Sony CDX-MP70 Car CD / MP3 Player

After owning a Pioneer Premier DEN-P520 for over a year, I decided to replace it with the Sony CDX-MP70 so I could add XM radio, and have a radio with a 7-band equalizer to even out the frequency response of my MB Quartz speakers in my Subaru Outback. WOW did it work great! Now my high-end system SOUNDS like a high end system. The CDX-MP70 has a much better FM and AM radio than the Pioneer. With two separate rotary dials on the left and right side for volume and channel select respectively, the MP70 is easier to use than most car radios. While this may not be saying much (most car radios shoot for cool looks and gadgetry over usability), Sony has made a pleasant step forward with the MP70. The sound is very clean and crisp, and it was easy for me to adjust the unit to get the frequency response I wanted. Sony has a feature called DSO (Dynamic Soundstage Organizer) that is supposed to make speakers low in your front doors sound like they are higher in the car. It does work, and I leave this feature on in my Subaru. If you like gimmicky displays (I don't - I just want the station, song title, and time clearly displayed), you'll like the various cute graphic equalizer modes on the MP-70, and the ability to adjust the backlight to one of 7 different colors. You can also enter a text string that scrolls across the display when the unit is off. These are all easy to set up. The IR remote control works well, and isn't picky about where you point it - just aim it in the general direction of your radio, and it will work fine.

At night, the red and blue lights make the unit look like mission control. Cute.

I do have a few complaints. When connected to the Sony XT-XM1 XM Radio Receiver module, you lose a number of features (on XM) that the FM radio and CD player have. For example, you don't get the time, or the graphic equalizer. When playing CD's, the 8-character display will scroll through all the characters of the title. But with the XM radio, all you get is the first 8 characters of the song or artist - it doesn't scroll! I played for an hour trying to get it to scroll,
but then noticed that the manual clearly points out this
shortcoming. YUCK. The XM sound is great though, so I would still recommend the MP70/XT-XM1 combination, even with this frustrating problem. While I rate usability above average for car radios, and for Sony products, there is still room for improvement. Some of the buttons other than the two rotary dials are small and awkwardly placed. The "Off" button is a tiny little thing down and to the right, below the volume control. There's a label above it that says Remote Control, so if you don't look real close, you may think the OFF button has something to do with the remote control. Sony uses two buttons for "Mode" and "Source", whereas I can't figure out why one button wouldn't have worked just fine, to switch from FM->AM->XM->CD->Aux.

One final complaint - if you wear polarized sunglasses, you will notice that the display is a little dim unless you rotate your head to the left. Shame on Sony for not properly designing the LCD display. The polarization seems to be oriented about 45-degrees. If you rotate your head to the right to look at the radio, which is natural in a US-made car, the display becomes completely black. If you live in Japan or Britain, where you'ld normally be sitting to the right of the radio, a lean to the left would yield a nice high-contrast view of the display.