Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The idea of the in-dash pure digital media receiver I think will have traction in the future, but this one is "not ready for prime time." I haven't had a radio in my car for probably around 7 years now, and I just wanted something simple that played USB thumb drives and made noise that sounded music-like. In other words, my requirements were low. To get the USB mp3 functionality in another manufacturer I was easily looking at $100+ and I was looking for something that I could sell with the car and not give too much thought about. So the PL95MU at around $50 looked about right. I'd read some reviews of its relatives and they all say the radio is weak - this is no exception, but I don't listen to the radio any more anyway so it was an option I decided I'd pretend didn't even exist while ordering it.
Playing music off of the USB drive is great, excellent storage medium. I've not tried the SD reader, but will probably get a card, or look for a shorter USB, or use a cable to displace the drive because my car is a stick shift and the USB is sticking out to a point where it feels a little bit in danger of getting smacked while shifting into 5th gear (something that will obviously be different for every car). An option to have a USB cable coming out of the back and accessed in the glove box would have been nice. The interface with the music is extremely simplistic and when you put a USB drive, simply gives you a whole bunch of numbers. Potentially hundreds depending on what you have on your drive. You can skip one song, or skip ten songs - that's the extent of your seeking ability. Hitting skip makes a little pop and then fadeout before switching. Slightly annoying.
I planned on doing a review on this after a few weeks anyway because there were none here and I've found other reviews helpful here. What clinched my doing a review on this product...it pi***d me off.
Why it pi***d me off enough to really write this: It locked on. Every now and then it'll get this "USB ERR" message, sometimes it'll recover, sometimes you have to wait until you turn the key off before it'll clear. This time turning the key off did not recover it and the lights behind the buttons stayed on - I HAD TO PULL THE PLUG. I have easy access to do so, but someone who didn't might get this thing stuck on and have their battery drained and a permanent "USB ERR" staring them in the face. This is unacceptable and why this gets 1 flaming turd.
Another thing it seems to do rather randomly is not recover from a wakeup with the USB drive still in it. Most of the time it comes on and restarts from the last song you were on - sometimes it just displays "USB PLAY" and will sit there forever and do nothing, forcing you to pull out the drive and incur a "USB ERR." Which it may or may not recover from. This seems to be worse the higher the number of the song.
Also, though the ad claims 200watts of power, the manual (which has horrible, and entertainingly funny, English) claims a 1 amp fuse on the switched power, and 7 amp fuse on the continuous power wire. Since 7 amps multiplied by 12 volts is 84 watts, and there's likely some overhead involved for inefficiencies and other losses...this thing is 50 watts (total) maximum. It seems not much louder than the factory 25 watt radio that preceded it.
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Pyle PL95MU AM/FM-MPX Electronic Tunning Radio with USB/SD/MMC Reader
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