Customer Reviews

Panasonic CQ-C1305U WMA/MP3/CD Player/Receiver

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a good player/receiver for the price. The one knob volume audio menu is great. The display is exceptionally easy to read. The FM broadcast reception is very good but the AM reception is weak. It is hard to criticize this player/receiver as it offers so many excellent features and truly outstanding performance for the price, but there are always one of two areas for improvement.

2 main reasons why I chose this over others:

1. Price
2. AUX Input to hook up my iPod

For the price, the product works great. CD sound quality is clear. My car has a built in pre-amp/subwoofer unit and wiring it through for the installers was easy ( at least they told me so). I was a happy camper with the sound. Volume level 18 is more than adequate for car listening ( the knob goes past 30).

Now, when I connected the iPod for the first time; I thought something was wrong. No sound. Turns out, I need to turn the volume wayy up past 25 AND turn the volume dial on the iPod to almost full - to get the same volume that I get at level 18 when playing a regular CD or the radio.

2 stars because with a Panasonic, you would expect the thing to work - period. The annoyance factor of remembering to turn volume down on 2 devices (or risk being hit with a blast of sound) and knowing that these things once installed - its probably not even worth it trying to yank out for return.

I have had this receiver in my truck for about a year now and still going strong, I have it hooked up to a 1000w system with no problems and no signs of giving up!

Annoying blue light and it could not read some of my music CDs, no idea why(some other MP3 players were reading them)...Plus that in the last melodies on the CDs there were some backgound noises added for every CD...
The radio was fine.

I would not recommend it...

My miata has relatively cheap speakers and a poor set-up for the in car stereo. When I put this car stereo everything sounded great. It is worth it.

So there is not many bad things about this in dash system! A couple I would look into, but they do not really bother me:
1) the folder change buttons surround the forward button, kinda odd- a slip of the finger can change your mp3 folder instead of the song, but thats not really hard to remedy
2) the ID3 tags are not completely displayed, which is ok. My previous MP3CD did not even have ID3 tags displayed, and I can see how 255 character displays could take the entire song just to display the name! Still, I should consolidate my song names in my collection. Not a hard task, and I can easily batch them if need be.

I bought this player primarily for the aux in (costs LESS than buying an aux adapter!) But I love the features! I do agree that the aux in is a little quiet, but that is because it is not powered as the internal signal is. Both do run through the internal amp, which send them to the speakers, obviously.

A simple remedy is to buy an input output mini preamp from Radioshack which I believe retails at $5-10 and has a built in speaker. The one I have uses either a 9V battery, or a 9V input from the car (must use a transformer with a plug converter). It has a 3.5mm input and a 3.5mm output. I can't seem to find them on the site, but they should have them in the store.

Some people need to learn how to remedy a situation BEFORE they complain due their inept abilities.

EXCELLENT BUY!! GREAT PRICE!

I bought this unit about 3 weeks ago to replace the stock 15 YO basic cassette deck in my Ford Ranger but have kept the equally cheap stock speakers for now and didn't want to spend a ton of money on the head unit for it.

About a year ago I had been looking at replaciing it then and when I asked what lower end CD head unit would the guy recommend for it that would play CD's well and he recommended the $70 Panasonic which does not do MP3/WMA, nor had the Aux input feature and didn't have as powerful of an amp either for it's ability to play CD's well. Anyway, fast forward to about 3 weeks ago when I bought the C1305U and had my local car audio dealer install it and right from the get go, I was amazed at the improvement in sound, given the cheap speakers. Bass is still somewhat lacking but overall, the sound had more oomph to it and the bass does have a bit more of a definite kick though still doesn't get way down there. The largest speakers, which are in the rears are either 5x7 or 6x8 ovals but the overall sound is much clearer though still not the cleanest I've heard and that's a testiment to the unit's amp section, which was something I could never claim with the old stock head unit. Now I've heard better stock head units than what came with the Ford so I know that they are capble of being quite decent sounding to start with.

As far playing CD's, this one really does shine for both commercial and burned CDs I make. One thing to keep in mind is never try to overburn the CD's and stick to the specifications spelled out with WMA/MP3 data discs according what Panasonic recommends as well as never mix CD audio tracks w/ data tracks on the same discs either but you can mix MP3/WMA tracks on the same disc, but keep them in seperate file folders per Panasonic's instructions and you should have no problems. Now mind you, I have not tried to do an MP3 data disc yet so can't say how the player works with them, but with CD-DA discs, the player plays them supurbly. I have not tried the Aux in yet but good to note the level issue with it from other posts.

From the little I've used the FM tuner section, it seems very good and I only listen to 2 NPR stations and one Adult Oriented Rock station, when I listen to the radio at all, it's pretty much CD's these days.

When I had the stock head unit in the truck, I played CD's using a portable and a cassette adaptor, which helped some w/ the sound as CD's are much better than cassette but the bass was lacking and anything with heavy bass did not fair well at all as it felt trunkated to say the least, the mids and highs were OK at best but a bit tizzy in the higher registers but with the this unit, the speakers cleaned up considerably although the bass still is OK it's much better and does go a bit deeper but still lacking in true deep bass though, however, have to watch the volume w/ heavy bass as the unit's extra power may be too much for most stock speakers as you'll experience hard knocking w/ the smaller fronts in partucular found in most older cars and trucks which can lead to physical speaker damage over time.

Some quibbles, the buttons could be a bit bigger and some of the secondary function labels needed to be lit as well and I will agree the blue power button is on the bright side, but tolerable in my case.

Overall, I like the layout of the faceplate and wished it came equipped w/ the case for the faceplate like it's more expensive brethren do which is odd considering Panasonic recommends you don't touch the contacts. Makes no sense, really.

Overall, I really like this unit and am glad I bought it.

As the other reviewer said, the auxillary input is not as loud as it could be which is annoying. Another annoying thing is that there is a blue light that burns holes retnas, its that bright. I have to put a towel over the headunit because its so distracting. If you painted the light a dull color it would get a better rating.
the sound is of good quality as far as i can tell and it looks nice, It can play mp3 cds which is a plus and its relatively cheap. I would not buy this unit on my own accord because the light is so distracting.

Tiene buena calidad aunque aun no la he probado por mucho tiempo. No le he conectado nada aun en el AUX-IN y francamente espero que soporte el calor que recibe el equipo dentro del auto, en buena parte del año.
Yo solo necesitaba el Radio receptor pero es una buen equipo a simple vista. En el manual dice que tiene control remoto pero aparentemente ha sido error porque no iba nada, aunque es algo que para mi no es importante.
Una cosa que yo no logré ver antes es que el espacio donde se introduce el equipo tiene menos longitud que el aparato, pero aparentemente es algo que se puede arreglar en un taller.

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