Home > Consumer Reviews > JVC In-Dash CD/MP3 Player (KD-SH99)

I've had this unit about 2.5 years (it was one of the first MP3 car audio units out). It's very pretty (especially at night), and plays well (except the FM tuner seems a bit weak), has good sound, nice scrolling display of MP3 ID3 tags, etc.

However I started having CD/MP3 read problems(?) and mechanical CD carrier problems, just after the unit passed its warantee limit.. At first, the unit started rejecting MP3 & CD disks- after sucking the disk in, it would think for a bit, then spit it out again with "Error" on the display- even if I had been playing that same CD earlier the same day. When it fell into this mode, it would reject *any* CD inserted (even brand new factory audio CDs), until I hit the "Reset" button (which also resets the clock, radio station presets, and all other personal audio settings). After "Reset", things would be OK for a while- then the same scenario would recur some weeks later, after trying to insert a another CD. "Reset" again, to fix.

In the past year, this has started occurring more frequently, until finally I had to "Reset" *every* time I tried to change CD's. I often had to try "Reset" *many* times, before I could get the unit to accept a CD. (No point in trying to set the clock, radio stations, or other personal audio settings any more- I knew they would be reset to defaults the next time I wanted to change CDs)

Now, in the past month, I have had problems getting the CD to eject- I can see the CD start to pop out of the drive, but the unit face does not move out of the way, to allow the CD to eject (this unit has a nifty moveable motorized "face", that must drop out of the way, for access to the CD drive). The CD is trapped behind the face, and cannot be removed from the unit. "Reset" does not help with this. I finally found a reference in the manual about this error- saying to press the eject and the "tilt face" button at the same time- this didn't work, but I found that if I physically *pulled* the face with great force, while pushing these two buttons, I could get the face out of the way, in order to remove the old CD...

I'm currently shopping for a simpler, more robust CD/MP3 player for my car...

I've been using one of these for the past couple of months, and it's got everything that I wanted...and then some!!

I've had my kd-sh99 for about a year now. When i first got it, I was one of the people who had the problem of the deck skipping. it would blank out for a few seconds and it was a gamble each time whether or not it will pick up again or if you had to eject the disk and try again. So i sent up to denver to be repaired, 6 weeks later i recieved it back and it has been great ever since. The technician said JVC had a bad batch of optical units, I happened to get one of those. A friend of mine bought this same deck and it worked flawlessly for him too.

I'm telling you, once you get a deck that can read MP3's you will never go back. I have 1 CD with 12 full punk albums on it, how cool is that! it is like having a 12 CD changer in your car, but much better. It reads ID3 tags and displays them up front up to 32 characters, it also reads CD-Text if the cd is programmed with it.

But yeah, so far it has worked wonderfully. no skips, nothin. just lots and lots of great music. it has a great random feature, it reads across the entire disc into every folder. some players only randomize in the current folder. it starts playing the mp3s where you last left off just like a regular CD. it only takes a second or two longer. it has a built in amp at 60watts, and a subwoofer control. you will notice your CDs will be a bit hot comming out of the player because of it, but it doesnt hurt them. the internal amp can also be turned off. switching folders on the CDR is very very easy of you burn it right. just prefix the folders with 01, 02, 03, etc and use the 1-12 radio preset buttons to switch. name the songs prefixed with 01,02,03 etc to play them in that order, otherwise it plays them alphabetically by ID3 tag. it has a motorized faceplate that is really cool. this deck has much more options and bells and whistles than any other deck in its price range. it would take forever to go through all the features. just know that it is the best one out there, i did a lot of searching before hand, but of course that was a year ago.

If i lost this, i most likely buy it again. the only reason I wouldnt is if they had a newer model! this is a purchase you will not regret.

Amazingly, this jvc pumps out better sound quality than the alpine deck that I had in before. The ability to switch off the internal amp is extremely sweet, and will certainly extend the longevity of the unit itself.

The display is decent, but as the previous review states, the contrast is always off, and constantly needs adjustment, for which the unit must be put into a setup mode. Also, the control buttons become pretty much indecipherable at night. Forget about making any setup changes until you're parked or at a stoplight.

My only complaint is the order in which the unit accesses mp3 files..even after thoroughly reading the manual, and painstakingly ordering songs in Nero, I've been unable to figure out the method the deck uses to order tracks. If one primarily listens to mix cds, this screwy track ordering gets a bit irritating. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but it's not clearly addressed anywhere in the product literature.

This is probably the only headunit on the market that has this much bang for the buck, as well as this combination of features. So, if you drive a german car with red lighting, and you want a deck that plays mp3s on cdr.. go for it.

I wanted a headunit that was a high end headunit that happened to have great mp3 features, not a headunit whose main feature was playing mp3s and the actual sound quality and expandability lacked. One that had pre-outs, bass out, and so on. One that would spin up and start playing correctly, remember exactly where it was in the song and actually read id3 tags correctly. Well the JV KD SH99 is all the things I was looking for at a price I was willing to pay. It is an incredibly solid unit and does all the things I need for it to do. It is so nice to be able to drive for many hours and never hear the same song twice or have to change the CD all the time.

My only complaint is the display. I have never been able to get it to display correctly. Either it isn't bright enough or the contrast is off. it just depends on the time of day. If it was night, the contrast was off. if it was daytime, it wasn't quite bright enough. having the motorized face plate swivel out helped some.