I think a few of me have heard me moan about my current Sony MEX BT3800U head unit and the bright white LED on the front panel. This is how it's been for the last couple of months with insulating tape covering the LED.
and without showing the white LED strip. The dim controls in the settings dim everything else except these two strips.
Being bored on a Sunday morning I finally got around to browsing head units and ended up in Halfords to buy a Pioneer unit, and ended up walking out with a Sony MEX-N4100BT instead for £99.99 (cheaper if bought from Amazon).
http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/in-car-receivers-players/mex-n4100bt for more details.
There are a couple of reasons for my change of mind. Firstly that I have a Sony unit already and it's pretty darn good matched with the Harmon Kardon audio setup (despite the white LED). Secondly I lost the removal keys for removing the head unit, and the new unit would come with some.
As you can see from the spec it's pretty much got everything covered, but my main requirement was a display which had better control over the illumination and this has this in buckets. Choice of either blue or red display, fully dim-able display which controls the main LEDs as well as the display. Also needed Bluetooth so I can stream from Spotify through my Samsung Galaxy 5S (this does have a CD unit as well unlike some of the other units out there). USB port for charging my phone on the go! 4 x 55 watt outputs is up slightly on the older Sony unit too.
In the box...
I won't go through the process for switching the head units over, there is a guide in the article database I wrote when I bought the MEX BT3800U unit if you are interested.
Not the most attractive looking item, but it'll do as it doesn't burn my retinas. Sound quality has improved and the bass is pretty insane through the HK sub - didn't expect it to be that much better than the old unit.
and without showing the white LED strip. The dim controls in the settings dim everything else except these two strips.
Being bored on a Sunday morning I finally got around to browsing head units and ended up in Halfords to buy a Pioneer unit, and ended up walking out with a Sony MEX-N4100BT instead for £99.99 (cheaper if bought from Amazon).
http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/in-car-receivers-players/mex-n4100bt for more details.
There are a couple of reasons for my change of mind. Firstly that I have a Sony unit already and it's pretty darn good matched with the Harmon Kardon audio setup (despite the white LED). Secondly I lost the removal keys for removing the head unit, and the new unit would come with some.
As you can see from the spec it's pretty much got everything covered, but my main requirement was a display which had better control over the illumination and this has this in buckets. Choice of either blue or red display, fully dim-able display which controls the main LEDs as well as the display. Also needed Bluetooth so I can stream from Spotify through my Samsung Galaxy 5S (this does have a CD unit as well unlike some of the other units out there). USB port for charging my phone on the go! 4 x 55 watt outputs is up slightly on the older Sony unit too.
In the box...
I won't go through the process for switching the head units over, there is a guide in the article database I wrote when I bought the MEX BT3800U unit if you are interested.
Not the most attractive looking item, but it'll do as it doesn't burn my retinas. Sound quality has improved and the bass is pretty insane through the HK sub - didn't expect it to be that much better than the old unit.
