

Sounds great, plenty of manual controls to fine-tune the sound.

Supports up to 8GB USB sticks.


Bad points:
Poor installation instructions.

Small controls.

Poor USB stick placement.

Strange folder ordering.

In conclusion a great product, not without its faults, but overall really good value for money.

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Rating: - Worth Every Penny
Turned up very quick & well packaged,

I was originally looking for a pioneer unit to replace my sony but saw this unit and thought this fits my requirements.
I removed my original sony unit (liked jumping when playing back) and installed the jvc unit using the exisiting sony wiring, its works fine but the balance and fader are the other way round (most probably the wiring compatibility) but not an issue, informative manual and extra iso (I think) wiring connector.
The electric ariel did not work, not sure if it's the jvc unit or the ariel died, as I am not going to use it I did not plug the other unit back in as a test

I think it has an eq onboard but I setup the old fashioned bass n treble way with the added loud turned on, its 24bit and the cd,usb & ipod playback are absolutely fantastic...its seriously loud no need for an amp.

I threw in a fat32 formatted usb tiny (short usb is better) flash drive packed with music into the covered slot at the front right, it automatically started to read, displays the name etc...it is simple to navigate (up n down, left n right) fast forwarding (not skipping) through 1 usb track is slow (slow but works) so I would be avoiding one of those all in 1 mix tracks albums if you like the end song.
My Ipod also connects via the usb (slow fast forwarding through 1 track) no need to turn the ipod on - great!

It displays a nice red glow at night, you can turn down the facia music display within the settings - I preferred the dimmed settings.

Removing and putting back the facia is a doddle, you get no carry case or steering remote with this model but I don't need either

It has a tiny aux input at the front right (i haven't used it)

I found it straight forward and perfect for what I needed, would I recommend it yes I would.