I just got a VRCD400-SDU today at wall mart.. $79.99
New am/fm/cd/mp3/usb key/sd memory card/aux in on face of it car radio
Given all the controversy over the unit I decided to bench test it before installing it in Sea Puppy.
I hooked it up to a 12v power supply I have sitting in my office for just such a need. Hooked up the RCA outs to a computer system mic in connector and then started playing. This actually gave me decent stereo sound through the computer sound system.
FM:
I did not have a radio antenna at hand but the normal 3 or 4 strongest stations came in fine without it.
USB:
I have a 1 gig jump drive on my key ring with mixed mp3’s in various folders and other files.. It found the music and has played 15 songs or so fine. I have skipped around a bit no problem also the jump up or down 10 on the remote worked good for me also.. (as I’ve been playing I have found a couple mp3’s that didn’t play correctly. (they are ones that have done this in other players though) I also think it hit some non mp3 files and reset to the first mp3 on the disk. so there are some issues there. Overall though I think with a dedicated mp3 drive it would do fine.. I will have revisit this on my web-log after using it for a while.
CDs:
worked like a champ both regular and mp3. no problems so far
AUX IN:
didn’t play with yet.
SD slot:
didn’t play with yet.. no card.
MISC.. there is an option on mine to turn off the volume beeping noise that everyone has complained about (so far i can only do it with the remote. hit the SEL button and hold it down and it drops you into an extended menu that has this as an option) Just for kicks and giggles I threw in a disc with some .ogg vorbis files on it.. 🙁 error 07 .. so it doesn’t read them.. Dimmer switch… my unit comes with a wire for hooking up to the vehicle dimmer switch.
Hi Scott,
I’m interested to hear more about the VRCD400. Have you tried the SD slot? Mine seems to be aligned incorrectly or poorly engineered. One SD card works fine, one will work if you hold the card just right, one is not recognized at all. The stereo seems to read the files just fine. I think it’s a physical problem. Does this match your experience?
Thanks,
Josh
Hi Josh,
To be honest I haven’t actaully used the sd slot yet. I have the usb and it works fine. I do know that I have had issues with sd cards before in general.. one will work all the time and another will just be flaky. I will post back here an update when I do use the sd slot.
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the review. Just installed my VRCD400 and it works fine but have not tried the SD card slot, either. My only problem is the dimmer doesn`t seem to work. Have you tried yours, yet?
Thanks,
Rob
Rob,
I haven’t tried the dimmer. There is nothing on the boat that has a dimmer switch installed so I would have to hook up a switch just for the radio to run it through.