When i was last looking for a head unit two maybe 3 years go I head that practically all of the sony units were a pile of rubbish. I'm coming to get a new bluetooth & ipod enabled one and the Sony's are very competitively priced..... are they really that bad these days?!?

I don't believe they have ever been that bad.

I've bought sony for years and always been very happy

Half of me thinks it could have just been the cd changers tbh. Can't recall.

tbh sony has never been a popular branc as there RnD is tiny comared to there other divisions thus there Car Audio products have been lacking. they wernt necersarily bad but overpriced for what you where getting as they priced the car audio to match with the home audio brand.

given the option id always go with alpine, pioneer, rockford fosgate, denon, blaupunkt, becker, however as said just because there a named brand doesnt make them good.

if you like it then get it and be happy with it but make sure you try it 1st.

if you like it then get it and be happy with it but make sure you try it 1st.

You've touched on a good point there.... how and where can you try them! I know halfords have demo units hooked up if you're lucky but i'm yet to see either the deh-p700bt or 600bt i'm interested in on demo, its always the 85bt!

I've been looking for an indy dealer locally so i could go and have a browse, its a bit more difficult with car audio, with in house stuff they're more than happy to hook the gear up so you can have a good listen!

You've touched on a good point there.... how and where can you try them! I know halfords have demo units hooked up if you're lucky but i'm yet to see either the deh-p700bt or 600bt i'm interested in on demo, its always the 85bt!

I've been looking for an indy dealer locally so i could go and have a browse, its a bit more difficult with car audio, with in house stuff they're more than happy to hook the gear up so you can have a good listen!

id check out www.talkaudiodirect.com 's forum some pretty good people in there who have listened to a fair few stereos and know there stuff but be aware its a bit of a fad forum and have a good search before asking any questions. as for trying some out a good independant is good as listening to them on a wall in a shop is no where near the reality of the qualiyt you may or maynot get however this is very difficult these days so taking advice of someone who knows will help and ime halford is not good in this respect. also on TA they had a dealer locator which may help you finding a good one.

whats your price range and what extras do you need to have with it? ill have a quick shop and make some reccomendations.

Sony were massive when I was at college, and every boy racer had a sony kit in his Nova/Astra.

The crown then shifted to Panasonic and that's about when I lost track of the head unit game - bout 10 years ago.

Since then all the cars I've owned have come with quite decent head units as standard, so no need to swap.

I'm running a Sony in my Superb now. Its ok, but IMO not as good as the Alpine that I had a couple of years back. It is however much better than the JVC I used to have in my old car.

The Alpines are my choice, although the new parrot headunit looks quite good!

whats your price range and what extras do you need to have with it? ill have a quick shop and make some reccomendations.

Max of £200 really.... even though it feels bad spending that much on it! I'm after bluetooth, pref with a mic setup I've heard the embedded mics are a bit.

I'm still tempted with having a CD changer for the quality of CD audio. That said i may decide to my CDs at a better rate on the ipod.... just depends!

I'm after it matching the MK1 vRS interior as close as possible too which is why I'm liking the 600bt and 700bt.

....picky i am

Same for me (sorry to highjack)

It has to match the interiour so green allround (or a bit of red if like the speedo)

It must have BT, must allow streaming of audio and handsfree calling

Must have a front Aux, just in case.

Assuming Alpine's BT is still as flakey, I'd go for Kenwood, but if anybody knows a better solution,

I've had a Sony MEX-BT2500 for some time. MP3 CD and Bluetooth (audio and call), front Aux. The internal microphone gets the job done, but I have to shout over the road noise if I'm on the motorway. It plays an MP3 CD with an encoding fault that a cheaper unit gave up on, so the internals are good. Sound quality is OK - I'm not a sound buff when in the car. Ergonomics are OK, but not fantastic. It's blue.

a quick search brings up these

Car Audio Direct - Alpine CDE-9880R Bluetooth Pack - CD Player

Car Audio Direct - Pioneer DEH-P700BT - CD Player

and someone mentioned to me the Kenwood BT8041U however its only just been released.

ive personally not used any of these but ime the 1st two will be very good however you may end up sourcing an external mic on ebay or elsewhere so people can here you properly.

some head units will allow a car kit to be wired into them so that the voice comes through the stereo and the handsfree kjit will have a mic with it however youd be better asking on TA about which ones actually will allow this.

and one that well bellow your budget

Car Audio Direct - Kenwood KDC-W3541G Bluetooth - CD Player

I won't ever buy another sony head unit, but the laptops are fine.

I won't ever buy another sony head unit, but the laptops are fine.

see i wouldnt touch their laptops after having quite a few of them (and i used to sell them!!) but out of all the headunits ive had (alpine, clarion, panasonic, jvc but to name a few) ive always come back to sony for some reason. tbh ive had failures to most headunits but of my sonys ive always sold them on when i come to change them for something new, instead of binning them.

ive got a 10 disc changer and a dvd headunit plus sony components all round which ive had for well over a year now and the only reason i would change it would be to get a flip out screen. which sony dont do, so i would go for my second fav brand, Alpine.

granted they arent the best out there, but for monies spent they aint half bad imoa!

a quick search brings up these

Car Audio Direct - Alpine CDE-9880R Bluetooth Pack - CD Player

Car Audio Direct - Pioneer DEH-P700BT - CD Player

and someone mentioned to me the Kenwood BT8041U however its only just been released.

ive personally not used any of these but ime the 1st two will be very good however you may end up sourcing an external mic on ebay or elsewhere so people can here you properly.

some head units will allow a car kit to be wired into them so that the voice comes through the stereo and the handsfree kjit will have a mic with it however youd be better asking on TA about which ones actually will allow this.

and one that well bellow your budget

Car Audio Direct - Kenwood KDC-W3541G Bluetooth - CD Player

Ace!

Thanks for that, appreciate the effort. But gonna have to be picky and say the Aux are in the back. I am not too sure on the Alpine external BT box. Found just a little too many bad reviews:thumbup:

Just wondered if I have just managed to ask for the impossible...or a niche market lol

Car Audio Direct - Kenwood KDC-W3541G Bluetooth - CD Player

Reviews please!!!

see i wouldnt touch their laptops after having quite a few of them (and i used to sell them!!) but out of all the headunits ive had (alpine, clarion, panasonic, jvc but to name a few) ive always come back to sony for some reason. tbh ive had failures to most headunits but of my sonys ive always sold them on when i come to change them for something new, instead of binning them.

ive got a 10 disc changer and a dvd headunit plus sony components all round which ive had for well over a year now and the only reason i would change it would be to get a flip out screen. which sony dont do, so i would go for my second fav brand, Alpine.

granted they arent the best out there, but for monies spent they aint half bad imoa!

I've had 3 sonys all were replaced one or more times under warrenty.

Kenwood and Pioneer and Panasonic all good.

Random hey.

a quick search brings up these

Car Audio Direct - Alpine CDE-9880R Bluetooth Pack - CD Player

Car Audio Direct - Pioneer DEH-P700BT - CD Player

and someone mentioned to me the Kenwood BT8041U however its only just been released.

ive personally not used any of these but ime the 1st two will be very good however you may end up sourcing an external mic on ebay or elsewhere so people can here you properly.

some head units will allow a car kit to be wired into them so that the voice comes through the stereo and the handsfree kjit will have a mic with it however youd be better asking on TA about which ones actually will allow this.

and one that well bellow your budget

Car Audio Direct - Kenwood KDC-W3541G Bluetooth - CD Player

Thanks for your effort.... i'll have a look at the kenwood but do fancy the 700bt