Just finished pulling a JVC KW-HDR81BT from my Civic. This thing has been nothing but trouble--slow BT connection, skip/no read on CDs, USB jack died, etc. Plus, it has the most incomprehensible EQ setup I've ever seen. You have to go through about five menu levels that are utterly confusing (I teach audio, so I'm hardly a novice)...and then it "forgets" the settings every once in a while.
Last straw was a problem with a loose speaker wire in the rear--open circuit, not a short. I fixed the problem temporarily and reset it. I guess I was lazy and did the quick fix a couple of times...the last time, it wouldn't reset.
Checked all the wiring and it's fine (from both the speaker end and the head end). But I'm getting a wiring error and it won't reset. My guess is that the chip is dead and it is time to bury this piece of junk.
So, my question is whether this is indicative of JVC quality (or lack of) these days, or did I just have bad luck with this unit? It would be easy to pop another JVC in there, no rewiring needed. But I see that they haven't upgraded this model in two years...that's bad news, too. Really, is there no one else in the world who wants Bluetooth AND HD???
I noticed that this unit is made in Indonesia, which is pretty close to the bottom in electronics manufacturing. Does anyone make their units in a more "civilized" country? I'm thinking maybe Alpine. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
Ken
