Sony drives DAB+ motoring Sony has announced its first DAB+ car radio that’s due to hit the road early next year. The CDX-DAB700U is touted as a CD receiver with DAB/DAB+/DMB-R support as well as FM/AM reception. Sony CDX-DAB700U If loading a CD seems a bit too 1980s for you, MP3, WMA and AAC discs are also playable as well as audio from USB flash …
I had one, and reading from USB flash drives was limited to 127 folders, after than it gave up. This was how it was supposed to work according to Sony UK, and it was a feature that I was only allowed to listen to music from A-H and nothing else...
Their Walkman comparability only actually meant their ancient range of ATRAC Walkmans and not their new Walkmans (obviously).
And when I asked if they were fixing the problems, they told me no.
Thanks Sony...
I thought that the market for 'after market' Stereo's was a bit limited these days. Unless you are into Car Modding and putting 20Kw of Amps and huge Bass units into your car just so that you can deafen yourself and everyone within a 100m of your souped up rustbucket...
With the integration of the Stereo/Radio into the GPS units as is common with many current cars I fail to see a viable market for this sort of thing. IMHO, not many people will want to rip out their centre consoles, get handy with the hacksaw just to fit a unit like this.
Where's the iPod integration?
Where's the Android/Blackberry phone integration
Sorry Sony. Once again you have got it wrong. This unit whilst technically very nice seems like a throwback to the 1980's.
Means a lot of cars are going to be without radio unless DAB is already built in. That should make the market a bit bigger.
And I've replaced the radio in my (admittedly old 2002) car because a) The one in it was shite b) Wanted SD and USB connectivity. I did need to replace a bit of fascia with new plastic - cost £5.
Radio four has never sounded better.
so we may as well standardise on a car radio that works with the best of other countries' DAB. It may be easier to build one radio into cars made for sale internationally, too.
I'd like a PC accessory for DAB radio digital recording, you can't get them any more, except for a radio with optical interface input. I've got two Pure Evoke-3 that record onto SD card, but the card slot is sticky, SD, and performs worse with "larger" cards above 128 MB :-O when you want to record, the USB transfer interface is USB 1 or 1.1 (moves audio at ~ 10 x play speed), and you can get a netbook PC for the same money.
If a car radio did better, I'd buy one, and I don't have a car.
As someone who always fits after market head units to his cars, I hope they don't expect to sell many of these. Fitting after market head units is getting harder and harder these days unless you fancy shelling out for a fitting service. It used to be a case of a 5 minute changeover with the supplied key tools. In my latest VW it's turned into 20 minutes of hell fiddling with torx screwdrivers and bits of plastic.
And even then there are the hidden costs. You'll need a new section of dash fashia for the unit to slot into + at least one adaptor to connect the unit to the car. You can easilly be looking at £50 for the various extra gubbins needed.
Then you have to remember it's DAB so you'll need an aerial upgrade. Sure you could fit the supplied window aerial but who wants that mess? And the chances are the reception will be degraded anyway.
So then you need to shell out more money for a new aerial which chances are you'lll need to have professionally fitted.
In all none of it is idea.
As a long time user of the Pure Highway DAB radio I found the arial they provided you with that you stuck to the inside your windscreen next to useless and getting any kind of reliable DAB signal was almost impossible. The purchase of the £15 external arial however removed all fo these problems. i would suggest to anyone looking to purchase an in-car DAB product to look at getting an external DAB arial. It also means you don't have to spend a day trying to remove the horrible adhesive that gets left behind on your windscreen when you remove it!
Its all very well but we're slowly losing the ability to fit third party stereos into cars, unless you get third party manufacturers making surrounds to allow them to fit. But my experience has been they tend to look a little cheap and out of place from the original - particularly if its curved. And on my current car - Peugeot 407 - removing the radio would mean everything in that region - climate control, and some car settings - would stop working.
I got my first CD player in 1986 as a rental bundle from Radio Rentals along with a VHS HiFi machine. HMV, WH Smiths etc all had decent racks of CDs available and covered most of what was available on vinyl. Most of my CDs date back to my flirtation with the format between 1986 and 1989 at which point I stopped messing with more and more expensive CD players culminating in a Cambridge CD2, bought a decent turntable and went back to vinyl.
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