Pyle PLD7HB 7" Headrest Monitors with DVD Player

Introduction

Pyle's set of two 7" monitors were the cheapest (in price) universal headrest monitors that I could find at the time. I used them to replace a portable DVD player that was attached to the back of the passenger headrest, since the portable DVD player got in the way of passengers that sat behind the passenger seat.

Description

The headrests are adjustable to fit into differently spaced headrest tubes and fits two different sized diameter headrest tubes. The range of adjustment between tube to tube is from 4 3/4" to 7 1/2".

They come in three colors; black, gray, and tan. The last letter in the model number indicated the color. E.g. PLD7HT would be the tan color. The covering is made of vinyl, and the both the DVD player/monitor and the stand-alone monitor can swivel top to bottom for a little viewing adjustment.

Specifications

Quality

For the price the monitors are not bad, but the DVD player I received (both of them, see the Problem section below) was not good. I did have a pixel out on the monitor only headrest right out of the box, but I did not want to hassle with returning it as I wanted to get it installed into our car as soon as possible.

The DVD design seems to be somewhat flimsy. The whole monitor pops open, and then you just click in the DVD and push the whole monitor back up until it clicks.

Installation

You can install the DVD player on either side as the headrests are not driver or passenger side specific. (As what would be expected.)

I'd suggest you be familiar with installing electronics into cars. (E.g. stereos, alarms, etc.) If not, I'd find someone experienced to do the installation. If you're ready to give it a try, this is what I did.

The first this is to make sure that all of the parts have been packed in the box. I checked that the monitor and DVD player/monitor worked before installing anything in the car, by using a spare 12 volt transformer I had lying around the house. I jury rigged it (it didn't look pretty), but it worked enough to test that they worked properly. After the testing I started the installation of both monitors in my wife's car. (A 2004 RX300.) I pulled the passenger headrest out first, and attempted to figure out how I was going to run the headrest cable through the car seat. Luckily, the back of the seats came off with two phillips screws located on the bottom of the back of the seat. Once the seat back was off, I mounted the DVD player/monitor headrest widening the adjustable posts a little wider and adding the thicker post adapters. (Your car may or may not need the adapter posts.) Also I decided to have the DVD player on the passenger side, since in was more convenient from me but it can easily be installed on the driver's side.

Problems

The DVD player gave out under warranty. It would only play DVDs intermittently, and got progressively worse as time went by. When it didn't work it displayed an error message when trying to start to read a DVD.

So I had it repaired under warranty, but Pyle doesn't cover the shipping costs. It cost me about $35 to ship it back and forth. (I'm in Los Angeles and it had to be shiped to New York. If you're close enough to drop it off it may be worth the trip.) Pyle sent it back within the time they said it would take to fix it. (They gave a standard estimate of four to six weeks to turn around the DVD player.) It looked like a new headrest when I got it back. (Or at least a remanufactured one.) Good news was that the DVD player worked, but the audio coming out of the speakers was now very weak and without any base and little midrange.

I didn't want to spend another $35 in shipping to get the audio fixed so I kept it. About two months went by and the DVD player is acting up again. It started to have problems reading DVDs and seemed to get slightly worse over time.

Conclusion

If you're looking to save some money and want built-in monitors in your car, and are not to concerned about the picture and sound quality I'd recommend the monitor only headrest. I can't recommend the DVD player with monitor headrest because the DVD died once on me and looks to be dying again. I wouldn't pay more than what I paid for two monitors.

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