Quick note: I'm what you call a computer geek, not a car audio junkie, so my review is from Joe Blow's view point (hey, that's me!). I left out all the technical details because I don't know what they mean!
Installation
I bought mine from crutchfield.com so it came with everything I needed to install it. Since I'm not a car person it was no small feat for me to install it without problems and on the first try. Took me 4 hours and a Wall-mart trip for electrical tape. With everything properly labeled most of my time was spent reading on how to solder wires properly.
Install bottom line: If a rookie like me can do it, you can too!
Looks
Beautiful! As you can see from the pic (which doesn't do it justice), the front of the deck is silver and black. All the controls are fairly easy to access. There isn't any knobs or buttons out of whack that deter from it's appearance.
The LCD is bright, easily readable even with the sun shining on it (you can also invert the colors to improve visibility as well). Speaking of colors, it supposedly can do over 1000 colors with 12 colors preset. You can define your own colors for each audio source and have different colors for day/night.
The graphics are not as varied as I'd thought they be, but it could have been a marketing gimmick that I fell for. When you first power it up for the first time you get a "movie demo" playing [showing a race car(4 sec), then a snowboarder(4 sec), then a sunset(4 sec), etc] whenever you don't push a button for 20 seconds. I'm sure you've seen similar in store displays. Unfortunately, you can't choose one particular animation to keep playing over and over. You can choose to play 1 clip of the "movie" every 20 seconds but you don't get to pick which clip, it just keeps playing the "movie" in sequences. Do other decks do this as well or do you get a choice? Anyone know?
Gah, enough ranting. The graphics that it displays are very nice. It has individual graphics for each audio source (tuner, CD/MP3, aux, CD changer) as well as graphics for when you adjust the sound stage (fade, bal, bass, etc). You can also have it display meters that show the left and right channel power.
Other nice options: You can label up to 40 CDs (including CDs in a CD changer) and all the preset radio stations (18FM, 6AM) with a name that it will display. If a CD already has CD-text on it it will read the CD-text and display the CD name and track name. It has a clock that you can display across most of the display.
Usability
The radio and CD controls are a no brainer. When you pop in a CD with MP3s, it controls just like CD. I don't have an aux source nor CD changer so I can't tell how those work. As most new decks that have lots of functions, the buttons are fairly small with only the ATT button being too small for my taste. All the buttons are lit as least, so you can always find them in the dark. The volume knob makes an audible click when you crank it that just feels right.
The menus are intuitive with a tree structure to them. Going through them is a breeze.
To load a CD you press the eject button and the radio face tilts down. It's not automatic so after you pop in a CD you have to push the face back up. No biggie for me, but it may be for some.
The deck also comes with a small keyring remote that's the size of a standard car alarm remote. It gives you audio source control, volume, and navigation control (changing tracks/mp3, etc) at your fingertips.
Sound
The deck is rated at 50W/19RMS per channel (200W total) which isn't very powerful per se, but in my truck, with my 200W amp/woofer and factory speakers, I can crank it up til my ears bleed and my neighbors start yelling to turn it down. So yes, I'd say it sounds good. My test track is always the Opera scene from the movie "The 5th Element". Her high pitched shrieks (the bleeding ears part) were crisp and the bass was deep and rich in the background (the yelling neighbors part). At lower volume levels the bass scales with the volume so it's not over powering (factory stereo had this problem, had to turn down the bass at low levels).
The equalizer has several presets that are actually set properly (i.e. hard rock is really for hard rock).
MP3
The *real* meat and potatoes of this deck is it's mp3 playback. I tested a full 700MB mp3 CD burnt in joliet format (64 char files names! Manual also claims it can do ISO standards as well) with no directories (supports 250+ directories). It takes about 10 seconds to scan the entire CD and start playing the first mp3. The manual warns that it only reads MP3s, no MP2, or MPG. Furthermore, it states that any other files on the CD may slow down the initial scan of the CD. Again, the controls are just like an audio CD and you can even fast forward and rewind though an mp3 file. Other play options are random across the CD or across the folder. It takes about 1-2 seconds between mp3s to load the next mp3. When you turn off your car and back on it resumes mp3 playback exactly where it left off!
The display can show track number, album, and track name thanks to ID3v1 tag support (sorry no v2 support). The display shows you what directory you are currently in and you can navigate through folders easily.
The CD I tested had both low and high quality mp3s. Each MP3 sounded exactly as it should without any sort of degradation. Long story short, I'm happy!
Bottom Line
I paid $270 shipped for the whole deal and so far it's been awesome. I'd recommend it to someone that's looking for a CD/MP3 car deck because of its rich features, and all the mp3 functionality/playback you need.
Installation
I bought mine from crutchfield.com so it came with everything I needed to install it. Since I'm not a car person it was no small feat for me to install it without problems and on the first try. Took me 4 hours and a Wall-mart trip for electrical tape. With everything properly labeled most of my time was spent reading on how to solder wires properly.
Install bottom line: If a rookie like me can do it, you can too!
Looks
Beautiful! As you can see from the pic (which doesn't do it justice), the front of the deck is silver and black. All the controls are fairly easy to access. There isn't any knobs or buttons out of whack that deter from it's appearance.
The LCD is bright, easily readable even with the sun shining on it (you can also invert the colors to improve visibility as well). Speaking of colors, it supposedly can do over 1000 colors with 12 colors preset. You can define your own colors for each audio source and have different colors for day/night.
The graphics are not as varied as I'd thought they be, but it could have been a marketing gimmick that I fell for. When you first power it up for the first time you get a "movie demo" playing [showing a race car(4 sec), then a snowboarder(4 sec), then a sunset(4 sec), etc] whenever you don't push a button for 20 seconds. I'm sure you've seen similar in store displays. Unfortunately, you can't choose one particular animation to keep playing over and over. You can choose to play 1 clip of the "movie" every 20 seconds but you don't get to pick which clip, it just keeps playing the "movie" in sequences. Do other decks do this as well or do you get a choice? Anyone know?
Gah, enough ranting. The graphics that it displays are very nice. It has individual graphics for each audio source (tuner, CD/MP3, aux, CD changer) as well as graphics for when you adjust the sound stage (fade, bal, bass, etc). You can also have it display meters that show the left and right channel power.
Other nice options: You can label up to 40 CDs (including CDs in a CD changer) and all the preset radio stations (18FM, 6AM) with a name that it will display. If a CD already has CD-text on it it will read the CD-text and display the CD name and track name. It has a clock that you can display across most of the display.
Usability
The radio and CD controls are a no brainer. When you pop in a CD with MP3s, it controls just like CD. I don't have an aux source nor CD changer so I can't tell how those work. As most new decks that have lots of functions, the buttons are fairly small with only the ATT button being too small for my taste. All the buttons are lit as least, so you can always find them in the dark. The volume knob makes an audible click when you crank it that just feels right.
The menus are intuitive with a tree structure to them. Going through them is a breeze.
To load a CD you press the eject button and the radio face tilts down. It's not automatic so after you pop in a CD you have to push the face back up. No biggie for me, but it may be for some.
The deck also comes with a small keyring remote that's the size of a standard car alarm remote. It gives you audio source control, volume, and navigation control (changing tracks/mp3, etc) at your fingertips.
Sound
The deck is rated at 50W/19RMS per channel (200W total) which isn't very powerful per se, but in my truck, with my 200W amp/woofer and factory speakers, I can crank it up til my ears bleed and my neighbors start yelling to turn it down. So yes, I'd say it sounds good. My test track is always the Opera scene from the movie "The 5th Element". Her high pitched shrieks (the bleeding ears part) were crisp and the bass was deep and rich in the background (the yelling neighbors part). At lower volume levels the bass scales with the volume so it's not over powering (factory stereo had this problem, had to turn down the bass at low levels).
The equalizer has several presets that are actually set properly (i.e. hard rock is really for hard rock).
MP3
The *real* meat and potatoes of this deck is it's mp3 playback. I tested a full 700MB mp3 CD burnt in joliet format (64 char files names! Manual also claims it can do ISO standards as well) with no directories (supports 250+ directories). It takes about 10 seconds to scan the entire CD and start playing the first mp3. The manual warns that it only reads MP3s, no MP2, or MPG. Furthermore, it states that any other files on the CD may slow down the initial scan of the CD. Again, the controls are just like an audio CD and you can even fast forward and rewind though an mp3 file. Other play options are random across the CD or across the folder. It takes about 1-2 seconds between mp3s to load the next mp3. When you turn off your car and back on it resumes mp3 playback exactly where it left off!
The display can show track number, album, and track name thanks to ID3v1 tag support (sorry no v2 support). The display shows you what directory you are currently in and you can navigate through folders easily.
The CD I tested had both low and high quality mp3s. Each MP3 sounded exactly as it should without any sort of degradation. Long story short, I'm happy!
Bottom Line
I paid $270 shipped for the whole deal and so far it's been awesome. I'd recommend it to someone that's looking for a CD/MP3 car deck because of its rich features, and all the mp3 functionality/playback you need.
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