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.

 

some kenwood decks have very interesting faces... they have like screen savers with race cars and stuff... those are pretty neat, but hard to control in my mind. They do sound good though and have the mask self-hiding face. Panasonic has the faces that glow a cool blue at night and are silver during the day... those are really nice decks, dont cost too much, sound great but lack the self-hiding face. JVC's Digifine 2.1 decks are great if you have the red/blue reverse indiglo's... the face matches... plus its real aluminum. They also have a matching DVD player that is controlable from the decks controls. They sound incredible and are very easy to use... but again, no self-hiding plate. Clarion's decks sound good, are very interesting to look at, some with screen savers and all... but still, no self-hiding plate. I wouldnt consider the Mask type feature, like on the kenwoods, a big deal when searching for a new deck... its convient, but it just seems like something else to go wrong. In my mind these decks are going to give you what you want, stay under $500, and give you excelent sound quality. It would be stupid to upgrade the deck, spend that much money and not have it sound good.

 

I had an Alpine CD player CDA-7875, sound great, face glow blue color day and night under 400$ bucks.