Virtual Reality VRCD400-SDU CD Player from Roadmaster USA/WalMart/Heartland

Where do I begin...

I'm afraid I'll sound like a shill, or a company employee.

I'm neither. I have an odyssey which started with my buying one of the earlier models at WalMart. That model had 4x45 into 4 speakers, including two speakers which came in the box, but the big deal was that it had a USB input to go along with its CD/MP3/WMA reader.

As we're on a sailboat, and power is an issue (engine not running all the time, generating power), being able to get music from our MP3s, on an external hard drive, put them on a jump drive, thus no longer needing any rotating parts (they wear out) or AC power (that computer and hard drive are hungry, in 12V converted through the inverter to the house current both devices need to operate), and plug that puppy into the radio, thus needing only the power of the radio to enjoy our music, is a big deal. Up to one Gigabyte, depending on the format used when you recorded it, that's a week or so of listening for most rips (we do classical music, so record at higher bits, so don't get that much).

The power is sufficient to drive two Bose outdoor speakers or two marine speakers in the main cabin, plus two large outdoor speakers from Radio Shack in the cockpit, or the two smaller ones in the aft cabin (where we sleep). Between the Bose (serious speakers!) and the cockpit ones (also capable of lots of drive), the 45x4 watts is enough to entertain the anchorage if we wanted. Usually we just keep it to comfortable listening levels.

We found that some of the songs clipped when we played MP3s. We thought that was a problem with the unit (more on which later), but I've since seen in other forums that that's not uncommon in chip or jump drive or similar storage units. Going to a newer, faster, chip largely eliminated that. Despite the manual's saying that it recognized up to 1G of info, we've found that we can use a 2G card in our USB reader (we don't actually have a jump drive, but, instead, have a USB unit which takes SD cards).

So, we found the unit entirely acceptable, especially at the low prices of WalMart. However, that was a lesser unit than the one I'm reviewing. It gets better...

The customer service at Roadmaster is absolutely awesome. Unlike most of the products WalMart sells, while you *could* take it back to the store in the event of a problem, their manual asks you to call them directly. The original unit I had came with a broken trim piece. A call to that number had one on the way that day.

When I got around to installing it, and put in my first CD, it ate it. That is, it would not eject it. Also, see above about the USB clipping. So, I called again. The guy at the other end said there must be a problem with the unit; we'll send you another. Sure enough, in a few days, here comes another unit - but this one's an upgrade, to the one being reviewed. The steps I took to get the CD out, as recommended by whoever it was I talked to the first time didn't work.

Another phone call. Sent it back at their request, with their paying the shipping. They sent me the call tag, and I sent it off. A few days pass. Here comes my CD, extracted - but it's in a big box. Another radio, also shipping paid. HOLY COW!

But wait...

I presume that selling to WalMart may have something to do with it (WalMart takes nearly anything back; any vendor selling to WM has a massive volume so stuff like this may be trivial), but I just can't believe the level of service. Correspondence during all this with one of their parts department guys had me comfortable enough to write again today (paraphrased):

"When I went to turn on the radio, this weekend, to wake my wife, asleep in the aft cabin, while I was at the computer at the navigation station (my office on the boat), and it wouldn't light, I tried a few things, unsuccessfully, to make it come back alive. The power light behind the faceplate was lit, so I knew it had power. Any troubleshooting suggestions?"

That note got this response (paraphrased):

"Skip, not to worry. A new one, upgraded, is on its way to you. Same power scheme, just pull out the old harness from your radio and plug this one in."

Is that awesome, or what???

So, back to the review. We absolutely love the radio. I thought it had all the bells and whistles possible until I looked up what's coming. But that's not part of this review. Suffice to say that they are continually upgrading their product line, and making it better. The real kicker for us was that this one (recall I started with a prior unit)has a place to put a chip, rather than having to use my USB reader. If I had a jump drive, I could use it. We have used my wife's ipod shuffle mini to play through the radio's USB drive (what you recharge it with and put new songs on when you put it in your computer is what we stuck in the USB slot). It has European or US formatting (different bandwidths for the AM and FM bands, different spacing as well), which will serve us well when we are cruising somewhere that uses the European format. It's got an equalizer (not in the usual slider format, but several different genre presets) which does a nice job for us in our varying between classic rock, classical (orchestral) music and everything in between. We've not been able to overdrive it to clip (audio term, not the music anomaly of the chips or other MP3/WMA issue) in any of our full-blast enthusiasm times.

We use it to provide the amplification for the movies we watch through our computer. (We connect the sound-out in the computer to the aux-in on the radio, and play it as distributed where we are sitting watching the movie.) We use it to listen to our classical music, either over the radio or from a chip, and it's got the power to drive the speaker such that we can hear it even while we're working on the boat. Or, we put in either a retail or ripped CD, and it comfortably plays those as well.

We don't use them, but there are pre-amp and subwoofer outputs on the unit as well. I have no doubt they'd work just fine, but they require an additional amplifier to work.

I suggest this to all our boating buddies; if we were in a car, it's the one I'd install. Very clear instructions, a wiring harness which allows you to do all the wiring before the installation of the unit, and, as you must have gotten by this time, customer service to die for.

Very highly recommended. If you can't find this particular unit, I'd be comfortable in recommending any of the VR3 (Virtual Reality Labs) products. Very inexpensive, lots of features for a great price, easy to use, and it appears that if you *ever* have a problem with one of their products they'll straightaway send you a new one.

I believe you will find them at most WalMart automotive stores; Heartland also sells VR3 products.

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
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