Reviews

:Not bad for an entry-level MP3 in-dash

I've had my CDX-MP30 installed in my 1995 Camry for about six months now. In that time, I've gotten very spoiled by having massive amounts of music on hand in just a single CD caddy; a typical CD-R blank can store around 10 1/2 to 11 hours of music (at a 160kbps/CBR rate, which I prefer). The sound quality for a low-priced unit of this sort is excellent, with ample wattage and Sony's D-BASS bass expander circuit in play to assure both clarity and 'butt kick' when the unit's driving a decent set of speakers.

The tuner appears to be quite sensitive on both AM and FM reception, although perhaps not quite up to the mark of the prior Sony which I had installed. It should be noted, however, that that unit was designed with more of an eye toward receiver performance; it was a grey-market cassette AM/FM/short wave unit, not a typical US market offering but one for the Australian market.

The CD section works well on many types of CDs ...regular CD-audio, open and closed CD-R's, and of course data CDs with MP3 files. It can handle ISO9660 file-type data discs only, the standard PC write format, and within this can only deal with eight levels of folder depth including the root directory. Still, there's little likelihood that anyone would ever build a disc that runs that 'deep', so no issues there. Maximum number of items (folders and files) per disc is a hefty 302; of this, only 150 folders can be on a disc and the rest must be files. Audio quality from both CD and MP3 playback is superb, with ample skip-buffering for all but the most bone-jarring driving conditions.

However, there are certain ergonomics issues with the CDX-MP30 that has caused me to dock the unit a star. These are:

Inability to display either ID3v1 or 3v2 info tags. The unit will ONLY display 3v1 tags, requiring you to do some judicious tag maintenance before creating discs to be used with this device.

Weird display behaviour: certain characters cannot be displayed, and the manual isn't distinct about which ones these are. Also, while the track display will scroll past ONCE with track/artist/album, it then stops scrolling, leaving you only with eight characters of the beginning of the ID3v1 listing or filename, depending on the display you're using. You also cannot make it scroll again without cycling through the whole list of display options.

Annoying placement of the track change and FFWD/REV control on the same knob. This can cause you to do something you might not want when you'd intended something else.

VERY irritating panel illumination ...while the main panel is an excellent and legible blue-green display, knobs and some buttons are lit with a dim red light which can be extremely difficult to make out in low light/night conditions. Other buttons are unlit altogether, such as station select and the hard-to-see-in-general 'MODE' button which selects receiver bands.

Other than these issues, plus one I'm still not sure about regarding operating temperature (I've not had the unit through a summer before, and it does appear to run chronically hot), this is an excellent buy for anyone who wants to dump their loads of cassettes or stop carrying their valuable CDs around. Even with the issues noted above, I've no regrets about making this device a part of my car.

:Great entry level mp3 unit!

PROS:
plays mp3s
detachable face
remote for you lazy ones
no skkipping when playing CD's
well worth the money

CONS:
the dials on each side seem loose

:Nice Entry Level Car MP3 Player

ID3: The unit can read ID3 tags embedded in the MP3 songs, but only ID3 V1 not the ID3 V2, which can contain more information. And while it displays the tag/album/track, it will scroll the whole name once and then stop scrolling, displaying the first 8 characters, which I don't like.

Recognize Disc: To play a mp3 disc, it takes about 10 seconds to read the contents, for a disc contains 680MB and around 100 files. After that, you never notice any waiting to switch between sounds. The manual said you can't have the file tree for more than 8 levels, which I think is more than enough. And the more levels you have, the more start-up time. And I don't think the player can memorized the disc it reads before, so every you insert a disc, it take the same amount of time to recognize it.

MP3 bit rate: All my songs are compressed using lame, with 192KB+ VBR (sometimes, 320KB). This unit has not problem at all read and play them. And while it plays MP3, I didn't notice and skip even if I shake the unit hard. :)

Connectors: On the back end of the player, you will find ISO socket, antenna connector, 2 sets of RCA connector for external amplifier (Front and Rear). 1 set of RCA for the audio input and a bus terminal.

Sound Quality: I didn't compare this unit with others. The manual said it rated 90dB for CD audio, which relatively low in its class.

Temperature: I tried the unit in a open environment (not in the car) for 8 hours, then it becomes something like 70F.

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