DSX-S300BTX
3.8
5
8
8
So Much Potential!
I was so excited to get rid of the useless CD player and go mechless. Good riddance CDs and the 20th century! Once installed, I connected my Galaxy S2 via bluetooth right away. Calls and music streaming worked great. I was thrilled! So I popped the thumb drive in that I had preloaded with music for my hour drive away. It was working great, flawlessly, until about 1/2 hour in, and the USB would stop playback and the display would read "no device". After about a second, playback would resume, like nothing had happened. This problem became progressively worse and by the 3rd hour of use, the deck would no longer even recognize that there was anything plugged into the USB, even after I disconnected and reconnected the drive many times and tried both the internal and external USB ports. Doing some research, I found that this deck is finicky with which thumb drives it will work with, so be aware. What may work at first, my not in an hour. I have tried 4 different thumb drives; most work at first, but only one I have in my arsenal that works consistently and it?s the cheapest one I have, and only 1GB. The nice SanDisk Cruzer Blade I have does not work. I?ve checked all of the drives using my laptop for errors and they are all AOK. The drives do get warm after a little while, which may be contributing to the problem? Still, as the MAIN method of accessing your music with this deck, every single FAT32 thumb drive on the planet should work flawlessly. That this isn?t the case is near fatal for this deck.
Next issue, SONG ORDER PLAYBACK. I dealt with this for years with my PSP, song and album playback could only be done in alphabetical order, not track number order. With a software update for the PSP, Sony finally accessed the metadata and allowed MP3 albums to be played back using the Track Numbers. This deck has not received such an update. BAD FORM SONY. This is the 21st century, metadata is nothing new. You need to release a firmware update so that owners of this deck can fix this very annoying issue. Song order is important; ever try to listen to Pink Floyd?s ?The Wall? or the Polyphonic Spree?s ?Together We?re Heavy? out of order? Even Kind of Blue isn?t as good in alphabetical order.
Other than the above issues, which are HUGE in my opinion, the deck is fantastic. Decent power off the head, great EQ and time align features, Sub and Main crossover control including slope, nice. The control knob has a learning curve, but it?s not as bad as I thought. I wish I could replace the ?zap? and ?sensme? buttons with something useful; two features I will never ever use, ever. The display is great, but the ?Spectrum Analyzer? modes analyze nothing as far as I can tell, they are merely motion graphics.
I?m still giving this 4 stars, but the two issues I have identified are nearly ruin it for me. When I found out about the song order issue, I nearly pulled out the deck then and there. This is a great deck and it works great maybe if you have an ipod to connect or only use Bluetooth to stream music with. But crashing thumb drives and out-of-order albums will leave a bad taste in my mouth every time I use this deck, which is every day.
January 22, 2012
Awesome!
I love this HU and in my opinion, Sony makes some of the best out there! I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a high-end HU with great looks and awesome performance.
August 19, 2011
I Made the right choice!!!
I spent a good month shopping around both in the internet and in my local stores... I've checked all the brands out there and in the end I found the receiver I've been searching for. THe thing I hated the most were cables dangling around my car and the tune tray definitely solved that issue. I also had bluetooth on the receiver that I replaced but it had horrible quality...this one was smack dab PERFECT!. I use an Iphone 4 by the way and it works as advertised... I don't really know what other people's issues are with reception but my phone works just fine inside the tray. I do recommend leaving another ipod in there so you don't have to take it off. The only grip that I didn't like is that it didnt have HD radio.. if it did this wouldve been a more than PERFECT receiver. my HD tuner is on the way though... If you have the same issues and want them solved like me then this is the one to go for!!! EXCELLENT!!! for the price you can't beat it!!
August 17, 2011
disappointed
so i bought this last week really exited for it to come in. finally the day comes and hook it up try it its the best. but then the worst happened! I WENT TO GO GET MY IPAD AN I FOUND OUT THAT IT DOESNT FIT! really disappointed with that
January 20, 2011
