Customer Reviews

JVC KT-HDP1 Transportable HD Radio Tuner (Black)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I REALLY wanted this product to work well. HD Radio is much like XM or Sirius radio except it is free. All you need is an HD radio receiver. I looked around at all available options and the JVC seemed to be the most versatile (use same unit in different cars and at home) so I was excited to order it. However...this is what happened.

1. For the first 3 hours the unit worked great. Reception was strong, the JVC was pulling in signals better than my OEM car radio. Sound was clean. However I noticed the unit was very hot to the touch and the owners manual warned of leaving this on after the car was shut off and draining the battery.
2. Then all of a sudden the unit stopped working. Nothing. Hisssssss. Dissappointedly I let the unit sit overnight to see if cooling off would help. It didn't. The unit did come back to life but reception was weak. The stations that were coming in clear for the first 3 hours were now full of hiss and noise. After giving the unit 2 weeks to come back to life, I gave up and sent it back to Amazon. However, here is my evaluation of the unit when it was working correctly.

PROS:
1. When working, the JVC was pulling in signals better than my OEM Ford car radio.
2. When parked or at home, HD radio is great because there are less commercials than the standard broadcast radio station. It seemed like there were about 1/3 the number of commercials on the HD stations.
3. The user installed car kit is very versatile. Two inside antennas are supplied, one for HD reception and one for transmission to your car antenna so you can hear it. There are alot of wires with which to contend, but if you want to use this equipment in muliple cars, this is the best system I have found.

CONS:
1. The JVC unit got hot to the touch, then stopped working.
2. HD radio reception became worse than standard FM radio reception. Seemed like there were more dropouts as I drove around the city.
3. After the unit stopped working, then recovered after a one night cool down, the reception was noticeably weaker than my OEM car radio.
4. JVC FM transmitter. The JVC is connected to your car radio by transmitting a signal on an unused frequency. That is really tough in a major metropolitan area where the whole frequency spectrum is occupied by stations. As you drive around town, an unused frequency suddenly is occupied by a distant station and interferes with the JVC. The JVC has an auxillary plug but my car doesnt have aux inputs so I couldn't test that feature.
5. Most car radios can tune down to 87.9 MHz. I haven't found a station that tunes down there so it's usually clear. The lowest frequency of the JVC is 88.1 MHz. This is a terrible oversight by JVC.
6. Around Washington DC, there doesn't seem to be a lot of stations transmitting in HD radio. I was able to tune into 3 stations consistently, one country, one oldies rock, and one contemporary rock.

Overall recommendation: As much as I want to listen to HD radio, the number of HD stations and car equipment needs a lot more maturing before I will spend money for it. HD radio, even though it is free to receive, cannot compete with XM or Sirius at this time.

After several years as a satellite radio subscriber, I bought and installed the JVC transportable HD radio receiver in my car. Radio never sounded so good, and though my small city doesn't have HD stations, I live a short distance from Minneapolis an there are several excellent HD station there that I can listen to during frequent visits. Reminds me of FM in the 70s. We had the radios before there were stations to listen to.

AM sounds better, FM sounds great and when I am in the City, HD radio is a new experience in sound! The screen shows artist and song title and the FM transmitter on the JVC receiver is strong enough that I never have bleed-through from nearby FM stations.

My factory radio doesn't have an auxiliary ear phone jack or tri-color RCA plugs in the back. Most HD radio tuners require this. The JVC KT-HDP1 does not. I'm a dope when it comes to car audio, and if I can install the JVC receiver and car kit, anyone can.

Unit connectors have intermittent connection. Unit gets very hot and then the display becomes impossible to read in daylight. Remote has very poor range and doesn't respond off axis. The HD Jump I have is bigger than the JVC, but the quality is so much better, both in quality and performance.

This unit gets so hot, that I can't believe the electronics and display will last very long.

I am returning the unit.

I bought the KT-HDP1, the home kit and the professional car kit for this radio and I have been disappointed. The home kit was simple to set up but the included Antenna is useless. I live a mere 2 miles away from the radio tower and I had to put this Antenna on my window to get any signal what so ever. Even then it fades in and out depending on how hard the wind is blowing or if its raining. At work which is 7 miles away from the radio tower as the bird flys (google earth is amazing) I can't get signal at all. No HD stations will tune in, even the analog FM stations have static. The AM tuner on this device does not work at all period end of story. I bought the home kit and this receiver so that I could listen to 1020 KDKA AM in HD on its sister stations. Well since I get no HD reception I was like fine I will just listen to it on AM, nope does not work. I have heard KDKA as far as South Carolina but this piece of junk can't pick it up. I can see the KDKA tower I live in Hampton PA, its less than 1/4 miles away from my house. Anyone in Hampton knows that the signal is so strong that any corded telephone will pick KDKA up. Yet this wont pick it up. Last week I drove past the tower literally less than 300 feet away from it and guess what the JVA KT-HDP1 was silent when tuned into AM 1020 its crazy.

Now as for the car kit, yes the car kit helps if your not moving. I bought the professional kit that directly ties into the cars antenna which required me to buy special adapters since my Nissan Rouge with the Bose system had special connectors instead of the standard push ones. The radio sounds great and is nice and clear. Especially if I pipe the sound through the 3.5MM Input port on my radio vs. the built in FM transmitter. But once I start to move thats it, game over, HD is gone it will go into a loop of HD/Analog for the entire drive. Sadly the radio stations in Pittsburgh don't have their analog and HD feed's perfectly synced, or this piece of junk needs an extra second to process the digital sound so while its looping the song is jumping all over.

Now the biggest pile of bull the professional kit, before I installed the kit I always had crystal clear FM, but now that my antenna is piping through the JVC Module (not the radio there is a giant module you mount behind your dash) my FM reception sucks as bad as the home kit and guess what.....

NOW I CAN'T TUNE IN 1020 KDKA AM, just like the home kit I now no longer have AM radio on my built in car receiver. Its gone... so that leaves me to conclude that the module like the home kit filter that signal out somehow.

Bottom line....I have to rip out the professional kit from my car to get decent radio reception again and so that I can listen to AM. This sucks cause it took a long time to pull the dash and install everything. Now I have to do it all over again.

About me I know some people are thinking that I am stupid and don't know what I am doing. Stop right now that is bull. I shopped JC Whittney and bought all preconfigured connectors and adapters. I made no cuts to any of the wiring in my car or to my antenna to install this. So for those who say you have signal leak from splicing wires you can stop now I didn't splice a single wire.

I use the JVC KT-HDP1 Transportable HD Radio Tuner (Black) as an attachment for my home theater system. I live in the city in Boston and am about 3 miles away from the transmitting antenna for WROR 105.7. WROR broadcasts from the top of the Prudential building downtown. The KT-HDP1 has difficulty receiving the HD signal from WROR. It has difficulty receiving signals from other (but not all) radio stations. I am using the JVC home kit for the KT-HDP1 along with the supplied antenna. My only comment on the antenna supplied with the kit is that it is short (~18"). I don't believe that is the optimal length for an FM signal. This may be the issue.

Just to be sure that it is the unit and not the signal, I also have a competing portable HD unit in my car. It has no difficulty receiving WROR or other HD signals (in the car or my house).

So, I suggest that if you intend to purchase an KT-HDP1. You consider a strong signal source or an external antenna that is better than the one provided in the KT-HDP1 home kit.

Some people have complained about the KT-HDP1 temperature being hot after extended use. I use the KT-HDP1 home kit with the supplied metal stand. The stand seems to act like a heat sink. So even though the KT-HDP1 gets warm, it doesn't get too warm like in might in the sun in a car.

I would recomend that you not purchase this without access to a strong signal or a good FM antenna. Don't even think about purchasing the KT-HDP1 without the car or home kits.

My other HD tuner is able to show the music that is playing on both the HD1 and HD2 stations while listening to one or the other. The KT-HDP1 cannot (at least I haven't been able to make it do it.) It is a nice function if you are listening to a station and don't like it and want to know what is playing on the sister station without changing. Otherwise the KT-HDP1 is a good tuner with solid functionality and menu options.

I decided to use this tuner for my Home Theater system, because the improved sound quality and HD2 stations would not make as much difference in my car as they would at home. I improvised a connection between my rooftop TV/FM antenna and the unusual 2.5mm antenna jack on this unit. For several months I got rather poor reception, only about half of the HD stations in my metro area would actually come in with an HD signal. I had bought this on clearance and was ready to dismiss HD Radio as an idea whose time had not yet arrived!

I was wrong! The antenna connection I had jerry-rigged was losing most of the signal from my good quality rooftop antenna. Here is how I fixed it using the "Professional" JVC car installation kit. (Don't bother with the JVC "Home Kit" for this unit, you need an external antenna for a clear HD signal.) I had bought the combo pack with the car kit which was sitting around unused. I noticed the car connection box needed a car antenna plug, which looks like a silver banana plug. These can be bought for a few dollars at Radio Shack stores etc. So, I connected a car antenna plug to a 75 ohm coax cable, connecting the center coax wire to the plug center prong, and the cable shielding to the plug base. This was easy, just strip the cable to fit the plug. I plugged this in to the connection box and the tuner and was BLOWN AWAY! Just about all the 20 or so HD stations in my area now come in perfectly strong and clear. With HD2 and HD3 channels I have about 40 CD-quality digital program choices now. I may not listen to analog radio at home again! If you have this unit, take the time to hook it up right. You will be glad you did - a state of the art tuner for a clearance price.

I would not recoomend this radio at all, even at ninety percent off.

HD requires a sensitive tuner because the HD signal is weaker. This unit has the poorest sensitivity I've seen. This unit runs hot and I think that further deteriorates the radio.

To slightly improve the reception, I mounted the antenna vertically on the side window. Really the antenna should be outside the car, not an inside-the-window antenna mount.

By the way, the setup is still a combersome mess of wires.... anntenna over here... cigarette lighter connection over there...

I installed this JVC HD radio unit in my car with the "professional" installation kit. The professional installation kit includes a box that patches into your car's antenna. This setup uses your existing radio antenna for clear HD reception as well as acting as a wired FM modulator for a high-quality connection, even if your radio has no aux input. My Scion has an aux input, but the sound quality is actually better through the FM signal. There is a bit of static if I use the aux input, but that is the fault of the factory radio, as it always has some hiss when using the aux input.

I can pick up more stations than I expected. I live about 20 miles from Washington DC and 40 miles from Baltimore. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to pick up much at home, but was hoping to be able to pick up my favorite stations for most of my daily 32 mile commute. I get full HD on most of my stations all the time. If and when they fade out, there is a seamless transition to analog. I have had to look at the display to see it happen.

Regular FM and AM reception is as good, if not a little better than my factory Pioneer radio. I don't live within range of many AM HD station, but I have found a few (not my type of stations, though). The sound quality is surprisingly good.

The remote control is as confusing as most in-car remotes. Once I memorized where the buttons were, I was able to use it in the dark. Some people have complained about the positioning of the volume buttons on the unit itself, but I never touch those. I prefer to use the volume control on my car's stereo, since there are controls on the steering wheel for that.

I also hard-wired the power on mine. This simply involved cutting off the cigarette lighter plug, adding an in-line 2A fuse, and tapping it into a switched power source (the line to the cig. lighter on my car).

I just ordered the home kit for this unit. I'll add to this review once I have had a few days or weeks to play around with it.

I wish there were more options for mounting. There aren't mane flat surfaces on my dash. Also, I would like the display to go dimmer. Even on the lowest setting it is very bright at night. The only other thing I would wish for on the next model is a single cable to run from the unit to the behind-the-dash box. It would be a lot cleaner looking if the power, antenna, and audio were combined into one cable.

This unit is a very nice concept. If you buy the kits for home and car you can move the device between them. I bought the two kits and have the following to say:

Pros:
Small and portable with easy controls and seek capability. Good price point to aftermarket HD radio.

Cons:
Gets very hot and it drops the radio signal fairly regularly. I dont know if its dropping out because of HD radio signal strengths in general or because its the unit. Yet it gets annoying. It seems to happen most when I'm stopped at a light which i cant fully figure out. Also, the unit seems to get engine feedback so there is an engine squil that increases as the engine reaches higher RPMs.

I purchased this HD receiver with high hopes. I live around 20 miles from most radio stations and had zero reception at my house. Since I purchased both the car and home kits, I decided to try just the home stuff first. If I was successful, I'd move on to the installation of the car kit. Never got there. At my office, right in the center of the broadcasting area, I only received 2 out of 10-15 HD stations. No AM HD.
The FM receiver worked fine and when HD came in, the quality was excellent. I think it will be a usable receiver, but maybe the antenna was not ready for prime time. All in all, I was disappointed with the number of stations I could pick up in the area and returned the product. Quality of the product was just fine, however.