Sony CDX-M630 Car CD Player

The main feature of this deck, which is what got me interested, is the unique face which either flips out to reveal a control panel and small display, or stays closed to give you a much larger display. Since there are no buttons on the face, you must operate the deck with the remote control, when it is closed. Though the face is not detachable, Sony claims that the "security feature" of this deck is the fact that the display turns totally black, after the control panel closes (it closes automatically when you turn off the car). From a distance, it looks like there is nothing there, but some of my friends have commented "Man, they'll still know." So, it's your call. If you don't feel comfortable leaving your car without detaching the face, this probably isn't the deck for you.

When the control panel is closed for the full display, you can view either just the track number and time (or radio station), or a cool spectrum analyzer. You have 9 choices for the spectrum analyzer, but you'll probably just want to keep it on the first one, which is a conventional row of bars for the frequencies, and dots that rise and fall with the peaks. The rest of the choices, ranging from bouncing balls to a grid of flashing triangles, are really cheesy. On the edges of this large display there is also a clock, level meters, and a volume indicator.

When the control panel is open, you're treated to some really cool looking main silver buttons, backlit with blue LEDs, and glowing red borders. The small, secondary display is easy to read, displays a lot of information for its small size, has a cool oval shape, and is also backlit in blue. Below this display are bright red buttons for adjusting the EQ, and the DSO feature. It is an attractive, simple, and clean layout, a welcome departure to the cluttered mess I've seen on other decks.

It takes awhile to get used to where all the settings are within the menus, however. For example, the tone settings are under "Audio", yet the EQ settings are under "Setup"?

DSO is a unique feature that, according to Sony, is supposed to make the speakers sound like they're physically higher than they actually are. Amazingly, this actually works to some extent. Try it with your friends! You'll be like "Listen, the speakers are down there, now, whoa, they're way up here!" Unfortunately, depending on what you're listening to, this feature adds varying levels of distortion to the sound. Even the manual admits this. For light vocals, it doesn't sound too bad, but for electronic music with a lot of bass, it sounds terrible. Most of the time, you'll want to leave it off. In addition to the DSO, there are 7 EQ presets, as well as a 5 band EQ you can adjust yourself.

Speaking of bass, this deck puts it out in modest amounts, unfortunately. Adjusting the EQ and tone settings to increase it seems to make little difference. Apparently, this deck's emphasis is on sound quality and clarity. This deck has very clean and crisp sound. However my previous deck, a JVC, had a "Rock" EQ preset that blew me way. I guess to make up for the lack of bass, this deck has a separate set of subwoofer outputs, and a subwoofer level control in the audio settings.

So far, I'm impressed by the deck's durability. The CD transport mechanism quickly sucks up disks, and the buttons are firm. With a flip out control panel such as this, you'd think that pressing on the buttons would cause it to bend a little, but surprisingly it is rock solid. The control panel opens and closes smoothly, but only time will tell how long it will stay like that. I once had a Blaupunkt deck that was absolutely terrible in this regard.

The remote is pretty big, though this issue applies toward nearly all Sony decks, not just this one. It's about .25" thick (including the height of the buttons). I prefer JVC's car alarm-sized remotes, and Kenwood's credit card-sized remotes that you can slip in your wallet. I wish the Sony remote was closer to either of these sizes.