Sony CDX-F7705X Car CD / MP3 Player

To give you some background, I have had a Sony mobile-ES Series CDX-C8050X and matching 10-disc changer in my 2000 Honda Accord since 2001. I have it hooked into a 5-channel Eclipse amp, with Eclipse components in the front doors, Eclipse 6x9s in the rear deck, and a 10" Kicker Comp VR sub in the trunk. I spend half my life in my car commuting in Southern California, so I take my car stereo very seriously. I don't need to spend a ton of money, but I want it to sound great, and work well.

After about 2 years, the ES dash player started to have a hard time tracking discs in the winter (and that's a California winter), and by the end of 2004 got to a point where discs would skip regularly. So, I decided to upgrade to a new head unit that could play MP3s.

I decided to get a Sony replacement, so that I didn't have to replace the in-dash wiring harness, or the CD-changer cable. In reviewing the current Sony lineup, I wanted a unit with detachable face, one with a convenient volume control knob (not + and - buttons for volume), and the ability to play MP3 discs.

Based on a review of the features, all of the mid to high end Sony units from the FX7700 and up had all of the features that I paid extra for in my previous ES unit: 7-channel EQ, 4 watt preamp out, remote, high/low pass filters, subwoofer-out connection, etc. In fact, short of 'superficial' features (the silly pictures that display, detachable vs. camouflage face), the units appear to effectively be the same (7700, 7705, 8805, 9905, etc.).

I chose the F7705X for a few reasons:

1) Very simple, clean user interface
2) Detachable face
3) Volume knob
4) Blue color (vs. FX7700, which is red)
5) The same features as the 8805 and 9905, but cheaper

I also decided to buy the matching Sony 10-disc trunk changer that played MP3s, which allows me to have 11-CDs full of MP3s in my car--a huge leap from 11 standard CDs previously. And since Crutchfield offered a nice discount when the two were purchased together, it was a good deal.

I'm going to write the rest of this review as a comparison between my old Sony ES unit and the FX7705X, since that is how I have approached using and evaluating the unit.

Installation: I had a Sony wiring harness already setup (both units were purchased from Crutchfield, so they both came with a Honda-Sony harness), so I literally installed this unit in 20 minutes--most of that time was spent getting my old unit out, since the metal cage has metal flanges that are a bit tricky to bend back for removal. But overall, installation was very slick, all of the connections were the same. If you are installing for the first time in a new car, you'll have to spend the time to setup a wiring harness, which does take a while--or you can pay for installation.

Setup: I was very familiar with the menus and setup of my old ES unit, and the 7705's menus and setup were very similar, although better organized and more accessible. The setup functions that you will almost never, ever use again are appropriately accessed by the Menu button on the remote, and are very easy to scroll through, with a simple interface for changing On/Off (Auto Scroll, Auto Dim, etc.) or selecting certain options (Display picture, set time, default display type, etc.). There are a few items that took me a while to realize I wanted set differently, simply because the last time I set them up was nearly 4 years ago on my ES unit and had never touched them since. Overall though, anyone that can handle using MS Office and surfing the web can poke around and figure the features out with the help of the manual.

Sound: The sound is excellent. I can't say for sure, but I think this unit has cleaner, crisper sound than my ES unit. Could totally be me wanting to appreciate the new purchase, but regardless of comparison, the sound is excellent. Granted, I'm using the pre-amp outputs to a good amp and great speakers, and I'm not using the built in amp, so your mileage my vary based on your setup. I have zero complaints about the sound though.

Tuner: Great tuner based on my usage so far. The menu has some nice features to improve signal reception (some I recognize from my Sony home receiver), but based on my listening in the So. Cal. area, I haven't needed them and the sound has been excellent.

User Interface Pros: I am very happy with the very simple, clean interface. No fuss design with just the most common features on the face buttons. They did a great job of reorganizing the features from my ES model, making the sound related adjustments (treble, bass, sub, fader, etc.) accessible by pushing the volume knob and letting you turn the knob to make the adjustment. This is a great improvement over the +/- adjustments that I had previously, and a single press of the volume knob makes it much easier to access, vs. 6 button presses to get to the same setting on my old unit (I had it memorized so I could adjust while driving on the freeway). The other reviewer who complained that you need to have the remote to access the 'important' settings seems to have a very different way of prioritizing what is important, as I totally disagree with him. The HPF, LPF, auto-dim and other functions stored in the "Menu" are, to me, hardly important, as you shouldn't have to adjust those daily. After using Sony for 4 years now, I know what I need to adjust regularly, and what I never need to adjust. Sony got it right this time, putting the common features at your fingertips. One concern is if you lose the remote, I can't find a way to access the Menu functions, so that could be considered a minor drawback to eliminating a menu button from the face.

User Interface Cons: The number one criticism of the interface is that there is no big, convenient button to turn the unit on. Literally no "On" button whatsoever. You have to press the sliver-thin 'Source' button to turn it on (defaults to the radio or CD where you were when it was turned off), and then select a different source (FM, CD1, CD2) if you want. This is a big change from the nice round button on my ES unit in the middle of the volume control knob. Not a huge deal, but I find myself constantly pressing the volume knob out of habit, only to remember that I have to press a teeny tiny button to turn the thing on--seems like an odd design approach given the usability improvements they have made.

I will agree with the other reviewer that seven of the buttons on this unit are horribly small--the Source button and the 1-6 buttons for the pre-set radio stations are thin and tiny, right next to each other, and nearly impossible to tell apart from each other based on feel. Even if you look at the buttons, the back-lit numbers on them are so small that you simply cannot tell which button is which without counting off their positions. One button (#3) has a small bump on it that you can feel, but the problem is that the buttons are so small, so smooth, and so close together that I can't yet easily feel each button--and since Source is right next to #1, I just cannot easily tell which button I am pressing based on feel. Maybe I will become more familiar with this over time, but it's a huge difference from the ES design, where the same row of buttons were very easy to feel, find, and press without looking.

The other buttons are definitely small, but they are far enough apart from each other that I am generally able to use them without hassle, although I cannot do it by feel, since I don't yet have their locations memorized.


Remote: The remote is improved over my last Sony unit. The addition of a few buttons with a slightly larger unit makes it easier to hold and use. A few features appear to require a remote, which would be a problem if the remote is lost or stolen, but I'm not personally worried about this.

Features and Functions: This is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, the features and functions are very familiar, but on the other hand, I have a few minor gripes.

I'll comment on a few of them based on their location on the interface.

DSO: To me, as someone who has good component speakers that normally sound great, this is the most horrific sounding audio slaughter ever invented. Turning on DSO at any level makes the sound so shrill and harsh that dogs howl and deaf people scream Turn It Down! I was once told by an employee of a car audio store that he liked it, at which point I promptly left, as I cannot imagine how anyone could find the horrible mutations of DSO to be favorable. The manual claims that DSO improves the sound when your speakers are low, near the floor and not properly positioned to give you proper sound stage. If you need DSO to make your stereo sound decent, you're in dire straits.

EQ7: I have always wished this were "EQ10", as a 7-band EQ just doesn't have the precision that I like in making EQ adjustments. But, for the slightly blunt tool that it is, it has met my needs for the past 4 years. The problem I have with the new EQ7 interface on the 7705 is that it forces you to scroll through all of the EQ settings to get to the one you want. I can't go forwards or backwards like with the ES unit. This is relatively minor, but a slight annoyance.

BBE MP: Given the trauma that DSO has left with me, I'm reluctant to bother with BBE MP, which is supposed to 'fix' MP3 audio that lacks 'warmth' or 'clear CD quality sound' from 'heavily compressed MP3 material'. Again, if you are ripping your MP3s at less than 128kbps, I would ask, why? Just rip them at 128 or my preference of 160, and skip this feature. As far as I can tell, BBE MP sounds like the 'Loudness' feature, which I also don't use, or need to use.

Pause: Uh, hard to get excited about this one, as I don't know how it is any different then pressing 'Off' or switching the source, since the player resumes where it left off. I'll try it some more and see what it offers, but I doubt I'll use it.

Image: I must not be in tune with the average car stereo buyer, as I want a car stereo to be, well, a car stereo. I don't need or want it to display lame, monotone pictures of a car driving, a guy surfing, the constellations blinking, or anything else for that matter. Perhaps the most useless gimmick feature that I can imagine. Fortunately, you can turn off the silly images and keep the display focused on relevant car stereo information and only press the Image button when you are bored to death and feel like flipping 7 channels of minimally interesting pictures.


And now, for the quirks. There are a few things about the 7705 that surprised me and disappointed me.

1) Putting on the faceplate is much more tedious than my old ES unit. Something about the design of the bezel around the unit, or the new release lever on the right side of the unit must be different, since my well-rehearsed motion of putting on the faceplate now fails miserably. I had to sit and practice for a few minutes to figure out how to get the thing on in a fluid motion without having to use both hands. I've come to the conclusion that the face needs to be at about a 45 degree angle, and that you have to be much gentler than with the older units, as the feel is not as 'positive' to indicate that the face is properly attached.

2) I think that the silver bezel around the unit is pretty tacky looking when surrounded by a black dash and the black blank-panel when the faceplate is removed. If your dash is silver, then it will look much better, but just a minor observation. Also, the finish on the bezel is a thin silver paint which has already worn off at the two bottom corners from the rubbing that occurs when the faceplate is put on and taken off. Not a huge deal, but it just looks cheap--which it is.

3) When I bought this unit, I wanted it to play MP3s. Which it does. Sort of. You can play CD-R or CD-RW discs burned with ISO-9660, Joliet, or Romeo formats (some warnings are in the manual about non-9660 formats) filled with MP3 files. This is the good news, and the unit works great playing such discs, based on the few that I have burned so far. I have burned about 160 songs on a few CD-Rs, and had zero problems reading the discs and playing the MP3s, and the sound is excellent.

The bad news is that there are only two ways to play the MP3s on the disc: sequentially from song 1 to song 160, or in shuffle mode. There is apparently no way to actually navigate the folders and files on the CD-R without skipping linearly past each song! I was amazed when I discovered this today, as my friend bought a $100 (non-Sony) player two years ago that allowed him to navigate through the folders and files on a CD-R. I foolishly assumed that Sony, in 2004, would have provided me the ability to browse the directory structure of the CD-R. So, if I have 160 files on a CD-R, and want to find song 80, I have to start at song 1 and press skip forward 79 times. Also, the unit has the ability to shuffle by 'Album', which is apparently by folder on the CD-R, but again, there is apparently no way to navigate to a particular folder, other than skipping songs until you think you are in the right album. To me, this is ludicrous. To allow you to play at CD-R with 160 songs, and up to 150 folders, but provide you with no ability to browse and navigate the contents of that CD-R is unbelievable.

Granted, there may be some way to do this, but the manual says nothing about it, and I haven't been able to figure it out by using the faceplate buttons or the remote, so if such a feature does exist, it is not easy to find or use.


So, that's all I have for now. If I come across any other worthwhile discoveries, I'll post an update. Overall, the F7705X is a very good unit, with great sound, great features, and a very reasonable price. If you aren't concerned about the minor gripes that I mention above, it's a great buy.


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Update: 12/28/2004
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Since this is the first MP3 car stereo that I have purchased, I have not yet worked through all of the issues of ripping my CDs to MP3s, then burning the MP3s to CD-Rs to play on my car stereo. One thing that just realized yesterday is that the Sony F7705X does not support WMA (Windows Media) format files.

Why is this worth mentioning? Previously, I would have considered this irrelevant since I have never bothered with WMA, but, with this new stereo I thought it would be great to buy music online. So I checked out Music Match and discovered that they offer 99 cent song downloads, or reduced price album downloads (i.e. $8.50 for an entire album). Excellent! I thought.

But then I discovered that the downloads were in WMA format, and realized that I could not burn the files directly to a CD-R (in MP3 format) if I wanted to play them in my car. I can burn them to a standard audio CD (wav format), but naturally, I won't have the same capacity as if they were MP3s.

So far, it appears that the legal music purchase+download sites do not provide MP3s. So, I have found two ways to accommodate the purchase of WMA files and burning them as MP3 files to a CD-R.

1) You can use Windows Media Player (or Music Match, etc.) to burn the purchased WMAs to a standard audio CD (CD-R). You can then rip that CD back to your PC to get the songs in MP3 format. Due to issues with track naming, this is tedious and very time consuming, and obviously uses a CD-R in the process. Technically, I suppose it might also violate the license agreement of the music download service that provided the WMA files, but I haven't looked into that, and I'm not a lawyer.

2) A friend recommended trying a WMA to MP3 conversion program. Based on a few searches, I have found a few software utilities that you can buy to convert various types of audio files, but have not been able to test them yet. If I can find one that works well for me, I think I will have found a solution that lets me buy music online and play it on my MP3 stereo.

So, if buying music online is important for you, you may want to consider how you will be purchasing the music, and what format you want to use for your car stereo.