Customer Ratings & Reviews

Amazing Deck, Great Price

This may be an older head unit, but for the money, I can't believe my ears. For years, I've used Clarion headunits for their outstanding CD quality. Along the way I've had to deal with their squirrely lasers that won't read a disk half the time and excessive heat generation from built-in amp (which never was used). My two previous decks were the DXZ725 and DXZ535, which had 4v and 2v preouts respectively. The JVC outputs at a CEA-rated 5v. With this deck, I no longer need my old CFQ5X, as I have all the signal control I could want and the power/quality is outstanding! Bravo to JVC for doing it right for the enthusiast.

The only downsides to this deck is no USB input, small SD capacity, no HD-Radio upgrade and the PICT software is junk. Other than that, this is an outstanding unit

Great head unit

First off, I'll agree that this unit beats the newer pioneer in display, power, durability, usability, and clarity.
Second off, there is a high pass filter. you just have to read the manual or you'll never figure out how to activate the built in 3 way cross over. It's awesome with a sub

Third, 35 watts RMS complements my 600w Rms 10" sub well.

so overall, this head unit ROCKS.

Good value

I like the unit, it was well worth the money

more bang for the buck

this is the second jvc i have purchased and without a doubt, not the last. the look of the unit is extremely eye catching, the graphics on the display are top notch. the motorized faceplate is a plus, the ease of "user friendly" . it's not rocket science. the wattage was also a plus, and if you have a sub, its great at fine tuning the sub for whatever you listen to. all in all, sonic hit a home run here. the price, the shiiping, a- plus!!!!

Really good deck

I just bought this deck and it is awesome! The display is sweet, the sound is great and the power it allows me is awesome. I just need to get the rest of my system to really test it out. The only thing I don't like about it is that its search function for the ipod is not very well designed so it takes a long time to scroll through all of my music to find what i want.

Nice CD Player

If you love customizing the sound of your music this thing is definatly for you. The DSP is pretty cool, and the EQ customization is awsome. The radio is very good and allows you to give titles to your favorite radio stations, which is pretty cool. The display is nice and bright but is a little hard to see if it's really bright outside. The number of settings and the amount of control over your music makes this a great cd player and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for an awsome cd player at a modest price.

great deck

I just purchased this deck after my pioneer dehp8000r finally died after 9 years. I used to have JVC cassette decks and loved them, since pioneer was disappointing with their new decks I thought JVC would be good again. I installed this in a 2000 Chevy 3500 crew cab truck with stock front and rear speakers, 2 MTX 10's with an interfire 2900 amp with a 1.5 farad cap. the JVC ar8500 is an older deck but has all the features you really need, i liked this one because of the simplicity of the face, no multi-directional button that moves in 20 different directions like pioneer. i've only had the deck for a day now and its pretty simple to use, the menu is broken down pretty well making it easy to get at what you want to change. the computer software that comes with the unit lets you easily add pictures and video to play on the screen, simply put on a sd card then download it into the deck. specifications say max 512 meg sd card can be used, i formatted by 2 gig to FAT and loaded it up and works fine. there are only a few things that are a little annoying. first the sd card slot is only accessible with the faceplate off, second listening to the radio or sd card and you eject a cd the audio will cut out while cd ejects, finally i wish it had a on/off mode for the subwoofer out. none of the dislikes are all that important. so far I'm happy with my purchase and will look at jvc more often if pioneer doesn't clean up their decks. i definitely recommend this jvc 8500 to anyone that wants a high end deck for an unbeatable price even if it is a couple years old. Thanks to sonic electronix for fast shipping, great products and free included wiring harness and dash kit. will definitely purchase here again.

Mixed

I fell in love with this Head Unit the second I installed it. I mainly bought this unit for its ability to read SD memory cards for MP3. I like how you can download pictures using your computer to a disc or SD card and upload into the unit. The downside is my limited use of it so far, two of my channels blew after only a couple hours use. Im now waiting for my number to return it. I only mention this because this is my first JVC and I have never had this problem before. There wasn't any built in high pass filter for my speakers like my previous head unit either. Overall im pretty satisfied with the unit if I ever get to use it again!