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Disturbing Trend from Kenwood

1

1290wgli

Guest
With all this talk of HD-2 in NYC coming on, I thought it may be time to reevaluate what was out there and consider an HD radio for the car (since the main analog channels offer nothing unless you are a 25 year old male).

It seems that one of the latest Kenwood HD radios has a disturbing and unwanted feature. The Kenwood EZ900HDS has an MSRP of $399.00. It has a built-in HD tuner.. no need for external boxes. But if you spend $399.00 you cannot use it.

It seems that you have to sign up for Sirius in order to activate the device (you can't even listen to FREE AM + FM RADIO until you do this). While you can cancel your Sirius subscription, this is a disturbing development. Basically, you're paying $400 to give Sirius your contact info for the sake of just USING the device. While only one radio from one manufacturer is doing this, what's to stop others from having this caveat.
 
> With all this talk of HD-2 in NYC coming on, I thought it
> may be time to reevaluate what was out there and consider an
> HD radio for the car (since the main analog channels offer
> nothing unless you are a 25 year old male).
>
> It seems that one of the latest Kenwood HD radios has a
> disturbing and unwanted feature. The Kenwood EZ900HDS has
> an MSRP of $399.00. It has a built-in HD tuner.. no need
> for external boxes. But if you spend $399.00 you cannot use
> it.
>
> It seems that you have to sign up for Sirius in order to
> activate the device (you can't even listen to FREE AM + FM
> RADIO until you do this). While you can cancel your Sirius
> subscription, this is a disturbing development. Basically,
> you're paying $400 to give Sirius your contact info for the
> sake of just USING the device. While only one radio from
> one manufacturer is doing this, what's to stop others from
> having this caveat.
>


Easy, no one buys them. That ought to put a stop to it all.
 
> Easy, no one buys them. That ought to put a stop to it all.
>

Simplistic, but one must hope consumer reaction is the same.
 
Here's another problem. According to a review on Crutchfield.com, this unit is not HD2 multicast capable. It only receives the primary HD channel programming. I bought a Panasonic last month that has the same problem. HD fidelity is great, but I want the new channels. Research before you buy!
 
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