It’s no secret that here at Fast Car we love our in-car audio. The jump in technology over the last 20 years has meant that now the best car stereos feature tech such as built-in WiFi, HDMI connectivity, smartphone connectivity, as well as the ability to load and store photos, all from the head unit in your car. The new JVC KW-M875DBW car stereo is one such stereo. But how good is it?
Tinie Tempah’s now classic “From Miami to Ibiza’ with the Swedish House Mafia, makes cool driving tuneage. It’s hot summery weather as I write, and that track is a windows-down must. My favorite line is, “I tell her, wear suspenders and some PVC and then I’ll film it all up on my JVC”.
And that’s all about JVC having forever been really cool at video kit as well as car audio. They had a massive branding in camcorders, back before phones got better at vlogging. So, when Tinie gave it large about a camera acronym, he needed an iconic brand. JVC fit that bill.
That is the essence of the JVC KW-M875DBW car stereo. The big headline is about this head unit coming from the same outfit that is Kenwood. Some years ago, JVC became JVCKENWOOD and you would expect their base technologies to be shared. So, is this just a rebadge? Isn’t it the same as a Kenwood? That’d be a NO. This is a top-end JVC, ingrained JVC DNA but with some Kenwood goodness chucked in for good measure.
RRP: £599 (not available in US). Buy it now.
What’s State of the Art?
A lovely expression coined for the latest technology, ‘State of The Art’ kit will always have certain things in common. This model is made to the best that JVC can. There’s a slice of awesomeness in the KW-875DBW that is shared with Kenwood. It makes sense to do this.
To start with, viewed from behind, there really is a huge family resemblance to the awesome Kenwood DMX8021. To start, both have a whopping 15A fuse requirement and a large computer style cooling fan in their butts. This was rare in car units in the past. More and more common, though, is the shallow 85mm deep chassis that this unit also shares with the Kenwood. It makes for a much wider install choice for newer cars. Likewise, the nest of rear connections is very similar. A rash of six RCA sockets in red and white are the Front/Rear/Sub audio outputs. These can also be used as a three-way actively crossed-over feed. The crossover and 13-band equalizer is the same tech as well.
The RCA out signal runs at 5.0V, which is definitely SOTA! Then, lots of yellow RCA video sockets. Three camera inputs and one more video-in and another output. So you can run four cameras.
Here’s where it really gets a bit more JVC. There is a special pair of sockets using non-mobile cord formats, with a steel baby-gate. Most USB sockets in modern car audio are on front panels or else on the end of wired-in cords. Here, we find a tiny panel-mounted HDMI and a USB-C socket. There is a female-to-male heavy duty 3A USB cord supplied. They advise that you need to buy an HDMI cord. These are connected underneath the steel guard that you remove and replace with a short screw.
What’s different about the JVC KW-M875DBW car stereo?
This HDMI input is an absolute whale of an open secret thing. Use of apps and video in car is a VERY sensitive subject. NO maker of cars or electronics can afford to distract drivers and not get sued. But you can choose as a vehicle owner to run video on your car screen. It is not illegal. Not paying attention is illegal, of course. A company exists that has made wealthy people of their owners, that does nothing but sell OEM converters to allow moving-car video.
Apple are very good at keeping things safe. Full-on screen-mirroring is restricted by iOS and Apple will not let you connect your phone and play YouTube videos. It can detect and block other distracting apps. I have an android phone and tested the screen mirroring. Wireless by WiFi, I obeyed the ancient rules of in-car video choice. Mirroring is awesome! And, on android, is simple to set up. Both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are also supported wirelessly. This is another shared top-end thing. They are the systems of car-safe apps that each camp approves. Having full capability with both is serious tech. Other brands have WiFi onboard but these guys, with their Kenny brethren alone, use the dual band system. It has a grip that I never heard falter while playing stuff.
Happy Campers
The HDMI isn’t just there to service the plethora of gaming consoles and digital vlogger nomads checking their rushes from cameras. Nope, this is about the Amazon Fire Stick and products like it. A simple HDMI output, from the dongle-like doodad plugged in and you can have access to whatever streaming you have. If I bought one, I could allow my passengers a wide choice. I have Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Discovery+ and BBC iPlayer as well as the Tube of You and more. Making this unit perfect for the camper van fraternity. It makes the KW-875DBW and absolute A/V beast of huge quality and scope.
New features
Apart from the Hi-Resolution audiophile guts and the virtuoso abilities to read any darn file you can imagine… There’s more. That old JVC single-DIN head unit that you could upload a long thin image to, has grown up. The double-DIN we have here can do more than just move your screen widgets about to fit your preference. It can also store pictures and show a single wallpaper or play a slideshow. Because Fast Car is proper old-school chums with JVC, we get the ‘white box’ early samples to test. These have an on-screen watermark stating the software is preproduction and not for re-sale. Looks kind of cool and insiderish. But it did mean I couldn’t load a heap of pictures. Yours will do this and the graphics from the JVC Portal app used to do it are intuitive and look good.
The JVC KW-875DBW, from its top end tuners to its fabulous audio-visual power is an absolute tour-de-force of in-car screen entertainment.
JVC KW-875DBW Car Stereo Tech Spec
- Shallow-Chassis Double DIN mech-free with 6.8in WVGA resistive touch screen, wireless Android Auto and Apple Car Play
- Onboard Power: 4x45W @4ohms
- Front/Rear/Sub RCA outputs at 5.0V, Four RCA camera inputs and RCA video out, rear 3.0A USB-C
- Reads MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC and FLAC audio files. Plays AVI/MKV, JPEG/BMP/PNG images and WMV and MPEG 1/2 /4 and H.264 video
