clean sound, almost never will distort. easy to work with, controls are simple enough even for those who can''t push buttons well. RCA''s!! sub out control, very very handy. remote...it''s all about the remote. disc text is a great feature, i highly recommend you get it.

once in a while the cd won''t eject completely, so you have to pull it out a bit, nothing major, the motor kicks back in with a little help, and the disc slides right out. feel kind of scared with the moving parts, but i''ve never had a problem with it. most people say they''re afraid of all the motorized parts, but i still have yet to find somebody who''s motorized pieces break....mine''s still goin'' strong.

I must say that this is a perfect head unit for somebody that''s entering the upper levels of car audio. the 4v preouts are pretty nice, especially since you can turn off the internal amp and just run your amps off the RCA''s only. the wattage is enough to make some speaker applications work without amps. i recently bought a new car, and put the kameleon in my new one...cause i still like it that much. my old car had infinity fronts, soundstream rears, and kicker comp vrs. i had the subs run off a aura 3005 amp, as well as the rears. sounded awesome.

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aiwa, sony, kenwood....bunch of stuff. like mine the most so far...i will part with is eventually for an eclipse....

great features, cool look, easy to figure out, CHEAP

poor build quality, too many motorized parts that are bound to break

this head unit is very good. great features, and sound output. it had everything to run my system: components, 6x9's, 12" sub, 5ch amp. this head unit sounds good, reads cdr's and looks great. it is very easy to figure out, it took me less than 10min. HOWEVER, this unit is made JVC and with very poor build quality. the unit was sent to me with a defective cd player (the cd player did not work at all.) do not get this unit w/o taking the risk or w/o an extended warranty (3+ yrs). there are many things that are bound to break on this unit.

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kenwood, alpine

The best qualities of this kdlx30 would have to be the subwoofer output and the disk titling, track titling and the idea.

This cd player is the worst cd player I have ever had, the preamp just burned out, (which is still on warranty and JVC wants me to find a service station, and the nearest registered is about 500 miles away) but anyways t
It does not eject cd's out the whole way and I have had it for apprx. 9 months, when it is cold out I have to shut it off at night or the titling and the time is reset. Not cool every day I have to reset the time. The only other thing is that the faceplate seems to attract fingerprints and dust.

This is one of the worst CD players I'v seen in my life, and I worked around an audio shop. My friend also has one and he has some of the same problems, I would not recommend this head unit to anyone. I wish I would have went with a Sony Mobile unit they are much better as well. I don't want to sound bias but I've given this thing a 1 year trial and it's a piece of junk. All the others have given good ratings but as time goes by they will see these things starting to happen, believe me this unit became very popular across our small farming community and everyone has turned out S.O.L. because the business went out of business!

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I have an alpine CDA 7840 in my pickup currently and is about 2&1/2 yrs old and out performs this JVC night and day.

Plenty of features, flawless operation.

Interface takes some getting used to, remote too basic.

Very intelligently designed display, buttons are awkward and take some getting used to but that varies person to person. No faults thus far with the unit, running off the inbuilt amp probably isn't a great long-term solution as it tends to cut out at higher volumes and also exhibits relatively average sound quality when turned up. Seperate amp a must.
But what's money? This is the best deck for the money in the ElKameleon range, the LX-10 is chaeaper, but has only 1 pair of preouts (bummer, dude) and has no subwoofer out or line input. The next model up after this one costs another $75 or so but the only significant extra is A/V capability, rather useless for what i want. Overall, don't hesitate to buy it. Whack a 4x50w RMS amp on the end of it and some decent speakers, and you got yerself one damn fine system.

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Sony, less bang for bucks, usually disappoint unless you fork out $400+

convenient Hiding face, lots of features, 3 sets of RCA outputs, attractive looking, very good price

Hard to use buttons, no extra security feature (i.e., code system to deter thieves who know what the deck looks like), RCA outputs clip/distort at very high volume, hard to see display in sunlight.

Paid $375 canadian on end-of-year clearout.
Install was just like with any other deck.
This deck is perfect for me because I always forget to take my faceplate with me, that's why my last deck was stolen. With this thing, you don't even worry about it when leaving your car.
It's also very full featured & powerful. It has al the standard options plus a few extras like automatic volume adjustment, CD-Text, and "BBE" which is supposed to make music more dynamic.
The volume and seek buttons are awesome but all of the other buttons all look the same and are in a row so it's hard to use them, especially when driving. the LX-30 adds some bumps and seperates the buttons, so you can at least select different tracks & music source (radio, cd, etc.) without looking too hard. i'd definately go with the lx30 over the lx3 for a little extra.
The remote control works well, you hardly have to aim it, but once again the buttons aren't very intuitive.
Overall i'd totally recommend this deck to anyone, especially since it still has a good price/performance ratio without the fancy hiding face.

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KD-LX30 - the newer model adds a bit more power, and improves the buttons a little bit but they're still hard to use.

Cheap, quite powerful & relatively clean power.

Display too shiny, dust will get onto it & render it barely visible, especially in a convertible. Not the most logical button configuration as well.

I bought this deck on the recommendation from my local shop who measured the outputs of several popular decks & told me that this was the best bang for the buck. Also not a very popular deck which would be a good deterrant (sp?) from theft, good for convertibles. It came out to be about $440 cdn including taxes. Installed it in about 20 minutes & it obviously made a huge difference. Much more bass, could play much louder & sounds more crisp & clear. I have them powering a set of MTX Thunder 3000 components & no rears. Now, if only I can find a way to get more bass in my Miata.

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Clarion, Alpine
Too many other variables to make fair judgement.

Cool clam-shell movement upon turning the engine on and off.

Other than volume and scan, control buttons are quite small.

I replaced an old "removeable" Kenwood in my car with the KD-LX3 and CH-X1200 cd-changer. They are working flawlessly and sound great. It's great not having to mess with detaching a faceplate or pulling the stereo when parking the car. This is a major convenience and time saver. It literally disappears into the dash ala "batmobile" style movement action. Major cool points!

I also specifically chose this combination because I like to record cd-r's to take on the road and these units support cd-text on the display. Cd-r playback is problem free even on discs burned with my Yamaha CD-RW (which generally burns audio cd's that are fussy on other players).

The display could be more sophisticated and brighter, but the whole industry seems to be moving to goofy, flashing lights that in the end are more annoying than cool. Display options can be modified to suit one's tastes, however. All in all, this unit deserves to be evaluted against the finest of any of the major manufacturer's costing far more and delivering much less. A great bargain.

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Kenwood

Looks great, sounds great, tons of features, great price and you can't even see it in my dash with car turned off. It is has crossovers and a seperate sub amp RCA which is nice.

every once in awhile the the mechanism that hides the face gets stuck(very rare, happened to me 5 times in over 6 months) and BBE terribly distorts sound quality so my advice is don't use it.

Paid 229.00 for the LX-3 and was well worth it...Installed it myself. Installed with no problems and was clearly marked. Took me a long time to figure out all the options that it had, but after reading the maual(something I rarley do) it was easy to figure out how to use them.

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Panasonic - actually a great deck too, but lack features

Clean sound. High output.

Display does not use the entire face.

249.00, I couldn't find a better deck for the price. This deck has so many features, you'll be discovering more weeks after you install it. Has great sound and the remote is very easy to use even in an inebriated state. It does get a little warm after a while, but easy to look over. A must buy if you don't have bottomless pockets to buy the upper end decks.

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Clarion. Better bang for buck.

Feature set, security, display

small buttons that are impossible to distinguish by touch

I must say that I was also somewhat skeptical of JVC when I went to audition the kd-lx3. I saw the amazing moving face as a gimmick (cool as it was). What I didn't realize was the amazing amount of flexibility that this receiver offers. Among my favorite features are the ability to turn off the internal amp thereby producing less heat and more output voltage, the direct track selection (1-12), the awesome display, and the built in sub level control and crossover. The line inputs are also nice to have.

With the technological level of todays car CD receivers, sound has become less of a factor in comparing them. I listened to quite a few receivers and heard almost no differences. They all sound great. Your receiver is the last thing in a competition system that will distort the sound. Keeping that in mind, the best receiver should be the one that offers the most attractive set of features at an affordable price. I paid $280 for mine and I'm running it back to a RF 600a4 amp with MB Quart 5.25 reference competition components up front and a JL 10W3 D2 in the trunk of my Audi A4. It sounds heavenly. I strongly recommend this receiver to anyone not turned off by a "non-competition" name. It doesn't have to be Alpine or Eclipse to sound great.

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clarion drx6475