The Sony Xplod CDX-GT920U In-Dash Car Stereo System
It’s sexy, it’s cheap (relatively speaking: around $150 for the full system), and most importantly the audio quality is excellent for the price. The Sony Xplod CDX-GT920U has a front auxilary input, a rear USB input, three preamp outputs, plus you can add satellite or HD radio control modules, which lets you have plenty of options for expanding the head unit. The interface
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plus the structure of the menus within are superb and make finding songs exceptionally easy. The only real downside is that the CDX-GT920U doesn’t natively support the Apple iPod, although you can still simply plug it in through the front aux. |
Interface and Controls
The way in which the CDX-GT92OU is laid out is very similar to the rest of the Xplod line: there are four buttons (Mode, Source, Shuffle, and Display) and a chrome toggle which surrounds the dial. This layout is very easy to use because of the way almost all operations are handled through the dial. The dot-matrix display is very good, clear, and easy to read, but I would advise you to simply turn off the animations as they resemble the quality of an early Nintendo Gameboy.
The primary reason you’d want to buy the CDX-GT920U is
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its digital audio features plus the “Quick BrowZer” mode–makes for very easy navigation of your digital audio files. This particular Xplod supports WMA, MP3, and AAC burned to a CD or stored on a USB device (like a MP3 player or USB stick). Also, there is an external iPod adapter |
which you can get as an add-on for $50, and there are modules for satellite and HD radio available as well.
Audio Quality
The CDX-GT920U is packing serious heat with a three-band EQ with seven presets, along with Sony’s DM+ which improves the audio quality of a digitally compressed song like what you would find on the MP3 format. I tried the DM+ system by listening to music on audio CD, and then the same song from a 128Kbps MP3 file. As I would expect, the CD did sound a little bit better than the MP3, whether the DM+ was on or off, but the DM+ system did work to a degree by improving clarity at the high end of the audible spectrum.
The DSO system (that’s Dynamic Soundstage Organizer) created a much more ambient sound field and really made a big difference, I must say–it really feels like it’s lifting the sound up from the floorboards and making the high end of the sound spectrum clearer. Around the top volume, DSO did cause some low-end distortion, but at all other levels I think it can make even OEM speakers sound awesome.
Power
You’ve got 52 watts (maximum) pushing through
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4 separate channels, so yeah the CDX-GT920U can be quite loud if you want it to be. The sound quality is even fairly clear at these higher volumes, but, like I said, there is some distortion near the top. And if that’s not sufficiently eardrum-busting for you, there are three 4-volt preamp output lines, one of |
which is dedicated specifically for a subwoofer that has an adjustable, built-in, low-pass filter.
Additional Resources
Official Sony website for the Xplod Car Audio System
See Amazon.com for different Xplod systems and read the reviews for them (I haven’t found anywhere with better prices for these systems)
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