I recently bought my first car which is 14 years old, and it still had the original radio/cassette player in it. At that point I wasn't even able to drive, but I still spent a lot of time in the car and wanted something a bit better. I own hundreds of cassettes, but the majority of them are over ten years old, so I was intending to get a cd/mp3 player instead. I happened to mention this to my parents who then said they had a cd player (but no mp3 capability) that they'd taken out of their previous car which was being scrapped. They said rather than me laying money out on a new stereo, I could have that - the Kenwood KDC-4060RA.

The Kenwood Corporation started life as Kasuga radio Co.in 1946, selling audio, communications and measuring equipment. They renamed the company Trio Electronics Inc. and in 1980 entered the car audio field. They used the name Kenwood as the corporate brand. However, it wasn't until 1986 that they renamed the company as Kenwood Corporation. They now also make mobile satellite communications equipment, car navigation equipment, in-car DAB radio systems and HDD drives.

Because my Kenwood stereo had come out of another car, there was no box or manual. I'm terrible at electrical stuff anyway, and so I asked my dad to fit the stereo for me. Thankfully my car already had a car harness adaptor - rather than a mass of loose wires - but installing the stereo still took several hours.

The stereo has many functions. There's a large digital display in the centre which tells you whether you have radio or cd player on, and if radio, what station you're listening to. The display lights in a yellow colour. The other buttons are also backlit in green, for use at night-time. Once you turn the power on, the radio comes on. You can select fm/mw/lw using the buttons on the far right. To scan through the channels to find a station, you use the back and forwards buttons also on the far right. There's a menu which allows you to preset radio stations to save tuning it in every time and you can save upto 24 preset stations. This function is very easy to use and took only a couple of minutes for me to set up - even without having a manual.

The use the cd player, all you need to do is put a cd in and it will switch automatically to the cd function. The preset buttons numbered one to four, that you normally use for radio, then become display, scan, random and repeat. This allows you to display the amount of tracks on the cd, and set the cd to play random songs or to repeat either individual tracks or the whole album. The scan option plays the beginning of each track so you can find a song you want and there's a forward and backward track search option. You can see which one of these you have on, as it shows RDM, REP, etc. in the main digital display. The volume button is on the far left and you just press it up or down.

Overall, it's not a bad stereo. I have recommended people buy this but only if you aren't bothered about playing mp3s. It has been reliable and has excellent sound quality. However, I think there are probably better car stereos around now for the same price which have a lot more functions on them though.