Car MP3 deck for the over 30 crowd
Written: May 25 '04
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Pros: A automotive MP3 deck for the rest of us.
Cons: Occasional MP3 skips on cold mornings until it warms up after 5 minutes.
The Bottom Line: Hard to complain about the price, quality & style of this deck if you are looking for a MP3 player for your car and not a disco light.
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| neocoffee41's Full Review: Sony CDX-MP40 Car CD/ MP3 Player |
So, when I bought my car it came with the state of the art single tape deck. Which would not have been a problem if I actually owned a cassette tape, or owned a tape deck to record some of my CDs to tape so I could listen to them in my car; I mean as long as it was done in such a way that I didn’t violate any copyright infringements.
Basically I am saying driving my car for more that 20 minutes, or outside the FM range of one of the stations that I listen to, was not something that I wanted to do too often.
Then begins my search for a replacement radio for my car; I was impressed that I actually made it six weeks before I started the search. Pick an electronics company, they will probably make a automotive CD deck, some play CD-R or CD-RWs, some don’t; but they usually only make one or two decks that play MP3s.
Then I ran into my first hurdle. Apparently electronics companies do not believe people over the age of 30 understand MP3 technology. Because if they thought we did, they would have actually designed a few decks that we would want to put in our cars. Pioneer, Aiwa, Alpine, Clarion, Kenwood, Panasonic. Most of them make nice decks, with flashing lights, scrolling flashing displays that create mini disco effects inside your car. Just the thing I want in my car dashboard. Okay, not really. So what about the rest of us? You know the techno literate crowd that are not looking to mod out our car but would actually like to replace our factory standard radio with one that might actually look decent, and not have to take out a loan to buy it.
Sony apparently has realized that there are actually a few of us out there that fit that profile; and they designed this deck for us. Nice simple layout, the buttons are all placed in logical locations, an easy to read display, plays CDs, CD-R/CD-RWs, MP3s and enough power to allow me to crank up my choice of music.
The amusing thing is that almost everything that I have read as a con for many of the reviews is what I was looking for in a car deck. No flashing light displays, a mono-color LCD display that is not a distraction when I drive. You can configure the title display to run in several different modes, my favorite being where it scrolls the title once, and then reverts back to the clock. Best of all, face of the player is simple enough that it doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb in the middle of my dashboard for a price that is easy to swallow.
The sound quality is great once you have tweaked the fader, balance, bass, treble, virtual speakers and Bass Xplode setting. Pretty much like any car stereo that you buy to upgrade your car stereo.
Installation is no more difficult than any other car stereo if you are a do-it-yourselfer like me; and of course any store that sells the system probably offers and installation service. I would recommend replacing your factory speakers while you are at it, or while you are letting the staff at the electronic store tear into your dash.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 130
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Epinions.com ID:
neocoffee41
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Location: Champaign, IL USA
Reviews written: 31
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Of course I'm not rich... I only have 4 computers.
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