I have recently sold my Empeg, Tuner & Amp and bought a Dension DH102. The main reason was that I am getting a company car and wanted an install that didn’t involve pulling the car apart to fit and amp and tuner unit. I promised Phil O’Hare (who bought my Empeg) that I would post a review of the Dension. I have been waiting for the latest firmware, as there were so many faults in the original that it was hardly worth writing about. Anyway the new firmware is out and is a huge improvement so here is my review:


Installation

Compared to the Empeg that required space for the tuner module and a separate Amp, this was a breeze, apart from one problem – the unit is deeper than any DIN unit I’ve ever had. To get it flush to the dash in my VW Golf MKIV I had to “Dremel” off the back face of the plastic support cage. Fortunately there was sufficient gap behind that for the unit to fit in, but if you wanted to use the line-outs rather than the internal amp you would need even more clearance for the plugs. Anyway once plugged to the VW to ISO adaptor (that I already had) and switched on, it worked fine.

Hardware

Sound Quality 10/10

For an internal amp the unit sounds excellent with no noise or interference whatsoever. I reckon it sounds as good if not better than my previous set-up, which had a fairly expensive Alpine Amp.

Display 8/10

Brilliant programmable display for both colour and layout spoiled by a plastic fascia that is way to reflective making it hard to see in sunlight. I am going to try to find some anti-reflective film to see if that helps.

Front panel controls 6/10

Some of the buttons are a bit small and fiddly and 3 are not illuminated. I also would have preferred a rotary volume control to +/- buttons. I am fortunate that the buttons are illuminated in virtually the exact same colour as “VW dashboard blue” but this will not suit everyone and the icing on the cake would have been to have the button illumination programmable like the display. There is one physical problem with the front panel in that the panel catches on the bottom part of the surround when it folds down to remove the drive.

Tuner 9/10

The Tuner picks up all the stations that I tried very well and the RDS works perfectly.

Removable DMP3-C HDD unit 10/10

The removable 2.5” disc drive unit connects to the host computer via a USB2.0 connection and a mains adapter. It requires no special software and simply appears on the system as another hard drive. Files are simply dragged & dropped across to it. The USB2.0 makes this very quick indeed. Using the mains adapter supplied, the DMP3-C can be used as a standalone MP3 player. There is a headphone socket and 5 control buttons built into the unit. As there is no display in this mode, it is a bit limited, but it works. I have heard hints that Dension might be making a separate docking unit for personal listening use of the DMP3-C. I guess all it really needs is some battery power and a display and you’ve got an iPod (ish!).


Software

File Manager 9/10

The files appear on screen exactly as they do on the PC, and are navigated using the 4 direction buttons on the face plate. When a file or directory is highlighted it can be selected by hitting either Play or Add. Play replaces any files, playlists or Myradio files currently playing, whereas Add puts them at the end of the existing list. It is also possible to select logo, config and display settings files by navigating to the relevant directory and hitting Play to activate them.

Myradio profiles / Playlists selected directly from the preset buttons 10/10

Myradio is a playlist-like system that lets you add individual tracks or directories to a Myradio file. You can even weight each element to determine how often it is selected by the Random mode. The flaw with this system is that each Myradio file is limited to 100 entries. A good feature associated with this, is that the first 6 files alphabetically in the Myradio directory (be they Myradio files or standard playlists) can be selected directly by hitting the appropriate preset button. In the original firmware the random was very poor so I did not bother with Myradio files, but it is much improved in the new firmware so I will give them another try. Having said that I am more than happy to be able to easily select 6 playlists at the touch of a single button.

Album Play 10/10

This is another great idea. What this does is whatever mode you are currently in, hitting the albumplay button inserts all files in the directory of the current track into the playing list. I have my music set up as !Music/Artist/Track. With that set-up, I can be playing a random selection of tracks and if I hear an artist that I want to hear more off, I hit album and it plays all tracks by that artist and then reverts to the original program. This is a great feature and now works flawlessly.

Random 10/10

On the original firmware, Random used to fall in love with certain tracks and play them over an over again. Apparently, Dension have put a lot of work into this area and is shows because Random is much much better. I have not yet noticed it playing a track that I have heard recently. Random also now works within playlists.


Display customisation 8/10

This is brilliant, both from a colour/contrast/back light setting on the unit to the Display editor which lets you choose exactly what information you want display, at what size and where. I especially like the night and day profiles. In my Golf the normal display is a green LCD colour which is illuminated crystal blue at night. I have been able to find settings that match the green during the day and the blue at night so that the unit matches perfectly in both situations. There are two reasons this doesn’t get 10/10. The first is that the night and day settings have to be selected manually rather than the unit doing this automatically when the car’s lights are switched on or off. (I have now made a bit of circuitry that overcomes this by sending a signal to the remote connector to switch day/night mode when the car lights are switched off/on – but this is still a fault with the unit). The second is that I’d like to be able to customise the Tuner display in the same way as the player.

Sony Stalk 9/10

With the new firmware the Sony Stalk works perfectly. My only complaint in this area is that I really would like to be able to customise the Stalk commands (hell if it’s software controlled let us customise it!). For example, in tuner mode the up/down command changes frequency up/down whereas I would prefer it to go up/down within the presets. Once I’ve tuned in my stations, I rarely want to change them, and certainly not as I’m driving along, whereas I often want to flick between presets.

Face Plate software and player control 9/10

This is generally pretty good, and the display customisation is, as I said before, brilliant. The new firmware now ignores AUX from the source loop if nothing is connected to it. The only minor gripe I have is that I would like to be able to display the name of the current playlist and the number of tracks within it.


Conclusion

The software is not as sophisticated as the Empeg’s, but it is easy to use on a day to day basis. My girlfriend is by no means stupid (in fact she is very intelligent if she is reading this!) but she can use the Dension far more easily than she could the Empeg.

Sound quality is surprisingly good for the price of the unit. File transfer is quick and easy and requires no extra software. Display customisation is excellent. The Sony remote works much better than it ever did on my Empeg. The Tuner works very well and has an RDS that works. All in a (nearly) DIN sized unit. I think it is the best alternative to the Empeg that I have seen, and I’ll whisper this – I actually prefer it to the Empeg.