I could care less about sound quality, i just want the best looking CD player for under 500. What looks the best, i want something that will glow at night like its radioactive and has a stealth face (the kind that turns around when u shut off the car so u cant see it) and i want one with an entertaining display to watch.

 

http://www.xplodsony.com/products/?CATEGORY=CD


These are amazing. Click the Demos and you can see what they look like.

 

My friend bought one of those Sony Xplods and he's having tons of problems with the CD player. 80% of the time it doesn't read the CD in the drive. If I were you I'd stick with Alpine. Never heard anything bad about them (I'm not a big stereo person either so if anyone has another opinion, feel free).

 

I just bought my girlfriend an Alpine with the tilt-up feature and removable face. Much better, IMHO. But all this guy cares about is the way it looks.

 

I'm an alpine man myself, but they dont make flashy displays...
I'd say look at some Pioneers or panasonics.

 

Performance-wise, sony usually blows for electronics unless you're spending big money. But like I said in the 1st gen forum, the graphics on the xplods are pretty nice and he hasn't had many problems. Sony also has decent customer relations in that if you're having a problem they'll hook you up with a comparable, if not newer and nicer model.

 

DO NOT BUY SONY EXPLOD PRODUCTS!!!

I have never bought a worse deck in my life. The quality of the deck was tremendously lacking and it was not very intuitive to use. Found my self flipping through the manual multiple times to figure out some functions.

Also the fact that you cannot scroll pass the last song on a CD bothered me as well. In the Pioneer deck I had previously (the face plate got stepped on by a friend) the CD player would go to the first track if you scroll pass the last song.

It rarely read CD-Rs correctly, and often times skipped towards the end of the CD-R.

Within a week of owning the deck, the display stopped showing correctly. It displayed every pixel (?) on the front face of the screen every time I plugged it in. Even after cleaning the metal contacts it would still do the same.

Within a month of owning the deck, I noticed the notchy feel of the volume button was no longer there. Now you can spin the volumn button at will and it wouldn't stop.

I traded the first one in with a brand new one. Again, within a month the display was displaying weird/random pixels.

I will never buy another SONY Explod product ever again and I'd strongly discourage anyone else buying their product.

 

There you have it.

 

ok sony sucks, so now what looks the best