substitute for jvc hd tuner

JVC has discontinued the KT-HD300. I noticed that many of JVC and Kenwood products have been manufactured by the same company.
Kenwood has a KTC-HR300. Other than the logo, the tuner boxes are identical.

My question is, since they share the same connector, and the radios of either brand that are "HD-Ready" seem to be built on the same platform, does anyone else think that it might work?

The availability of the JVC one has been bugging me for awhile now, and JVC keeps advertising "HD-Ready" on their boxes, even though the part has been discontinued. I just lost the auction on eBay and don't expect to find one anywhere.

Any opinions?

I don't understand what you are trying to do?

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Just add the HD tuner to my radio. It is "ready" not built-in.

OK. What is your head unit?

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Sorry I was away for a few days.

JVC
KW-R900BT

My question really is since JVC and Kenwood have been using the same manufacturing facilities, and the Kenwood and JVC HD tuner add-on's both use the same "J-bus" connector,what is the likelihood that JVC's KT-HD300 could be substituted for Kenwood's KTC-HR300?

Unless you know of anywhere to buy the JVC one. But I believe the "J-bus" architecture is mostly universal, as there are 3rd party manufacturers that make AUX2 adapters that work on either.

I don't know if JVC and Kenwood are interchangeable. If you can find a local dealer who carries both they should be able to tell you.

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Well the funny part is.. I work at the local dealer... in fact, I am the Installation Shop Supervisor.

I've called the dealership tech-support for both companies and they both confirmed that the hardware was mostly identical. However neither was able to confirm if the firmware on them was the same. And obviously being a "trade secret" and the fact that the internal tuners are owned by Ibiquity and not manufactured by either JVC or Kenwood also adds another layer of uncertainty.

I've plugged a Kenwood CD changer into a JVC radio before and it worked. I only asked because $100-$150 is a lot to spend on a part that "might" work.

I was hoping someone might have some experience with the actual hardware. The Kenwood radios that come with the Bluetooth adapters are actually JVC's, and the harnesses for the radio's have been the same for 3 generations of radios, just with the speaker pin-outs switch front and rear. The "J-Bus" is present on both, and the model numbers of many units of both brands are mostly parallel throughout all the different series of model features.


I guess I'll have to try it?

If you can not find the tuner, there are options out there with built in HD starting at around 140 dollars at retail.

Not in a double din, or 4v preouts. I have the KW-R900BT.
This is the best JVC radio available before you move into media receivers and navigation models.

Unfortunately, JVC has false advertised that it is HD-ready. It would be if they still manufactured or sold a tuner that makes it HD.

The radio I have is the radio I want. I just want to add the HD that it is missing.

No big deal...I just thought I'd ask.

Talk to your general manager and convince him to let you try it with a couple of in-store demo units. Then if it works, he'll have another combo he can sell in the store. :)

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Ok, so today I asked if we could order it in for display... no good.

We don't even have it available to purchase or sell if we wanted to. So I'm back to square one with this.

I guess I'm going to just order it and try. Maybe I'll get lucky.

studiofire420 wrote:

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I guess I'm going to just order it and try. Maybe I'll get lucky.

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That's what I'd do. And if it doesn't work there's always FleaBay.

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OP: Did it work?

I am in the same situation. I just got an awesome JVC unit installed (KD-X80BT), it seems to work really really well, and I told the shop I wanted the KT-HD300, but they said it's out of stock everywhere and will give me something else.

The "something else" turned out to be HUGE eyesore, a separate, very ugly little tuner with a display mounted on my dash and connected to the aux. It's right below my phone dock too, so it makes the phone hard to work with.

If the KTC-HR300 works with JVC units, I will get one on ebay and ask them to put it in for me.

I can find nothing searching google about whether this works or not, and would really love to do this.

I had a stereo installer try the Kenwood unit for my JVC, and he said the plug is completely different.

So, to anyone who is thinking of doing this, no, this does not work at all.

What I'm going to do is just replace the deck.