PYLE Audio PLCDUSB78MP3 CD Changer

Cool features, thats about it

By Yahoo! Shopping User  May 5, 2006 | 1 out of 1 found this PYLE Audio PLCDUSB78MP3 review helpful

Pros: MP3 Playback, sounds good, USB & AUX inputs, awesome

Cons: clunky, random isn't really random, volume knob erratic, breaks quickly

Got this unit for Christmas and decided to use it for a while before giving a review. It is really nice being able to plug in a USB device into the unit and play my mp3's from it. The CD MP3 feature is nice as well.

My biggest problem with this unit is that it is cheaply designed and manufactured. The face plate detachment mechanism uses a motor, and when the motor runs, you can tell by the sound of it, that it isn't going to last, think of cheap brittle gears meshing with other cheap brittle gears, with what sounds like little lubrication, and the motor having to work way too hard. It works fine at first, but you can tell by the sound, it can't last long. The volume knob seems to use a crumby encoder, which sometimes when you turn it up, the volume actually goes down. It really becomes a pain because this knob is also used to set the clock, causing you to overshoot your mark, and there is no way to adjust the hours/minutes down, only up until they loop around (knob left - minutes up, knob right - hours up). This wouldn't be much of an issue, except that the stereo frequently gets locked into states that required the reset button be pushed, thus resetting the time.

On the subject of the clock, there is no way to get the clock to display all the time, or even periodically. To view the time, you must press the display button, that will let you view the time for about 3 seconds, then it switches back to either the station or the track display depending on what mode you are in.

Random mode isn't really random, the order is always the same using a given CD, it just isn't sequential. The spectrum analyzer isn't real, its just a volume indicator that looks like a spectrum display, nothing really represents frequency.

Now, my biggest gripe. The USB drive interface has broken after 5 months. This wouldn't be a big issue, except that it falsely detects a USB device being attached, when this happens it automatically switches to usb mode, where nothing is there to read or play. Think of driving down the road listening to a good song, traffic report, whatever, and the stereo automatically switching to usb and going silent, about every 2-3 seconds. Then it will automatically switch to the tuner when it just as randomly decides there is no usb drive there. Turning the unit off doesn't work either because the attachment of a usb device causes the unit to automatically turn on. Save your money and buy a good unit.