Video: Kenwood KDC-HD942U CD Receiver

Hi. I'm Ken at the Crutchfield video studio. Today we'll be talking about the Kenwood KDC-942U CD receiver with built in HD Radio™ tuner. Now, right up front this receiver's 4-line display is bright, easy to read and attractive with a set of matching control knobs that give it an up to date yet classic look.

It plays regular CDs as well as discs burned with MP3, WMA, and AAC files and it does it all with excellent sound quality thanks to a 24-bit digital to analog converter and powerful internal amps. Now one of the main features of this stereo is the built in HD Radio tuner. HD Radio offers some really great benefits to the listener. The broadcasts are free and they have much better sound quality than conventional AM and FM broadcasts. As a point of reference, HD Radio broadcasts on FM are close to CD quality, while AM broadcasts sound like conventional FM.

Stations broadcasting HD Radio signals can also offer secondary channels with alternate programming and this receiver has a nifty feature called iTunes® tagging. When your iPod® is connected to the radio you can "tag" or save songs you hear for later purchase on iTunes. HD Radio stations offer a lot of information as well as great sound. This station is showing its call sign and name. Other stations may show information like the name of a song and the artist.

You probably won't listen to the radio all the time so you can connect and control your iPod with the receiver. When you connect the iPod to the Kenwood's USB input, you bypass the iPod's digital-to-analog converter and use the Kenwood's, so you'll get better sound. Better sound, in fact, than you'd get by plugging it into the auxiliary input.

The receiver boasts some pretty sophisticated sound controls. You can improve the sound quality of compressed music files with the "Supreme" setting or dial in the tone settings with the 3-band EQ. Kenwood's sound management system provides some other pretty cool features for optimizing sound quality. Let me show you a couple of them.

There's a lot of cool sound control features here. Two that I especially like are cabin size and speaker settings. Just go to the menu and go to "Sound", then got to "Setup." When you select "Cabin," you can choose the type of car it goes into: compact, full size, etcetera. When you go down to "Speaker," it gives you options for what kind of speakers you have and what locations. For example, front, rear, even your sub. When you're into those you can even tell the receiver what kind of speakers you have: large, none, or small, or the exact location they're in.

There you have it, the Kenwood KDC-942U, a versatile receiver with the emphasis on sound quality from sophisticated sound controls to a built in HD Radio tuner. If you want to find out more go to crutchfield.com/942U or give us a call at 1-800-555-9408.