Introduction

First off, for those who want to skip all or parts of this review, the review is broken up into the following sections:

Overall Impressions

Selection Process

Sony CDX-GT410U HU Review

Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Module Review and HD Radio - Personal Experiences

American International FMK565 Installation Kit Review and Switch Installation

120705002 Ford Wire Harness Kit

PP500 Posi-Products Stereo Connectors and Relay Installation

CC1418 Crimp Caps

DIN Removal Tools

Antenna Adapter

FQS10PK Female Quick Slides

Crutchfield Master Sheets and Tech Support

AntennaWorks (Metra) 44-UA60 Antenna Booster

 

Summary

 

 

I want to start off by thanking all the forum members and CF advisors that helped me out with the decision process and installation questions (particularly Jeff Kitchen and Shawn).

This write-up is here for four reasons:

• My reviews tend to be too wordy for the CF Review tab.

• I told the forum members that I asked advice of that I would let them know how it turned out (a little late).

• I wanted to share my experiences with others who might be considering the same units (now that some of them are discontinued).

 

• I did at least three unusual things with my install and wanted to cover those here (HD tuner installation behind dash, switch to turn on radio without a key in ignition, and relay to disable faceplate beep).

Now on to the reviews …

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2002 Ford Focus
Sony CDX-GT410u
Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner
Stock speakers, no amp, no subs

Overall Impressions

 

First off, here’s a photo of my ride:

Except for the new stereo, it’s a bone-stock 2002 Ford Focus SE, with the exception of the Kleen Wheels brake dust shields on the front (highly recommended) and I disconnected the factory panic alarm b/c it went off a few times accidentally and annoyed me.  (It came with the factory 6006 six-disc non-MP3 in-dash CD changer, btw).

 

And here’s a photo of the new stereo installed:

More pictures later - you can see the rocker switch below the radio on the left for turning the HU on and off without the key.

 

I have had the stereo for just about 10 months now, but most of this review was written nine months ago when I was first using it (ordered September 28, 2007) and am very happy with it overall - I’ll fill in more details later, but for now:

 

Overall Summary:

 

Basically, I had forgotten how good quality music can sound.  To me, a stereo is “good enough” when you are happy listening to it and look forward to hearing it again.  That level will vary from individual to individual.  I’m sure there are some people who would hate the relative lack of SQ of my system, but to me, it passes the above test with flying colors.  I’m not even planning to replace the speakers in the car unless these blow out at some point.

 

Expected Results:

 

The stereo is allowing me to turn up the bass, and the factory speakers are playing fine with it.  (Actually, I didn’t think I would be able to turn it all the way up with them but I can.)  They aren’t as clear as aftermarket speakers would be, but they are doing the job fine.

 

Between the HD tuner and the MP3 CD and USB drives, I have a ton of variety in listening sources.

 

The stereo blends in nicely with the rest of the interior, IMHO.

 

I shouldn’t mention this, but I will anyway:  One of the reasons for getting HD radio for me was that the morning AM newscast that I listen to driving to work is simulcast on one of the FM-HD2 radio stations.  Since I didn’t change the band when I got to work, that meant that I would sometimes catch the Sean Hannity show when I left work.  I dislike Hannity, but he would often have interesting guest (especially "Richard, but he goes by a name the forum censors" Morris) on, so I would sometimes get sucked into listening to them and seeing how long it would take Sean to do something that made me mad enough to turn his show off.  Since the Sony doesn’t stay on HD subchannels after you turn it off, I never catch his show and I’ve been much happier.  (In the interest of the Fairness Doctrine, I enjoy listening to Neal Boortz especially and Rush Limbaugh when I can find his show, so now I hopefully have offended the liberals as well as the conservatives.)

 

Unexpected Results:

 

The USB port and a USB thumb drive have gotten much more use and worked much better than I originally expected.  I thought they would be something I might use once in a great while, but it’s been very convenient to listen to songs on the USB drive before finalizing them on CD.

 

You don’t notice some of the compromises you make b/c of lack of volume with the factory radio.  I used to try to never turn the A/C fan up above 2 (it goes from off to 4) b/c it was really loud on the higher speeds.  Now I don’t hear it over the radio, even on high speed.  Also, the Focus always had interior rattles that drove me nuts previously.  I can’t imagine that it is rattling any less now, but with the stereo louder and playing bass now, many of those also get drowned out.  (I have recently corrected most of the rattles, but had not at the time I wrote the review).

 

Listening habits:  Previously, I would only have a couple of CD’s in the factory changer that I wanted to listen to, so I would go through the 4 or 5 stations that I liked, and if nothing good was on, I would listen to one song on the CD, then see if anything good was on the radio again, etc.  Now I have 8-10 stations to choose from with the HD2 feeds and sometimes I’ll make it home without listening to a CD, other times I’ll play a CD pretty early in the drive, but once I select a CD, I usually don’t go back to listening to the radio until tomorrow.

 

HD Radio has been somewhat of a mixed bag, but I’ll get to that more below.  In the Atlanta market, there isn’t that much variety, so it ends up with a case of The Boss’s song “57 channels and nothing on”.  Also, surprisingly, some of the stations don’t have it set up properly, so it could sound better if they would make some adjustments.  Overall though the clarity and variety are much improved over analog FM, and I’m glad I can take advantage of it.

 

Being able to find out the song title and artist on some HD stations is a really useful feature and I didn’t expect that and am really enjoying it.

 

It would be unfair to say reception is worse with the Sony than the factory radio, but the HD station I listen to the most is the farthest away from me at some 57 miles to the transmitter, so the HD fades in and out especially on this station.  I plan to add an antenna booster and see if it helps, but it’s not a big deal if it doesn’t.

 

<Since initial writing I have found myself listening more to the USB drive than either HD or CD, and there is now a second decent FM station in the market>.

 

Gripes:

 

My only real gripe is that the HU lacks an attenuation button on the radio itself.  It has one on the remote, but I rarely have the remote handy and would never use it at all if the ATT feature were available on the HU itself.  OTOH, I never even had an ATT feature on any of my previous stereos, remote or not, so I guess I’m just getting spoiled!

 

The other minor gripe is that the HD tuner is always in digital mode unless it is out of range.  There are some stations that don’t have the HD processing down yet and actually sound better in analog, and there are times when the HD comes in and out and it would be better to lock it in analog mode.

 

I suppose the last minor gripe is that I would prefer to have a rear USB port (that I could extend to the front console area) so I could leave a USB thumbdrive or HD connected without the thumbdrive sticking out or cables hanging down the dash.  Tinted windows would solve most of this problem, but my vision and driving is bad enough as it is, and Sony doesn’t make any rear port HU’s anyway.  Initially, I thought the thumbdrive would see very occasional if any use, but it has proven really handy.

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2002 Ford Focus
Sony CDX-GT410u
Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner
Stock speakers, no amp, no subs

Selection Process

 

“What a long, strange trip it’s been …”  This section describes how I chose the Sony HU and tuner system.  I started thinking about the system in May of 2007 and finally placed the order in September, which is probably some kind of record, but it gave me plenty of time to decide what was really important, and I likely made a better choice because of it.

 

A HU is likely one of the most difficult and frustrating decisions in a car audio system.  Amplifiers for the most part either are reliable or they are cheap, and speakers now are hidden behind the factory grilles, so while one might not sound quite as good as another, it’s not the type thing that will grate on you.  OTOH, the HU is the centerpiece of your system, and you will be looking at it and changing settings on it continually, so choosing poorly will come back to haunt you.  Also, unlike many other components, there are often not easy upgrades.  For example, if you choose poorly and your speakers lack bass, you can always add a powered sub to make up the missing sound.  If you decide you really wanted a two-line HU, you pretty much need to replace it to get the new feature.

 

I’ve also found from personal experience in the past that one or two annoying features will bother you more over time than one or two must-have features will please you, so given a choice, the HU that does the least things wrong in your opinion is likely better than the one that does the most right.

 

Important Features Considered:

 

An important first step is choosing what features are important to you, and which are nice to have, but not a big deal if you don’t have them.  While I have had many aftermarket HU’s in the past and had some idea what I wanted, my last system was a Kenwood from 2000-ish when CD players were finally dropping below $200, so a lot of the newer features were not around when I last shopped, and it was hard to get a feel for what was really important or not so important.

 

This is what I looked for:

 

• HD Radio - This was important to me.  I knew the morning news was being broadcast locally on HD2, and I hoped there were other classic album-oriented rock stations on HD2 also (so far there really aren’t).  When I started searching, only JVC had an affordable HD tuner solution.  Alpine and Kenwood had add-on tuners that were more expensive than the HU’s themselves, and Sony and Dual had not released their offerings.
• MP3 Playback - This was basically the main reason for the upgrade.  I was frustrated with the lack of quality FM programming, and the ability to put up to 15 albums on a single CD was a great improvement.  It was really not a determinant, though as it was hard to find a HU without going to extreme bargain units that did not support MP3.
• Satellite Capable - This also was not a determinant.  I can’t see myself paying a monthly fee to listen to the radio, and again, you have to try pretty hard to find a modern HU that is not satellite-ready.  However, it would have been a major negative to me if it were not available as an option.
• Clock Display - Probably seems odd to have this as high on this list as it is, but it was a primary concern for me.  My car does not have a clock separate from the radio, and I keep track of the time a lot as I am driving.  The factory radio had the clock on all the time, so that was ideally what I wanted, but the fact that Sony scrolls the ID3 info when an MP3 track changes and then returns to clock mode and has only a few clicks to get back to the clock was a good compromise.
• Styling - Requirements here were pretty simple, but oddly hard to find.  My car has a black central dash, and white or light green dash lights.  And I wasn’t really looking for the “leaping dolphins”.  Ten years ago, this was really common.  Alpine had the green chicklet buttons.  Pioneer has mostly green displays.  Clarion or Blaupunkt let you choose from hundreds of colors.  Now most of the high end stereos have gone to either blue (okay by me) or red (don’t like) illumination, and either charcoal or silver trim.  The Sony was nice in this respect in that it is basically black trim and selectable green or red illumination with a blue display.
• FM Reception - I listen to quite a bit of FM, and this is one of those items that can really showcase a HU and is also very hard to evaluate.  I’ve had units with great sensitivity specs that didn’t tune in station well, and HU’s that played great in the driveway and bad when the car was moving.  And listening in a stereo shop that likely has a 30-foot aerial on the roof connected doesn’t tell you anything.  The Sony seems to be pretty good, but I was mainly going on specs, a bit of experience with my daughter’s stereo, and CF’s satisfaction guarantee when I ordered it.
• MP3 Tag display - What I was mainly considering here was a two-line display, so I could see Album and Song of my MP3 files.  I wasn’t sure if I needed this or not, since it was unavailable before MP3, but I decided to pass on it, and the Auto-Scroll feature on the Sony makes a nice substitute for it.
• Ergonomics - I had a fairly simple test for this - basically I would download and read the owner’s manual at night, and then look at the unit on display the next day and see if I could still figure out how to change albums, set display colors, and operate the unit.  The Sony did very well with this, the only drawbacks are some button features are not illuminated, and you press OFF to turn the HU off, but press Source to turn it on again - and press Mode to change the frequency band.  Once you learn those few quirks, all the rest is very simple.
• USB Input - This is a feature I added to the list later.  As I said earlier, I didn’t really expect that I would use it, but I thought it would be nice to have the capability to use it if I wanted to.  I was wrong and I was right!!!

 

Research Methods:

 

Basically, I downloaded and read through the owner’s manuals for the HU’s I was considering.  Then I made up a test CD of MP3 files and went down to brick‑and‑mortar stores and looked and listened to the units when possible.  Not much more involved than that.

 

Products Considered:

 

Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I had owned a number of HU’s over the years, so I had some (inaccurate?) pre‑conceived notions on what brands were good, and that doesn’t seem to have changed all that much.  Note:  The list below is the general progression, but I tended to consider all the available products ‑ i.e. I didn’t go in and only look at JVC, go back a week later and only look at Alpine, etc.

 

·         Ironically, the first thing I did was eliminate Sony.  My daughter has a Sony CDX‑L410X and it has an annoying beep if you don’t remove the faceplate, and at the time Sony didn’t offer HD or a two‑line display, so I didn’t think I wanted one.  I occasionally messed with them and liked the sound and display, but the other factors outweighed it (or so I thought).  I also eliminated Kenwood pretty quickly.  I had an early Kenwood CD deck that did poorly in FM reception, and I tested a few Kenwood HU’s and that took a long time to read an MP3 CD and more importantly took this amount of time even just switching back to the CD from the tuner and I thought this would really bother me.

• Initially, I highly considered the JVC KD-HDR1.  However, I thought the styling was a bit busy and the unit was difficult for navigate the menu’s without the owner’s manual handy, so I ended up deciding against this and thinking I was focusing too much on HD at the cost of features I would definitely be using.
• The next units I considered were Alpines.  I had always liked their sound quality and styling.  Also, ironically, the decision came down to some of their most expensive and least expensive models.  Best Buy had a clearance sale on the CDA-9857 for $229.  CF also had some outlet store models of this for around $280 which is about what BB would come to with the installation hardware.  This was a 2006 model with two line display and clock and green buttons.  The CDE-9885 was essentially the same unit for 2007 with red buttons for $300.  The last unit I was considering was the CDE-9870 for about $120.  Three things killed Alpine for me:
• The CDE-9870 lacked a clock button, and had a bunch of items to scroll through to get to the clock - you had to go through if memory serves: file, folder, track number, artist, song, album, comments, and VBR to get to clock.  The unit was also very fussy about symbols in the ID3 tags and would display “NO INFO” even if a tag was blank.
• Aside from the price, the CDE-9857 and 9885 were nice units, but the clock display was pretty small, and although they were supposed to, I could not get the units to display Album and Song Title from the ID3 tag info.  I could get folder name and song title, so it wasn’t a deal-breaker, but I also hated spending the same amount of money for last year’s model with green buttons (which I preferred) or this year’s model with red buttons that I didn’t like as well.
• Alpine has three banks of five presets on their HU’s.  I don’t listen to more than 15 stations, but I got used to storing my 12 favorite stations in bands 1-2 and keeping band 3 for travel presets and I couldn’t do that with these units.
• Next I looked at Pioneer and considered the DEH-P2900MP, DEH-P3900MP, DEH-P4900iB, DEH-P5900iB, and DEH-P6900uB.  The 2900 was eliminated early on b/c it only had an 8-character display and you had to manually scroll the ID3 info.  The 4900 I liked, but I considered it a compromise unit, it had the 2-line display I wanted, but the clock display was not constant, and it was a bit plain.  Ultimately, I decided I would rather spend more on the 5900 or save more on the 3900.  The 6900 should have gotten more consideration but I didn’t like the motorized faceplate and didn’t think I would use the USB jack that often.  Which left the 3900 (does what I need) and the 5900 (does most of what I want).  In the end, I found out that my BluBlocker sunglasses made the 5900 very hard to read and I thought I wanted something a bit flashier than the 3900.
• So I started looking for other 2-line plus clock units and came across the JVC KD-G730 and KD-G830.  I couldn’t find one of these locally to look at, but from the owners manual and pictures I liked how the face was laid out and the soft-menus where the display would highlight what a button did in each mode the HU was in, also the variable color display and backlighting.  I decided the USB port on the 830 would be more useful than the AUX input on the 730, but I also thought they were fairly pricey units and JVC doesn’t have a great reputation for FM tuners.
• On a whim, I checked out Sony again (I had briefly played with them on the display units and Sony had introduced their HD tuner module in the mean-time.)  It turned out when I looked at the HD tuners, Sony was running a $50 MIR which brought the price down to $50.  I decided I either liked the CDX-GT510 or the CDX-GT410u the best.  The CDX-GT510 had dual pre-out jacks so I could attach an external amp and eliminate the faceplate beep, and the CDX-GT410u had the USB port.

 

Final Decisions:

 

In the end, I had seven radios I was seriously considering:  Alpine 9870, JVC HDR1, JVC G830, Pioneer 3900 and 5900, and Sony 410u and 510.  I made a chart of the most important features to me: Strong FM section, HD capability, USB capability, and 2-line MP3 display balanced against price.  The Sony CDX-GT410u was the clear winner with 3 of the 4 features for a cost of $200 including the HD tuner module, so that’s what I went with and it’s been a great decision.

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2002 Ford Focus
Sony CDX-GT410u
Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner
Stock speakers, no amp, no subs

Sony CDX-GT410U HU Review

 

NOTE: Pictures are further down under the Dual Illumination section.

 

Disclaimer:

 

If you are just glancing over this, it may seem that I have more Cons than Pros and you may think that I am not happy with the unit - That is not the case at all.  It is a case where the unit does most things really well (and the things it does well are the things that matter to me), but there are a few things that could be better with it -most of which I don’t care about.

 

Also, I am using the Sony XT‑100HD HD Tuner module with the unit, so will not directly compare it’s internal FM tuner performance.

 

Overview/Hands-On Research:

 

The manual does not correctly describe the HU display.  The HU has a three‑character display for mode and an 8‑character information display.  The mode characters are slightly shorter than the information characters.  The HU has the following six modes (in this order) selected by pressing SOURCE button and the modes can display the following bulleted items (in order) by pressing the DISP button:

 

• TUNER - This is the internal tuner, not the HD Radio Tuner - this mode is still present if the HD Tuner is connected, but since the antenna is not connected to the HU, it doesn’t do anything:
• Band/Preset/Frequency  - i.e. “FM11____88.5”
• Band/Clock - i.e. “FM1_____4:45”

If a different station is selected, the display will show the new station and frequency for about 1 second before returning to the previous display mode.

 

• CD - This is only present if a CD is inserted in the HU.  I believe the unit auto-switches to CD mode if a CD is inserted.  The following applies to MP3 CD’s, I haven’t listened to others
• Track and elapsed Time - TRACK is highlighted on the display, i.e.  “CD__2__0:45”  NOTE:  Track is just the sequential file number in the folder and DOES NOT necessarily correspond to the ID3 Tag Track Number.
• Folder Name - ALBM is highlighted in the display.  Also, the scrolling displays truncates after 32 characters, although it will still play these folders just fine.  This is the Folder name as viewed in Windows Explore, not the ID3 Album Tag, so a folder named “Dire Straits - 1982 - Love Over Gold” would scroll as “CD_DIRE_STRAITS_-_1982_-_LOVE_OVER_” and end as “CD_DIRE_STR”.  The display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.
• File Name - TRACK is highlighted in the display.  This is the File name as viewed in Windows Explorer, not the ID3 Title Tag.  I am not sure if it truncates.  Again, the display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.  Thus a file named “01 ‑ Telegraph Road . mp3” will scroll as “CD_01_-_TELEGRAPH_ROAD_.MP3” and end up as “CD_01_-_TEL”  It is a good idea to start the file name with the file’s Track number on the album, but this is not required. 
• ID3 Tag Info - Title/Artist/Album - i.e. starts as “CD_TELEGRAPH_ROAD/DIRE_STRIATS/LOVE_OVER_GOLD”, ends as “CD_TELEGRAP”.  I believe the HU supports v1.x and v2.x Tag info.  There is no way to view the Year, Comment, Track Number, or Genre tags.  I am not sure how the unit handles a tag that is left blank.  The display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.
• CD/Clock - i.e. “CD______4:45”

If a different file is manually selected, or the end of the song is reached, the HU will display the “Track and Elapsed Time” display for about 1 second before returning to the previous display mode.  It the end of the folder is reached or a new folder is manually selected - the HU will highlight ALBUM and show the sequential folder number prior to showing the display above.

 

If “Auto-Scroll” is selected in the menu, the HU will also scroll the ID3 Tag Info once as follows before returning to the previous mode:  The display will scroll all the Title/Artist/Album and then the first 8 Characters of the Title again before returning to the previous menu.  For example, if the ID3 Tag Info mode would have ended up with  “CD_TELEGRAP”  the display will scroll the entire info and the Telegrap before returning to the other mode.  This is helpful because if you miss the start of the scroll, you will at least see the start of the title again.

 

If an ID3 character is not recognized, for example an apostrophe, the display will substitute an underscore, i.e. “LOVE_S RECOVERY”

 

If Pause (Keypad #6) is selected, the display will show “CD__PAUSE__”.  The unit will stay paused until the button is pressed again (or another source is selected), however, if the unit is powered off and back on, it will resume playing and will not remain paused.

 

I believe files are numbered in the order they are burned to the disc, not necessarily alphabetically.

 

• USB - This mode is always present and cannot be disabled.  When first selected, the HU displays “_____USB___”.  If no USB device is connected, the HU displays “USB_NO_DEV_”  With an MP3 USB device first connected, the HU shows “USB____READ”, and then the HU has the following modes, which are similar to the CD MP3 modes, but not in the same order:
• Track and elapsed Time - TRACK is highlighted on the display, i.e.  “USB__2__0:45”  NOTE:  Track is just the sequential file number in the folder and DOES NOT necessarily correspond to the ID3 Tag Track Number.
• USB/Clock - i.e. “USB_____4:45”
• ID3 Title/Artist - TRACK is highlighted on the display.  i.e. starts as “USBTELEGRAPH_ROAD/DIRE_STRAITS”, ends as “USBTELEGRAP”.  The display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.
• ID3 Album - ALBM is highlighted on the display.  i.e. starts as “USBLOVE_OVER_GOLD”, ends as “USBLOVE_OVE”.  The display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.

 

NOTE:  There is no way to display actual file or folder name, so it is pretty important to correctly ID3 tag your USB MP3 files.

 

If a different file is manually selected, or the end of the song is reached, the HU will display the “Track and Elapsed Time” display briefly before returning to the previous display mode.  It the end of the folder is reached or a new folder is manually selected - the HU will highlight ALBUM and show the sequential folder number prior to showing the display above.

 

Auto-Scroll works identically to CD mode.

 

Pause also works ideantically to CD mode, except the display will show “USB_PAUSE__”.

 

• AUX - This item can be disabled in the Setup Menu if the AUX input is not planned to be used and then is not shown.  I have not used this connection, but based on the nature of the connection, I don’t think any digital info is transferred and it works exactly the same way as shown below:
• AUX  FRONT IN - Exactly as stated, the display shows “AUX_FRONT_IN”
• AUX/Clock - i.e. “AUX_____4:45”

 

• HD Radio - This mode is only present when the Sony XT-100HD Tuner Module is connected to the HU.  The various display modes are as follows:
• Band/Preset/HD/Frequency  - i.e. “HD13_*_88.5”  The bands range from HD1 to HD5 for the three FM and two AM bands.  The “3” indicates preset 3, the asterisk indicates it is an HD station, and “88.5” is the frequency.
• Band/Call Letters/Station Type - i.e. “HD1KROC-HD_”  The last three digits can be either:
  ‑FM ‑ Non HD station or acquiring digital signal.
  -HD - Digital station with no subchannels available.
  -HD1 - Digital Station with subchannels available (Multicasting)
  -HD2 - Digital subchannel (-HD3 -- -HD7, for example also).
  The display will temporarily show the station as ‑FM while acquiring the digital signal before changing to the new suffix.  If the station is broadcasting analog or not in digital range, the HU will display “HD1_NO_NAME”.
• Band/Song Title - i.e.  i.e. starts as “HD1TELEGRAPH_ROAD”, ends as “HD1TELEGRAP”.  The display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.  If the station is not broadcasting song titles, the display will show “HD1_NO_INFO”
• Band/Artist Name - i.e.  “HD1  DIRE STRAITS”  The display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.  If the station is not broadcasting song titles, the display will show “HD1  NO INFO”
• Band/Album Name - i.e.  “HD1  LOVE OVER GOLD”  Some stations decide to display the station slogan instead of the album data, so it is possible the display might scroll “HD1  K-ROCK IN THE MORNING” in place of the album name.  The display will scroll one time if it is too long to fit in the display and you can repeat the scrolling with the SCRL button.  If the station is not broadcasting song titles, the display will show “HD1  NO INFO”
• Band/Clock - i.e. “HD1_____4:45”

If the band is changed, (MODE Button), the HU briefly shows the cross‑reference ‑ i.e. “HD2      FM2”.

 

If a different station is selected, the display will briefly show the new station and frequency followed (for digital stations only) by the Call Letters and Station type briefly before returning to the previous display mode.

 

When the HD tuner is first activated, the HU briefly shows all three (if applicable) of the above items.

 

Auto‑Scroll has no effect on HD Radio ‑ i.e. if the station is broadcasting song titles and the unit is in clock mode, it will NOT temporarily scroll the song name when a new song comes on.

 

• CD Changer/iPod/Satellite Radio - I don’t have these items, so I can’t comment on the display settings for them or where they would appear.  I think the sattelite radio tuner shows up as a cd changer identified from the CD menu as CD2, but can’t say for sure.

 

When the unit is shut off, but still powered, the clock is displayed and the buttons are still illuminated.

 

EQ3 Settings - The manual does not tell you what the EQ3 settings mean, but the Crutchfield Hands-On-Research does.  Any of the settings can be changed with the menu, so if you have VOCAL selected and you increase the treble, VOCAL is now a custom setting.  There is no way to restore the default VOCAL setting other than resetting or removing power from the unit, or seeing what CF says the settings used to be and manually setting it back to that.  Also the settings are saved by source, so to select a custom setting that you like for all sources, you have to go to each source and select it.  OTOH, if you want to use XPLOD for your AUX source and VOCAL for the CD source, you can select them and the unit will retain your settings.

 

EQ3 Display - The display has a bar graph on the right to show the current EQ3 setting.  This sounds like a useful idea except that the display uses a four bar graph to display 21 positions (-10 to +10 and neutral).  This means that my setting of Bass +6 Mid +3 Treble +6 looks flat.

 

Dimmer Control - The unit does not use the illumination lead on your stereo.  There is a manual dimmer setting.  I found the unit to be not quite bright enough on BRT in daylight (with sunglasses it is readable, but it washes out fairly bad otherwise, and I could see it being a real problem in direct sunlight in a convertible) and not quite as dim as I would like it on DIM at night.  Overall, I didn’t want to change the setting and decided to leave it on the BRT setting and just have the radio brighter than the rest of the dash at night.  (Although now with winter approaching, I tend to leave it on DIM b/c it is dark when I leave and when I come home).  Sony did add a nice feature in that if you hold the DISP button, the unit will toggle the dimmer setting, but it baffles my why Sony bothered to include all these different settings and not just run another wire out of the harness, as there must be solder points that the DISP button is activating that they could have used - at least I would think there would be.

 

UPDATE:  After some more consideration, I decided that Sony didn’t handle this too badly.  I don’t have daytime running lights on my car, and I often use the headlights during the day on the highway, and I have seen radios where the display was unreadable b/c it dimmed when the headlights were on in the daytime.  At least this unit avoids that.  I think the JVC KD-G720/G730 does the best job of this in that it will allow you to have a certain time of day that the unit switches from DIM to BRT, but Sony could have done much worse.

 

Volume - The unit is plenty loud enough, but I think I got my expectations too high.  On my factory HU I had the bass set at -1 (on a -6-+6 scale IMS) b/c it would distort at higher than this, and I could only set the volume to 15 out of 30, b/c it would distort, although this was not loud enough for me.  The Sony volume goes to 34 and it is 17W RMS (and I was told the Ford HU was between 2 and 5 W RMS), so I really expected to not need to go above about 11 on the Sony and for my factory speakers not to handle above 17 on it.  The Sony is fine with the bass at +6 (on a -10-+10 scale) but 11-14 is moderately quiet on it and I normally listen to talk at about 20 on it and music at about 23-25.  (I have turned it all the way up and the speakers are hanging in there so far).  25 is as loud as I usually want to play it and it will produce more volume above that, so I can’t complain about it, but my expectations seem to have been a bit unrealistic.

 

Pros:

 

Versatility - Other than a dual-line display, there is not much you are giving up with this unit.  The unit can play MP3/WMA/AAC/ATRAC files (although MP3 is all I ever see myself using), has a front AUX port, a front USB port, external HD tuner module compatible, external XM/Sirius tuner module compatible, available iPod adapter cable.  18 FM and 12 AM presets, etc.

 

Clean Lines - The unit is a nice dark graphite which works well with either a black or gray dash and the lines are nicely understated IMHO, which looks good in the dash.

 

Easy to operate - Basically, if you’ve set it up once, you can throw away the manual.  Most things are laid out as I would expect - press the volume knob to access sound settings, press and hold the volume knob to access the setup menu. However a few setup menu items (Aux Port Enable, Cancel/Enable Demo Mode, Select Sub/Rear Pre-Outs) can only be accessed when the menu is selected with the unit powered off, but this is not too confusing.   Turning the unit Off with the OFF button but On with the SOURCE button can be confusing as well, but that is standard for Sony.

 

Dual Illumination - The LED display is blue but the pushbuttons can be either red or green.  Green looks much better in my Focus, but I like the option of changing it if a replacement car looks bad with green.  This used to be a very common feature in car stereos - Pioneer has any color buttons you want on the AVIC-D3, but there are less than a handful of HU’s other than these that incorporate it, and I have no idea why - especially red/green, as I think LED’s are used for this and bi-color red-green LED’s are very common and should cost only pennies to add.

 

Here again is a daytime photo of the unit installed in the Focus (The text is MUCH crisper in real life):

 

 

Here is a daytime photo of the unit with red buttons:

 

 

Here are two night shots of the unit with green buttons.  My camera does not do justice to these:

 

 

The unit doesn’t have nearly as much “bloom” as the above photo, but it shows the match between the dash lights and the radio pretty well.

This picture captures the true lighting a bit better.

 

 

Here is a picture with the red illumination, but it really doesn’t do credit to the unit.  It is not nearly as orange.  The buttons are a very bright red, similar to Alpine or Kenwood’s or JVC’s decks, if you are familiar with them.

 

 

The AUX port can be disabled in the menu so if you are rarely using it, you don’t have to scroll past it when you switch between tuner and CD.

 

Auto-Off - The unit can be set (through the set-up menu) to turn off after 30 Seconds, 30 Minutes, or 60 Minutes after the power is shut off.  I don’t think there are many times that I would use this, but it doesn’t hurt to offer it and some people might find it useful.

 

Dancing Display - When you select a different DISP mode or a different source, the HU briefly has a bunch of spinning slashes on the screen.  Some users hate this, but I thought it was pretty cool.  (Would probably be good if Sony had a menu option to disable it if you wanted to, though).

 

I like the way Sony handled the ID3 Tag Display and the auto-scroll feature.  You can have it in clock mode and know what the next song will be, and you also do not have that many clicks to get from clock mode back to it again if you scroll through the display options.

 

The USB Drive seems to index very quickly compared to what’s been written about some of the Kenwood HU’s (older DD models) in the forum.  A full PNY 512M took about 3 seconds to index, and my Sandisk 1GB drive took about 6 seconds to index.  This is much better than the one minute/GB that was reported for the Kenwood drives.  This is also the same Sandisk drive that took fully 5 minutes to index 30Mb of MP3’s scattered amongst 900M of files.  So it seems that number of files on the drive makes a big difference and it is a good idea to keep a dedicated music drive.  Based on this, an 8GB drive should take less than a minute to index, and a 16GB drive should be around a minute and a half.  I don’t know if a true HD would be faster than the thumb drives or not - likely not due to access time.  Again, though, you have to wait for the index period whenever you restart the car, power off the HU and back on, or remove and re-insert the drive, and you can’t listen to any other sources while it is indexing.  (This seems to be a typical problem for USB inputs, though).

 

I am finding the USB to be useful for pre-processing music.  My computer speakers and not very detailed, and I can’t play them loudly, so it is very convenient to copy songs to the USB drive, listen to them on the Sony, note instances of tape hiss or artifacts, edit them on the PC using Audacity, and then listen to the edited files on USB before burning them to a final CD.

 

<Since writing this I purchased a 2GB USB drive for $15.  I store 40 albums on it, it takes 15 seconds to index, and I can listen to it for about three months before I have to take it in and re-load it with a different group of albums>

 

Random Play - I only used this once so far, b/c I was curious how Sony handled it and they did great (at least for USB, I haven’t tried it on CD).  You can select from Folder and it will play all the songs in the current folder in random order, or Device, and it will play all the files on the drive in random order.  Shutting down and re-starting the unit or selecting another source and returning it will pick up where it left off and will still be in random mode.  Skip forward will select a new random song, and Skip Back will return to the start of the current song.  The one thing I would in a way like would be a “random Folder Folder” mode, where it would play only the songs in a current folder in random order, and then select a new random folder and play all it’s songs in random order, but that’s asking a bit much.

 

The unit does not have a flip-face.  I know many people will argue that this allows dust to enter the CD mechanism.  To me, it’s one less button to push when putting a CD into the unit, and one less thing to eventually break on the unit.

 

Cons:

 

The owner’s manual says something about “If you use high-bitrate MP3, such as 320CBR, sound may be intermittent.”  320CBR is loss-less and a bit ridiculous for use in a car, IMHO, but for some reason I would feel better if the unit had a hard time with low-quality recordings than high-quality ones.  But it doesn’t affect me anyway, though.

 

The HU only has one set of RCA output jacks, but these can be set to either REAR or SUBWOOFER mode.  To me this is acceptable as I can use the pre-outs to a subwoofer and the speaker level or a LOC to a full-range amp and still be able to fade or control the subwoofer volume from the HU.

 

The HU can be set to beep whenever a button is pressed.  You can (and I did) disable this in the setup menu, so I guess it shouldn’t really be a con.

 

The only way to attenuate the unit is through the remote control.  You can turn it off on FM or Pause it on CD or USB from the HU, but not attenuate it.

 

The unit does not have a loudness button so it is hard to get it to sound good at both low and high volumes.  Again, this was in years past a standard feature - for a while the industry was going to automatic loudness compensation, and now it seems to be being phased out.

 

Pre-sets and setup menu settings are not saved if the harness is unplugged.  I don’t know of any HU’s that incorporate this feature other than my Ford 6006 HU, but I thought it was a great idea in that HU.

 

Several of the functions (such as pause, repeat, and shuffle) are completely non-lighted, so if you want to access them at night you better have memorized where they are.

 

The HU beeps whenever the USB source is selected.  I would rather have the unit not display USB as a selectable source if nothing is plugged into the USB port, alternately I would like to turn it on and off through the setup menu like the AUX port, but if it is going to be always enabled, I don’t see why it needs to beep at me.  It doesn’t  beep when I select AUX or CD, and I see no purpose for it, but it’s a minor annoyance.

 

USB files seem to be played back in the order they were copied to the disk (not the file date, and not alphabetically).  MP3 CD’s may do this as well, but my MP3 burning software (Nero) burns them alphabetically anyway.  However, Windows (XP at least) usually tries to copy each batch of files in alphabetical order but copies the last alphabetical folder first.  I am not sure if this works for multiple files selected with Ctrl-Click, but if works for Shift-Click.  For example, I copied my first ten folders to the drive, then had space for three more and copied those over.  Folder 10 was played back first, followed by Folder 2 in order through Folder 13 (skipping 10, of course).  I then tried moving the drive contents back to a folder on the HD and then back to the USB drive.  This put Folder 13 first followed by 1 through 12 (which is not too bad, b/c after you start at Folder 2, when the drive repeats, the folders are in order).  Finally, I tried moving Folder 13 off the drive and then moving it back so it would be last, but this did not work, possibly b/c the files were not really removed, just the directory listings, since I didn’t write anything else to the drive in between.  This problem also seems to be typical for most USB input HU’s, though, although I have found three possible solutions, but only actually tried the first two:

• If you put all the folders that you want on the USB drive in a temporary folder and use the dreaded DOS XCOPY command, the files will be transferred alphabetically.  I.e. put all the folders that you want to put on the USB drive in C:\Temp.  Open a command prompt window at C:\Temp and type in “xcopy *.* /s e:\”, where E: is the letter of your USB drive and the /s parameter tell the command to include subdirectories.  The drawback to this is it is a bit slow and it requires you to have available free space on your HD equal to the size of your USB drive, not bad for a small flash drive, not good for a 1TB portable drive.
• Create an empty folder named “Z” (or “zzzzzz”) and drag and drop it along with the other folders that you want to copy to the USB drive in one single batch.  Delete “Z” from the USB drive after the transfer.
• Drag and drop each folder individually in the order you want the drive to read them - cumbersome with a flash drive and impossible with a USB Hard Drive.

 

UPDATE: The second method above may not always be necessary - I think Windows only copies the final folder before the initial one when the final folder is smaller than the initial one - but it has not failed me so far.

 

UPDATE2:  Since writing this, a forum member recommended a program called DriveSort, which works great for this.

 

The USB terminal cover looks like it could be easily lost ‑ I don’t like tethered solutions however.  Something like a sliding door or flip open cover could work but would be more expensive.  The unit looks fine with the cover removed, so if it did get lost, it’s not earth‑shattering.  (And honestly, it stays removed more often than not).  <It got lost about a month after I wrote this review initially, so I haven’t seen it in about 8 months>.

 

Wire gauge - I am just mentioning this b/c it seems silly to me and another reviewer commented on it as well.  The speaker wires on the Sony harness are ridiculously small.  I understand copper is expensive, and I understand you don’t need 14‑gauge to the speakers to handle 17W RMS of power, but when I would need to triple or quad‑fold the wiring to go to the small (red) 18‑22 gauge terminals it’s too small.  It doesn’t affect the SQ and as long as you are using the Posi‑Twists or soldered wiring it works fine, but there should be a limit on how far cost‑cutting is carried.  OTOH, if this really bothers you, a great workaround is to get one of the new Metra universal wiring kits that matches the Sony HU plug and just snip off the universal end of it and use it in place of the Sony harness.

 

The unit does not support the Sony wired remote, so if I got a car with steering wheel controls, I would have to use the infrared emitter version of the remote to use them.

 

Faceplate Beep ‑ This almost kept me from getting the unit.  Sony has a feature bug where the unit will beep at you once the ignition is shut off and the faceplate is not removed (Pioneer does this also, but it can be disabled in the setup menu).  This is great if you take the faceplate with you.  I never do so.  For me, what it means is that people who know stereos get an indication that there’s a Sony radio in the car waiting for them to steal.  More likely it means people who are riding with you will think you left the lights on or the keys in the car, or some kind of alarm system, which I guess you could play it off as.  My son said it was weird.  The only approved way to disable it is to bypass the speaker level wires altogether (on this unit, that means losing the ability to fade channels and losing the ability to control a subwoofer amp.  Fortunately I found that I can wire the speaker returns across a 4‑pole relay and disable the beep, but Sony REALLY should include a menu item to disable this.

 

The biggest con to the unit isn’t really a con, but is the fact that I am stuck with this unit.  What I mean by that is since I bought the HD tuner, I am pretty well locked into Sony if this HU breaks and so far I’m not very impressed with their 2008 lineup (this is a 2007 model), so if this unit breaks and is no longer being produced, I may have a hard decision ahead.

---

2002 Ford Focus
Sony CDX-GT410u
Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner
Stock speakers, no amp, no subs

Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Module Review and HD Radio - Personal Experiences

 

Note: Pictures are further down with the installation instructions.

 

Disclaimer:

 

The review covers operation of the unit with the Sony CDX‑GT410u and may not be completely accurate for other Sony HU’s.  Only this unit has been evaluated, so direct comparison with competing HD tuners is not assumed.

 

HD Features:

 

If you are new to HD, I recommend you read my HD Buyer’s Guide and also this thread. However, that was written before I had hands‑on experience with HD Radio, so I wanted to clarify a few things here.

 

Multicasting ‑ One of the best selling points for HD Radio is the idea of multi‑casting of sub‑channels (HD1, HD2, HD3, etc.)  Any given channel can have up to seven additional (eight total) channels along with the base channel.  This gives the listener a lot more options to choose from.  It works (you do typically have to wait for the main channel to lock in before you can access the subchannels), and I have about 1‑1/2 times as many stations to choose from as before.  However, it is very under‑utilized, IMHO.  In the Atlanta market, there are no HD‑3 channels, no classic album‑oriented rock stations, and in a week of using the radio I have heard different songs by the same artist (Christopher Cross in one case and Sugarland in the other) on the subchannels of the same station.  Hint to program directors ‑ if I don’t want to listen to the artist on your primary channel, I probably don’t want to listen to the same artist on the subchannel either.

 

Title/Artist/Album ‑ I didn’t realize this, but many of the HD stations broadcast the Song Title, Artist, and Album along with the digital music signal (many of them just put the station nickname instead of the album info).  This is really handy if you want to know who does a particular song that you are listening to.  So far, about 2/3rds of the HD stations I tune into do this, although oddly some of them only do so on the main station and not the HD2 ones.  The only real drawback is that sometimes you will look for the info on a station that is not broadcasting it, and it adds three more display items to the HD tuner display, so if you want to toggle between the station display and the clock, it’s four or five button presses instead of just one.  

 

HD Radio (FM) is supposed to deliver the following benefits:  total elimination of static, improved