I just tried my old (2001) Becker Mexico Pro CD tuner in the Fabia and it made virtually no difference to the sound quality. Whilst swapping back and forth between the 2 units I tried it at high/low volume, Cd/radio, with/without loudness, adjusted bass/treble etc... nope, for me it's not worth changing the Symphony for sound quality!

I know this will surprise a lot of you but to my ears there's nothing wrong with the sound quality of the Symphony with the standard speaker setup.

Don't know if it makes any difference but mine's a 2004 model made by Technisat with 4 x 20W power... same output power as the Becker.

Dont be surprised, playing same powered unit through the same speakers will achive the same sound, at the end of the day its the as much to do with speakers as the HU...just because lots of people diss the standard unit and swop it out doesn't mean you have too...but you will also find they swop there units for more powerful units, and at the same time swop the speakers and also add an amp..

Joel

IMHO the normal HU & changer + speakers are perfectly adequate. The sound quality is good, perhaps not excellent, and power-wise it's sufficient to get you pretty deaf too

There is always room for improvement but let's face it, most of the time a sub + amp for that would probably do a pretty decent job

I like a decent system in the car, and so far I've felt zero need to replace it.

I felt no reason to change my HU, but decided to once I found one I liked and it's made a world of difference. I bought the Alpine 9855R and even with the standard speakers volume and quality has improved. And thanks to time alignment I even get a decent soundstage which is what lacked previously. I'll be changing my standard comps soon with some JL's out of my old car and see how much of a difference there is.