Anyone wanna suggest one over any other. I am thinking about the CDX-MP80. ANyone heard anyhing good or bad, or own one?

 

Ah sony makes cool looking cd/mp3 players. But they have the tendancy to skip alot and stuff like that. I have a pioneer and its a great head unit I think. Never had any problems with it so far. I would say for quality wise go with pioneer or alpine.

 

My JVC MP3 player owz my ***.

 

I never had much respect for Pioneer, there products have always seemed sub standard.
At least that has been my experience.
I have always been a Kenwwod or Sony guy.

 

last year sony came out with a head unit with a MEMORY STICK SLOT. I think this is the hot setup. You can buy a usb memory stick connector for about $30. Two really cool things about this: (1) it won't skip (2) you don't have to burn cds!

 

Whatever head unit you buy (I do not care for the looks of the new Sonys personally) take a look at the Neo Car Jukebox. Cool as hell. Not cheap, but not completely nuts. It uses a standard IDE drive that you can hook up to your PC and transfer music to and then stick it in your car. Plus, for some models (I only checked Alpine because that's what I have) they have an interface box that will make it look to your head unit just like a CD changer so you can use the head unit controls. Now...if only someone would come up with an iPod interface like that...

jds

 

kenwood music keg does about the same thing as what bureau_c is talking about, but it is a cartridge available in 20 or 40 gigs, i dont know if he is saying it uses just a plain hard-drive, but to me that sounds a bit scary having an open harddrive in my car, or a pain having to mount it and run a special power plug to it, and some sort of AC conversion

as far as head units that play mp3's go, they are all at the point where they load them fast off of cd's my girlfriend went with a panasonic against my approval and i am actually impressed with the quality, eclipse and alpine i know both play mp3's impressively, i think that you should scout the ones you want and go to a best buy or circut city and mess around with the functions because when it comes down to it, the real thing that matters is how much you just like the style

i dont know anything about sony and i wouldnt touch one, i also had a pioneer and it was fine until it got messed up and talking to the company is a pain in the ***, all the could tell you how to do is set the clock, and you cannot ever get ahold of them. i dont know if i would get a kenwood either, they seem like they arent up to par really

 

Hey,

Yes, the Kenwood keg thing is similar. The cool think about the Neo is that the hard drive is mounted so that it can be pulled out and transferred between your car, your home stereo and the PC docking station. It just plugs right in, and the mounting handles all the power, user interface (if you don't have the head unit interface or remote) shock protection etc. You can also upgrade your drive or replace it if it goes bad easily, as its a standard IDE unit.

Check 'em out:

http://www.ssiamerica.com/

 

Be careful of the Sony Memory Stick stuff though. Their audio devices only use their "Magic Gate" memory sticks, which are not to be confused with the standard blue sticks. The Magic Gate sticks are more expensive, harder to get a hold of, and the devices that use them have some sort of copy protection... doesn't mean it can't be circumvented, but it could be an extra PITA.

I'll also have to reccomend that you look at other brand decks before settling on Sony. They just don't seem to do much for the $$$, at least on their top end decks. I'm in the market for a deck now, and I just haven't found a higher end Sony deck that matches the competition.

As for Pioneer, I had a '95 Premier model & DIN EQ in my other FD. It couldn't seek through a CD from the head unit buttons! You *had* to use the remote! WTF!? The decks they have now do. Otherwise it was a decent deck. It never skipped on me. It even read crappy no-name CDRs that my '98 Kenwood Excellon deck can't even read the TOC on. The Kenwood just spins on it for 5 minutes and reports the CD length as 99:99:99.

In Kenwoods defense, MP3's & burnt CDRs were not as mainstream then... though that changer was very sensitive to imperfections in any CD. The deck was feature loaded though.

I've never personally had an Alpine, but I hear nothing but good things about them. The Alps I've heard sounded great and have decent features. I just wish they had a more subdued interface/look. They look like they came out of a Mighty Morphine Power Rangers episode. Too many awkwardly shaped buttons and crazy colors. I suppose they're like that to give the driver easier access to the functions... but it's still a bit much for me, personally.

I still need to try out an Eclipse 8053, they seem pretty slick in all aspects... Otherwise I'll probably end up going with a Pioneer 940MP, or a 950 MP, if they ever release it. I live a few blocks from Pioneer, so I guess I could always drop it by their service dept. if I have any issues.

 

I'm wondering what the difference is between MP3 decks and plain CD-R/RW playing decks? Why are MP3 decks different when they both seem to use the same exact medium to play the music, a freakin' CD!!!

Personally, I want a Sony CDX-M800!!! I want it mainly because it blends nicely into any black colored dash when the face is closed, plus it looks very clean when it's closed!!!

Crutchfield Page for the M800!!!

 

One more thing, I don't get how everyone is downing Sony. Am I the only one who believes that they make great products and have been doing so for a very long time. Sony is to electronics as Nike is to shoes, the best.

 

thanks berau_c i dont really know anything about what you are talking about but it sounds cool and i think i will take a look at it, i wanted a mp3 harddrive type device but i dont want to buy kenwood. ever.

srce the difference is thier ability to process the way the data is encoded, or formatted on the cd, mp3 format is much much different from wma, and wav, and standard cd file (dont remember the extension and dont care) all i play are mp3's, but hey if you want to have 12 songs instead of 170 on a cd it is up to you, and i also like the ability to devide it up into folders. it basically just knows how to read the format (the little cpu in it can process that) also, i think that sony is more maintsream (dont mean to insult) and just maily popular, and they are nice, im sure they serve thier function for you, but as far as the more high end (competition) stuff goes, i see more people going with alpine/eclipse, i would compare sony to rockford fosgate, they are just pretty popular amps/speakers, but they arent necessarily as "hardcore" as some of the others out there i.e. eclipse, alpine, image dynamics, JL audio.

but to each thier own, everything is subject to opinion

 

Srce, when a deck says "CD-R/RW compatible," it means it will read CD-R's & RW's that you burn yourself. Older, (and some newer CD) players have trouble reading home burned CD's because they were specifically designed to read store-bought CD's that are pressed in a manufacturing plant. Home-burned CD's aren't pressed, they have dyes that change color when written to. They're supposed to mimic a pressed CD, but they simply aren't as good. The "CD-R/RW compatible" players can cope with reading from a burned CD, whereas another CD player *may* be able to read them, but aren't guaranteed to.

BTW, I wasn't intending to knock Sony's products, in general. Rather, I'm encouraging everyone to evaluate other manuafacturors products before deciding what's better than what.

The lower-end Sony's have a great set of features for the price, but their higher end decks have a pretty sub-par EQ section compared to the competition, which is what turns me off. They seemed more concerned with putting a pretty screen in, than with sound-related features. I admit, the TFT sceen model they have certainly *looks* cool. The HD based MEX-1HD is $1000 at crutchfield, and has only a 7 band Graphic EQ... it would be a different story if it was parametric. That Sony CDX-M800 has the same EQ at less than half the price. But then again, Alpine's CDA-9813 at around the same price has a 5 band parametric EQ, which is better suited than a 7 band GEQ...

Hell, I've been typing too long. They've all made spectacular products, and spectacular flops in the past. Don't give in to brand-name loyalty. Hell, since my last post in this thread, I've read/heard a few Alpine lemon horror stories as well.

-IG

 

for anyone thats looking at spending 500 - 1000 for an mp3 player, i would definately recommend an empeg...

harddrive based mp3 only player... large blue vacuum floressent screen, 6 - 60 gig sizes were made... removeable from dash, eithernet, usb, serial interfaces, AMAZING visualizations, and lots of customizability, and a great user interface to manage all that music

they arent sold anymore, but you can pick them up on ebay from time to time (where i got mine from), imo its the best in dash mp3 player that has been made to date

www.empeg.com www.riocar.com for some info on them

or just pm me

 

Alright, WOW. I think I just got totaly educated on decks.

First of all, thanks for the responses guys, it's much appreciated. Secondly, I just want a deck that'll blow my ears of when paired with a 15" sub, the biggest speakers that'll fit in the FD, and an amp pushing about 1000 watts.

I don't really know **** about car stereo (as you might be able to tell). I want that Sony deck for THREE reason only. It doesn't look complicated with a billion buttons and so on, it has the black face which would look good in a dash I plan on keeping black, and the price isn't blown totaly out of proportion.

You see, I hate complications, decks that look like they'd be able to control an air plane. Do you guys know what I mean, to me simplicity is the key, an if it can be simple while looking good and sounding decent, then all the better.

If anyone knows a deck that'll do those things, please recommend it and I won't hesitate to change my mind and/or opinion about the Sony one.

Thanks

 

ok, well, no deck is going to blow your ears off, thats gonna be the amp and the speakers, since at that point you are just going to be using the line out of the HU anyway

if you mean you want one that is really high sound quality and looks really nice, nakamichi (sp) are really nice, and look rather understated and stock, but have some of the best internals and sound quality

what kinda music do you listen to, that should determine what type of speakers and amps you get

 

Well I'm a Trance junkie, but I'm also a bit old school so I like Funk, R&R, and the likes. I also listen to a lot of Rap and some R&B, basically, I need a well rounded deck that's simple and doesn't cost an arm and a leg!!!

 

BTW, I checked out Eclipse's website last night and didn't really find anything that I liked. Their decks look very average to me and just to busy. But on the other hand, I really like Alpine's stuff!!!

 

take a look at the panasonic ghost series, the high end ones look kickass, and turn black when you shut them off...AND THEY ARE TOUCH SCREEN!!!

i like touch screen

 

I used to have a touch screen panasonic tape deck back in 1991. It was badass even then.

 

I checked out the Phantom Panasonic ones and I od like them. Pretty sweet and lots of features for the MP3 playing one, I think I'll check it out!!!