[sanjayc]

The casting was finalized on Wed last and I was thinking of the install being done on Sat-Sun. However, on being told that Saturday being an off day, lot of folks turn up for installation or tuning etc, so it will be better if the work started on Thu and completed by Fri late eve. Dropped the car on Thu morning.

I also decided not to hang around and let the work proceed in peace. Fri 9pm was supposed to be the D-Day. Order was placed for the Kenwood HU on thu and it was supposed to be delivered on Fri by 11am.

Fri around 5, I get a call from Powerzone that the CD/DVD mechanism was faulty. A conference call was arranged between myself, Nippon (dealer of Kenwood) and powerzone. Nippon assured that the unit will be replaced next day morning. That meant, the installation will get stretched by another day, i.e, Saturday. To have a look of the process so far, dropped in at 9pm on Friday itself. Everything was completed except the HU fitment. Before me, Gilead & gang had already auditioned the system, playing thru the usb stick. The feedback was positive.

I took an audition for some 15 mins. Since the HU was not installed in the dash, it had to be kept on the knees and played which I found inconvenient. At that moment, lot of things were going in my mind and I was not really concentrating on the audition. Previous to landing up, I had compiled a few DVDs/CDs of my favourites, but due to the fault, could not bring those. The one usb I brought turned out to be a unreadable which later on I realised was becos of 2 partitions on the same. The other usb had old crappy songs on them. The kenwood unit also damaged a couple of usb sticks as well belonging to Saravanan. Further, whatever little reviews were avlbl, it seemed the software was slow. A June firmware update was avlbl which I though may have addressed the speed issue.

Decided to wrap up that day and come next day.

At around 12 noon on Sat, Nippon started singing a different tune - since it is a high-priced slow moving unit, they did not have stock, that they will repair the unit etc etc. Decision was taken to dump the unit, and since cash was not paid till then, it became easier.

Finally, the JVC unit was ordered which was delivered at around 6pm on Sat. By this time the Kenwood center speaker also failed. A pioneer unit was then sourced.

Initially when I saw the JVC unit, I was a little apprehensive of the display - my mind was tuned for a 7" screen whereas this was a 5.3" one single din size. Powerzone had earlier told me that I should listen to this, and if I was not satisfied it still can be changed.

Spend around an hour with Saravanan familiarizing myself with the unit. It slowly started grewing up on me. The interface was clean, operation was fast, display resolution and clarity was superb (Kenny had a resolution of 800X480 for a 7" unit, whereas JVC is 800x240 for 5"- so it looked crisp and sharp - having the same resolution at a smaller sized screen)

I had brought along the T2JD dvd and first demo was with that. Needless to say, it got me hooked.

So, that was that. Got back home, called my family and went for a short drive. Now everyone was hooked.

Final review coming up...

[yajaman99]

Originally Posted by yajaman99

@Sanjay - wow what a wonderful writeup, waiting for the video. It has been over a year for my Fiesta, is it time for an ICE upgrade

@Sanjay - yes it is "is it", as so many Fiestas are getting ICED i was wondering is it the right time. I was trying to be cryptic
I have been tinkering with the idea but the ever important "Vitamin M" is missing.

[sanjayc]

Originally Posted by donarun

I'm in banglore at the moment for work, would be travelling to chennai tonight. Anything planned for saturday ?

Some plan is there for Sat or Sun. PM me once you arrive in Chennai.
BTW, what is the status of your setup..was going thru your thread but no updates for last 2 weeks. Have you decided on your final list?

[pras.oct25]

Sanjay missed out on an audition of your car at the track the other day.
Can you give some info on the damping. Some specific questions to make it easier for you considering too many replies for you on this thread already
- Was damping done only for doors or also the rear tray/boot?
- Cost?
- Comparison between the noisekill and this one in terms of effectiveness?

EDIT:
Please pm me if you dont want to discuss costs on the thread.

[donarun]

Originally Posted by sanjayc

Some plan is there for Sat or Sun. PM me once you arrive in Chennai.
BTW, what is the status of your setup..was going thru your thread but no updates for last 2 weeks. Have you decided on your final list?

Plans changed, i'm leaving to chennai by today afternoon. Tomorrow I have plans to audition Gilead's setup. But let me know of your plans and I can plan accordingly.

Aaah!!! my setup, I have got the HU, amps, front + rear speakers. Only thing which are yet to be procured are a sub and a new ride . Along with the ICE fad, I am following latest fad started out by Mi10 i.e. buy yourself a new ride to fit in your new setup.

[Pr_007]

Arun, I too have plans to meet Gilead in his house tomorrow to listen to his setup, properly. We shall meet if possible.

[donarun]

Originally Posted by Pr_007

Arun, I too have plans to meet Gilead in his house tomorrow to listen to his setup, properly. We shall meet if possible.

That would be great. Gilead said mornings would be preferable. What time were you planning to come around ?

[sanjayc]

Originally Posted by yajaman99

I have been tinkering with the idea but the ever important "Vitamin M" is missing.

Man! Don't tell me! Post the heavy Vitamin M booster dose, now I need to be on strict diet course for next 1 year at least.

Originally Posted by pras.oct25

- Was damping done only for doors or also the rear tray/boot?
- Cost?
- Comparison between the noisekill and this one in terms of effectiveness?

- Only front doors
- appx double of noisekill. Final figures yet to receive. I don't mind putting up the costs, but need to take care of certain sensibilities. I hope everyone understand. ICE market is a very murky area, you know

- Can't say about effectiveness since I have not listened without damping. The door has become quite heavy though..compared to the front the rear feels flimsy. I can clearly make out the complete reduction of Road/Tyre noise at high speeds.

Originally Posted by donarun

Plans changed, i'm leaving to chennai by today afternoon. Tomorrow I have plans to audition Gilead's setup. But let me know of your plans and I can plan accordingly.

Originally Posted by Pr_007

Arun, I too have plans to meet Gilead in his house tomorrow to listen to his setup, properly. We shall meet if possible.

If this is finalized, I am okay dropping in.

[shajufx]

Originally Posted by unni.ak

Naiiiseeee!!! Now this requires another Chennai drive!! What say Shaju??

I am ready Unni. There is only one side-effect. We will get highly influenced, come back to bangalore, start begging, stealing and borrowing to get the same or even better one inside our fiestas ! So, now do you think its a wise idea to drive again ?

Now Sanju has gone out of our league, so I prefer to stay low and being happy with our crappy music .

[Gilead]

Originally Posted by Pr_007

Arun, I too have plans to meet Gilead in his house tomorrow to listen to his setup, properly. We shall meet if possible.

Originally Posted by donarun

That would be great. Gilead said mornings would be preferable. What time were you planning to come around ?

Originally Posted by sanjayc

If this is finalized, I am okay dropping in.

Guys, we can either meet at 10 am or 5 pm at my place tomorrow. I am not going to be around in between. Let me know which is convenient.

Originally Posted by shajufx

Now Sanju has gone out of our league, so I prefer to stay low and being happy with our crappy music .

Shaju, talking about a different league, the JVC HU costs a lot more more than your entire ICE put together. Better to stay low if you don't want a big hole in your pocket.

[sanjayc]

Shaju@, I think this setup costs a fraction of your DSLR setup;-}

[shajufx]

Originally Posted by Gilead

....Shaju, talking about a different league, the JVC HU costs a lot more more than your entire ICE put together. Better to stay low if you don't want a big hole in your pocket.

I agree 100% and happy someone understands my lower wavelength

Originally Posted by sanjayc

Shaju@, I think this setup costs a fraction of your DSLR setup

Now you have sealed my mouth

[sanjayc]

In no particular order.....

1. Touch panel/Display & Operation
   • Sensitive touch panel
   • Wide viewing angle
   • Very responsive & fast software - navigation is quick
   • DVD/Usb load times are pretty fast
   • Big icons - made for touch panel operation and not like those Windows Mobile system
   • Fair bit of customization in terms of color, wallpaper (4 preset+4 user defined), icon/button placement etc
   • Motion sensitive panel - which means settings can be customised to either display the wallpaper only or complete switch-off the display while playing music - when your hand approaches the panel the icons will appear, ready to be pressed. Of course, settings are avlbl to adjust the sensitivity as well as disable this setting
   • Few gesture-based operation like (anti)clockwise movement of fingers on the panel anywhere to decrease/increase the volume
   • Quick shortcuts avlbl to select equalizer, surround on/off, motion on/off, phone call etc
   • Vol up/down icons stays on screen throughout, no matter what settings screen you are in - and works too
   • Switching to external video input, in this case, rear view camera is again fast.
2. iPod/iPhone/USB/BT
   • Have'nt tried iPod yet
   • iPhone connectivity was a painless affair. Just activated the bluetooth on iPhone, the pairing was done using the usual 0000 passcode and you are done. Dual-way control means music playback can be controlled both by iPhone as well as the HU. Supports Album art display, playlists etc - have'nt tried out all features though as I intend to play all music thru USB or CD only. Syncing iPhone thru iTunes is a big pain.
   • Various BT profiles like A2DP etc are supported. To play video via iPod a special cable is required.
   • Phone operation via BT is where it shines. Absolute clarity, no hiccups faced till now. Yet to transfer the phonebook to HU (HU supports only upto 100 phonebook entries, hence need to transfer only the important/most used ones).
   • Music playback pause/resume during phone call operation is smooth without delay. However, in case of USB, after a call has ended, it tries to reload the content and takes some 5 secs or so..saving grace being it resumes exactly at the point it left off.
   • Scrollable list for tracks/folders/songs - hence you can randomly jump to any point - no need to serially navigating the list of songs. However, one gripe is that it flattens out the entire folder/subfolder structure into a alphabetical list of songs. Though the menu says folders can be selected, I am yet to figure out how.
   • Lack of any physical dial-type playback control button needs getting used to. I would have liked to have a round-dial, at least to control the volume, and next/prev track controls. Am getting used to the gesture feature.
   • Required MP3 tag info are displayed on screen including any jpg album art embedded into the the mp3 itself.
   • File/Folder/Track names etc is limited to 25 characters
3. Speaker/Sound control
   • Enough controls/settings avlbl to adjust the level/quality of sound, including the usual suspects like eq/spkr distance/spk level calibration/lfe cutoff etc etc. Problem with plethora of settings is you are always left wondering if the settings are optimal or not or could it be better.
   • All setting changes are effective realtime
   • Option of playing in pure stereo or 2.1 or full surround
   • Option of disabling rear speakers
   • Option of switching of the built-in amplifier and hand over all processing to the amp...this apparently reduces the heat generated in the HU.
   • Option of setting the speaker size to large,small or none and accordingly the output levels are adjusted
   • Sub woofer vol adjustment avlbl

The million-dollar question - how about the sound quality??

Well, I am no audiophile, and have no clue what SQ/SPL means or for that matter, what is low/mid/high range..am learning though.

For me & my ears, the criteria of good music is quite simple:
- I should be able to make out the vocals and various instruments separately, as if they are emanating in separate layers
- I am a fan of surround sound - I like my music to appear/feel like they are coming from all sides. Having said that, I am also experimenting with pure stereo mode and segregating my music collection into categories where some songs sound good in plain stereo and some in surround mode.

My taste of music revolves around Bollywood/Ghazals/Classical with particular inclination towards old Bollywood songs. Am not a regular listener of western music...if at all I listen to them, I like only fast paced music with lot of beats like in rap/hiphop.

Low quality mp3 (160kbps and below) sounds crappy on this system - don't know if that is bad or good - but high quality conversions (192-320kbps) sounds very good - with the correct feel of separate layers as mentioned earlier

Surround effect is perfect..to my ears...T2JD track was just awesome.

Bass from the sub is just what I was looking for..not too loud/boomy but still it gives the right kind depth to the music.

Was playing the tabla/flute jugalbandi of Ustad Zakir Hussain / Pt Hari Prasad Chaurasia - the tabla beats were quick & punchy while flute was floating in the air - perfect as to my taste.

Regarding the JL components and Focal amps, Gilead has mentioned enough on his ICE thread, nothing more to add.


To sum it up,
- I am very satisified with the setup. Not sure if I could have ended up with same quality for lesser amount or much better quality with a slightly higher amount. But there is no end to this speculation, is there?

==============
CREDITS
==============
- Lot of thanks to Gilead..he was of immense help throughout.
- Special thanks to all who found time for evaluating the setup.
- From my perspective, Powerzone is the place to be for ICE. Saravanan seems to understand the requirements. The quality of install is perfect - I could not find a thing out of place in my car post the install was completed. Neat job.
- Haresh from Chandru Auto was helpful to whatever queries I had put across to him regarding availability and prices. Now I know which place to visit for all automotive requirements, not only ICE-related.
================

Well, that was some layman's evaluation. Now, it is upto some critical evaluation from the gurus!

[donarun]

Originally Posted by Gilead

Guys, we can either meet at 10 am or 5 pm at my place tomorrow. I am not going to be around in between. Let me know which is convenient.

10am is preferable. Prateesh and Sanjay, how abt you guys ?

[kadanaJ]

Incredible setup,
Looks like you're going to start seeing all your movies in your car instead of your home.