Kenwood launches 6 car audio systems with USB connection

Kenwood is all set to Pimp your ride with six new car radios with “upcoming” tag. The car radio actually allows you to connect USB hard drives or MP3 players to access their music. Unlike Sony’s offering that pushes in a flash drive in the car stereo and a Giga panel, Kenwood went for a USB connection thus stepping out of the usual confines of built-in storage devices and assembling everything from from USB to hard drives to MP3 players to the units. The radios will then detect and play back audio files on the devices stored in MP3, ACC or WMA formats. The four 1-DIN models KDC-W534UA, KDC-W5534U, KDC-W6534U and KDC-W7534U feature a USB cable connection on the rearside. While 2-DIN models, the DPX501U and DPX701U, both feature a USB connection at the front. The baby ships with the USB cable thereby enabling you to connect a music player to the car system. The units do feature support to the standard music formats like MP3, WMA or AAC. Kenwood has partnered with with PhatNoise thus giving you the benefit to play and select music recorded on a USB media or CD drive by means of the ACDrive system.

The folks at Kenwood were kind enough to include an optional iPod adapter making it possible to connect and control Apple’s portable music player (huh! iPod again…) we’re still awaiting an official word on pricing and availability.
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