Sony CDX-L600X Car CD Player
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The Commute Deck
Pros
Good quality at a low low price
Cons
not the best on the market
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Great unit for the price
So if you have ever read any of my other reviews, you know I own 2 cars. A MR2 and a Civic. The goal of the civic was to get me to work and back as cheaply as possible. This means cheap on Gas, Insurance, Mechanical issues, and conveniences.
When I purchased the civic, it had a really really cheap tape deck and really horrible stock speakers, very poor radio reception, which made my commute at the time dreadfully boring and quiet. For the first two years I owned the car, getting a CD player for it was not even on my list of priorities, let alone high on the list. Finally I snapped! After getting really tired of the local radio shows for months and months of the same boring childish broadcasts.
After not spending my entire Christmas allowance in the past holiday season, I had a few dollars left to splurge and spend on myself, which is rare, so I started to shop for a new unit. My shopping was limited to what was on an After Christmas blow out. Several local electronics stores and Car audio stores had several units from several brands for sale. I spoke to a few different people at the stores and they all highly recommended the Sony unit over other slightly more expensive units.
My impressions of the unit in a nut shell. This is not going to be nearly as nice as a unit you could purchase for a lot more money. This is your average run of the mill inexpensive head unit with OK bells and whistles, good to great sound quality and an average Look.
The install of this unit was very simple, I simply unplugged the last head unit and plugged this unit into the same wire harness. I found the set up to be very easy to do, and I never read the instructions. If you have programmed one head unit before the basics (time, setting radio stations, placing names for radio stations and cds) is very easy to figure out. The one thing I have not played with is the ability to set up a custom equalizer. I find that the 5 or 6 preprogrammed equalizers are good enough, and all sound very good.
The ergonomics are not the best, but they are far from the worst. Buttons are logically placed, reasonably sized, and easy to find while driving without looking.
I like this unit's sound quality, even with very cheap aftermarket speakers, which I spent a whole 10 dollars on. I only have 2 speakers so I don't even get the experience of this unit's full power without rear speakers for it to power. I get plenty of sound in my civic, even over the loud road noise in my base model commute car. Sound quality is very clear and crisp.
If I upgraded to better speakers, I'm sure the base would be a lot more clear, but my cheap speakers simply can not handle as much power as these speakers put out. '
This unit is also very well built. It may not have a high quality finish (how the face looks) but it is a good Sony quality unit. In 3 full months in my rough riding highly abusive driving car, I have yet to hear it skip once.
What I really don't like about this unit is the color choice. I know the Red is sort of a Sony trade mark, but it doesn't match my cars interior, looks very harsh. Not only that, the display is very hard to see during the day, especially in direct sunlight. The dark red on black simply does not stand out.
I also didn't like this unit's flip down design. Not only is it not mechanical, it takes about 3 seconds to eject the CD after you push the eject button.
Some extras on this unit, it will read some cd's encoding and display the cd title, band title, and song titles on the screen. Pretty cool but quite useless if you know your own cds. This novelty will probably wear off as fast as it took you to program your local radio station names. The EQZ button allows you to scroll through all the different equalizers that are preprogrammed as well as a custom one which you can program yourself. This makes it very easy to change the sound of the music you are listening to.
All in all this is a nice unit, has many bells and whistles that you will most likely never use after the initial coolness wears off. It is very easy to figure out all the features and operate this unite if you have half a brain. It lacks the high quality finish of higher prices units, but then again you are not paying for the finish. Don't be fooled it is a quality unit, it just won't have the same flash other units will have.
When I purchased the civic, it had a really really cheap tape deck and really horrible stock speakers, very poor radio reception, which made my commute at the time dreadfully boring and quiet. For the first two years I owned the car, getting a CD player for it was not even on my list of priorities, let alone high on the list. Finally I snapped! After getting really tired of the local radio shows for months and months of the same boring childish broadcasts.
After not spending my entire Christmas allowance in the past holiday season, I had a few dollars left to splurge and spend on myself, which is rare, so I started to shop for a new unit. My shopping was limited to what was on an After Christmas blow out. Several local electronics stores and Car audio stores had several units from several brands for sale. I spoke to a few different people at the stores and they all highly recommended the Sony unit over other slightly more expensive units.
My impressions of the unit in a nut shell. This is not going to be nearly as nice as a unit you could purchase for a lot more money. This is your average run of the mill inexpensive head unit with OK bells and whistles, good to great sound quality and an average Look.
The install of this unit was very simple, I simply unplugged the last head unit and plugged this unit into the same wire harness. I found the set up to be very easy to do, and I never read the instructions. If you have programmed one head unit before the basics (time, setting radio stations, placing names for radio stations and cds) is very easy to figure out. The one thing I have not played with is the ability to set up a custom equalizer. I find that the 5 or 6 preprogrammed equalizers are good enough, and all sound very good.
The ergonomics are not the best, but they are far from the worst. Buttons are logically placed, reasonably sized, and easy to find while driving without looking.
I like this unit's sound quality, even with very cheap aftermarket speakers, which I spent a whole 10 dollars on. I only have 2 speakers so I don't even get the experience of this unit's full power without rear speakers for it to power. I get plenty of sound in my civic, even over the loud road noise in my base model commute car. Sound quality is very clear and crisp.
If I upgraded to better speakers, I'm sure the base would be a lot more clear, but my cheap speakers simply can not handle as much power as these speakers put out. '
This unit is also very well built. It may not have a high quality finish (how the face looks) but it is a good Sony quality unit. In 3 full months in my rough riding highly abusive driving car, I have yet to hear it skip once.
What I really don't like about this unit is the color choice. I know the Red is sort of a Sony trade mark, but it doesn't match my cars interior, looks very harsh. Not only that, the display is very hard to see during the day, especially in direct sunlight. The dark red on black simply does not stand out.
I also didn't like this unit's flip down design. Not only is it not mechanical, it takes about 3 seconds to eject the CD after you push the eject button.
Some extras on this unit, it will read some cd's encoding and display the cd title, band title, and song titles on the screen. Pretty cool but quite useless if you know your own cds. This novelty will probably wear off as fast as it took you to program your local radio station names. The EQZ button allows you to scroll through all the different equalizers that are preprogrammed as well as a custom one which you can program yourself. This makes it very easy to change the sound of the music you are listening to.
All in all this is a nice unit, has many bells and whistles that you will most likely never use after the initial coolness wears off. It is very easy to figure out all the features and operate this unite if you have half a brain. It lacks the high quality finish of higher prices units, but then again you are not paying for the finish. Don't be fooled it is a quality unit, it just won't have the same flash other units will have.
