I upgraded from my factory 1998 Dodge stereo in my Caravan. Stereo sounds great and I love that I can hook my iPod up and operate it through the radio controls. I thought a remote was sort of silly for a car stereo, but I find I use it all the time- I don’t have to even look down to change stations or advance through the iPod. Also, the HD is pretty cool, it picks up extra stations that were never there before.
I can’t speak on the ease of installation, because I took it to a local shop and had it professionally installed and it looks great. I do find the bright blue is a little too bright for night driving, and the green is too dim for daytime driving so I am constantly switching colors and there are a TON of features I haven’t discovered yet, but for the basic listening that I do (I’m not a commuter), it’s an awesome stereo.
Rating: 5 / 5
Wow! I love it! HD radio is great. This stereo has all the options I was looking for, the HD, The front jacks for the I-POD, and way more power than my factory stereo had. I was told by the Best Buy tech that Sony lead the market for easy to use stereos, he was right. I’m far from into electronics, this unit is simple to set up. I remember thinking who in the world needs a remote for a car stereo, wow, it does everything, I never need my eyes to leave the road. I’m very happy with this unit!
Rating: 5 / 5
I bought this Sony to replace an Alpine system in my new/used Acura, primarily because I wanted HD-FM radio. First of all, the hype is true; FM sounds better in HD; a lot better. As good as CD? I don’t know; I’ll have to listen for a few weeks.
I chose the Sony on strength of brand, good reviews, and it seemed to have all the features I wanted. Installation was easy & the new unit immediately came to life with no fuss.
First of all, the overall sound quality of the Sony is head & shoulders above the Alpine. I credit that largely to a much more flexible EQ system. There are half a dozen EQ presets, and some custom tweaks that essentially amount to a parametric equalizer. The sound is big and full. Bass is strong, but not boomy. Highs are bright & sparkly. And there’s enough midrange to bring out vocals (another deficiency of the old Alpine system). 17 watts per channel RMS doesn’t sound like a lot, but there’s plenty enough volume there to shake body panels without the unit itself distorting.
I give the Sony 4 stars instead of 5 only because the controls are a bit goofy (as are many modern car radios). Selecting the sideband HD stations is a bit hit-or-miss. I’ll get the secret eventually, but it isn’t explained in the owners manual.
On the balance, I can highly recommend this system. Looks good, sounds good, works well.
Rating: 4 / 5
I’m happy with this unit. Got it for my wife, who didn’t like my Dual HD radio ergonomics, for some reason. HD radio is great; USB port on front a plus. Some minor quibbles: the SELECT knob, which is also the volume knob, is very sensitive, so I found myself in the FADER mode when I was just trying to raise the volume a bit. Don’t remember pressing the knob, but it apparently doesn’t take much pressure. Other is that you cannot save HD sub channels as presets. For example, on my Dual, the local NPR station’s third HD channel is preset #3, but on this radio, you have to press the NPR station’s preset button two more times to get to the third HD channel on that preset. On that topic, this radio does not seem to indicate when a station is HD; the display shows FM. Last one: I’m not crazy about having to “open” the face of the radio to insert a CD. I don’t play CDs often, so it’s not a big deal, but it seems like an odd extra step. These are minor issues, though. The radio sounds great, installation was a breeze and the manual was a quick read to learn how to set it up correctly. Most importantly, my wife likes it.
Rating: 4 / 5
This Head Unit is an excellent deal for the price. It has iPod connectivity and HD Radio, a must for features today. It does not have Bluetooth, but I am not a fan of Bluetooth anyway. Installation was pretty easy, all of the wires from the stereo (except for one, Attenuation) connected to the wiring harness for my 2003 Hyundai Elantra. This is a lot nicer for installation when you don’t have a bunch of extra wires not connected to anything like the Pioneer that it replaced.
I chose this to replace my Pioneer DEH-P680MP for three reasons:
1. The blue leds on my Pioneer were unbearable when driving at night,
The ability to change the color of the Head Unit to green instead of blue is very nice for driving at night, the blue leds on this radio are also VERY bright at night but the green is very subtle and cannot be easily seen in the daytime, thus perfect for nighttime.
2. This unit has HD Radio built in,
HD Radio performance on this device is great in flat open areas on the interstate, etc. It does have some problems picking up the signal when travelling in hilly areas and when travelling under power lines/around buildings of the inner-fringe (30-45 miles from towers) of the broadcast area. In these situations, the radio constantly switches from Analog to Digital with lots of static and echoing (broadcasts out of sync) that can get annoying if it happens too much. Analog reception is great, the unit picks up stations much farther away than my old Pioneer, with less hassle in doing it too; in this case, the “no-frills” approach to reception on the Sony is much better than the mundane options menus on the Pioneer to adjust reception quiality. If there is one thing where I would even think of saying “If it works, don’t fix it!” This would be the case. Overall, it is a great receiver.
3. It has a USB port on front for the iPod to connect to.
iPod Connectivity works great. I have not tried the Zap function, but everything else seems to work perfectly. It will start playing from the iPod as soon as you plug it in, regardless of if you were listening to anything before or not. My only complaint is that the USB port is on the front of the head unit and not a cable coming from the back. No biggie though.
#1 by Almitrah on July 2, 2010 - 8:34 pm
I upgraded from my factory 1998 Dodge stereo in my Caravan. Stereo sounds great and I love that I can hook my iPod up and operate it through the radio controls. I thought a remote was sort of silly for a car stereo, but I find I use it all the time- I don’t have to even look down to change stations or advance through the iPod. Also, the HD is pretty cool, it picks up extra stations that were never there before.
I can’t speak on the ease of installation, because I took it to a local shop and had it professionally installed and it looks great. I do find the bright blue is a little too bright for night driving, and the green is too dim for daytime driving so I am constantly switching colors and there are a TON of features I haven’t discovered yet, but for the basic listening that I do (I’m not a commuter), it’s an awesome stereo.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by James S. Hollenbeck on July 2, 2010 - 9:37 pm
Wow! I love it! HD radio is great. This stereo has all the options I was looking for, the HD, The front jacks for the I-POD, and way more power than my factory stereo had. I was told by the Best Buy tech that Sony lead the market for easy to use stereos, he was right. I’m far from into electronics, this unit is simple to set up. I remember thinking who in the world needs a remote for a car stereo, wow, it does everything, I never need my eyes to leave the road. I’m very happy with this unit!
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Timothy D. SHELFER on July 2, 2010 - 11:07 pm
I bought this Sony to replace an Alpine system in my new/used Acura, primarily because I wanted HD-FM radio. First of all, the hype is true; FM sounds better in HD; a lot better. As good as CD? I don’t know; I’ll have to listen for a few weeks.
I chose the Sony on strength of brand, good reviews, and it seemed to have all the features I wanted. Installation was easy & the new unit immediately came to life with no fuss.
First of all, the overall sound quality of the Sony is head & shoulders above the Alpine. I credit that largely to a much more flexible EQ system. There are half a dozen EQ presets, and some custom tweaks that essentially amount to a parametric equalizer. The sound is big and full. Bass is strong, but not boomy. Highs are bright & sparkly. And there’s enough midrange to bring out vocals (another deficiency of the old Alpine system). 17 watts per channel RMS doesn’t sound like a lot, but there’s plenty enough volume there to shake body panels without the unit itself distorting.
I give the Sony 4 stars instead of 5 only because the controls are a bit goofy (as are many modern car radios). Selecting the sideband HD stations is a bit hit-or-miss. I’ll get the secret eventually, but it isn’t explained in the owners manual.
On the balance, I can highly recommend this system. Looks good, sounds good, works well.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by Shadetree Mechanic on July 2, 2010 - 11:51 pm
I’m happy with this unit. Got it for my wife, who didn’t like my Dual HD radio ergonomics, for some reason. HD radio is great; USB port on front a plus. Some minor quibbles: the SELECT knob, which is also the volume knob, is very sensitive, so I found myself in the FADER mode when I was just trying to raise the volume a bit. Don’t remember pressing the knob, but it apparently doesn’t take much pressure. Other is that you cannot save HD sub channels as presets. For example, on my Dual, the local NPR station’s third HD channel is preset #3, but on this radio, you have to press the NPR station’s preset button two more times to get to the third HD channel on that preset. On that topic, this radio does not seem to indicate when a station is HD; the display shows FM. Last one: I’m not crazy about having to “open” the face of the radio to insert a CD. I don’t play CDs often, so it’s not a big deal, but it seems like an odd extra step. These are minor issues, though. The radio sounds great, installation was a breeze and the manual was a quick read to learn how to set it up correctly. Most importantly, my wife likes it.
Rating: 4 / 5
#5 by Brady Dahl on July 3, 2010 - 2:04 am
This Head Unit is an excellent deal for the price. It has iPod connectivity and HD Radio, a must for features today. It does not have Bluetooth, but I am not a fan of Bluetooth anyway. Installation was pretty easy, all of the wires from the stereo (except for one, Attenuation) connected to the wiring harness for my 2003 Hyundai Elantra. This is a lot nicer for installation when you don’t have a bunch of extra wires not connected to anything like the Pioneer that it replaced.
I chose this to replace my Pioneer DEH-P680MP for three reasons:
1. The blue leds on my Pioneer were unbearable when driving at night,
The ability to change the color of the Head Unit to green instead of blue is very nice for driving at night, the blue leds on this radio are also VERY bright at night but the green is very subtle and cannot be easily seen in the daytime, thus perfect for nighttime.
2. This unit has HD Radio built in,
HD Radio performance on this device is great in flat open areas on the interstate, etc. It does have some problems picking up the signal when travelling in hilly areas and when travelling under power lines/around buildings of the inner-fringe (30-45 miles from towers) of the broadcast area. In these situations, the radio constantly switches from Analog to Digital with lots of static and echoing (broadcasts out of sync) that can get annoying if it happens too much. Analog reception is great, the unit picks up stations much farther away than my old Pioneer, with less hassle in doing it too; in this case, the “no-frills” approach to reception on the Sony is much better than the mundane options menus on the Pioneer to adjust reception quiality. If there is one thing where I would even think of saying “If it works, don’t fix it!” This would be the case. Overall, it is a great receiver.
3. It has a USB port on front for the iPod to connect to.
iPod Connectivity works great. I have not tried the Zap function, but everything else seems to work perfectly. It will start playing from the iPod as soon as you plug it in, regardless of if you were listening to anything before or not. My only complaint is that the USB port is on the front of the head unit and not a cable coming from the back. No biggie though.
Rating: 5 / 5