Sony Hard Drive Recorder for Cars

blues5150 writes "Sony has introduced the Sony MEX-1HD. This is an in-dash CD/Receiver with a 10 giagbyte hardrive built in to rip CD's at 8X speed. It also has an auxilliary input that allows connection of an MP3 player, tape, MD player, and/or an optional Sony plug-and-play XM Satellite Radio tuner. The price is a little steep at $1,499.99, but it's still nice to see a major car audio manufacturer delivering what the public wants."

Comments

How long

[Paraplegic Vigilante]

do you think it would be before it got stolen in an average American city? A few months tops? A friend of mine just got her ~$500 car stereo stolen, and she's buying another one right now. I never understood why people would spend so much money on something like this. Guess I'm not a stereo enthusiast. :)

Re:How long

[Skyshadow]

Ah...you're one of the assholes who should be taken out and shot. "hey...look at me people...I'm so cool. who cares if it's 1am and I'm waking you up...I've got a fuckin subwoofer."

Notice I said "freeway".

I use my car audio system responsibly; grouping me in with the teens in riced out Acuras pumping crappy house music at all hours is about as fair as grouping the average American with those assholes on the 700 Club.

You *know* when you're being an asshole with your car system -- the difference with me and people like me is that we realize that we don't want to be assholes. Realizing that "Loud Music != Manhood", I'm capable of turning it down when I get to residential areas or other places where people might be rightly irritated by excessive noise.

Re:How long

[Skyshadow]

You go thumping past and wake my kids up in the car when I'm on the freeway as well. I'll be stuck at a light with you behind or next to me and things start bouncing around my car.

I generally don't find a whole lot of traffic lights on the freeway. I also tend to notice that, while travelling in excess of 65 MPH, there's quite a bit of road and engine noise. Anyhow, if your kids are that tired, I recommend buying them a "bed" at "home".

You know what - I'm irritated by the excessive noise on the freeway as well. What makes you think that just because you're not driving down by someones house that a) it can't be heard where it is unwelcome and b) it doesn't irritate people

I guess you'll just have to learn not to be so sensative for the 10 seconds our cars might be in proximity.

If I were in the apartment next to yours, you'd have a right to expect me not to watch DVDs with my system jacked all the way up. In the car on a highway, however, you're in a naturally noisy and dynamic environment. Learn to deal.

Platter crash?

[Your_Mom]

While this thing sounds cool and all, what happens when I drive down a dirt road? My shocks don't absorb the bumps and such so well and I can just picture the ceramic head of the hard drive being ground into microscopic dust...

Thanks, I'll pass for now.

The only way in is through MagicGate? Woof!

[PenguinOpus]

I think the important thing here is that appears that sony created a fine consumer device that has many capabilities, but they intentionally crippled it by not having USB/firewire/ethernet/bluetooth/802.11b or anything to get my already ripped music onto the system. Using a memory stick is ridiculous. My Empeg needs to be left overnight to sync 10-20G of music over 10Mbit ethernet.

You can understand why they did it:

1) They're Sony and they don't _really_ want to support PC-based sharing

2) They'd have to come up with a PC-based app to manage the music. Emplode is getting there, but its a lot of work for a consumer electronics company to write software :-).

but it's lame.

Useless, closed, proprietary product

[joe_bruin]

you hit the nail right on the head.

can't use your mp3's with it. can't take the music you rip anywhere. nearly impossible to manage.

why not try the phatnoise car audio system (they're selling them again). pretty similar to an empeg, except that it emulates a CD changer, so it connects to your existing headunit. plays mp3, wma, and flac (lossless encoding). removeable hard drive connects to your pc via usb, and lets you use all the music that you already own.

even with the price of a new headunit it's cheaper than this sony pos.

Re:Caveat emptor

[geekoid]

since corporation go where the money is, and the 1500 dollars will go to the side that makes creating mp3s easier, why not?

It is my humble opinion that sony knows the genies out, and there just playing the fence until they dominate the mp3 market.

Who wants this?

[Hoi Polloi]

"...but it's still nice to see a major car audio manufacturer delivering what the public wants."

Since when did anyone have the burning need to write CDs in their car? You can't leave home for an hour without having to make a CD? Try leaving all the techno crap at home and try DRIVING for once.

What's next, wood working while driving?

All I want is the Auxiliarry Input

[stefanlasiewski]

It also has an auxilliary input that allows connection of an MP3 player, tape, MD player, (...) it's still nice to see a major car audio manufacturer delivering what the public wants."

Why do more car stereos NOT have an Auxilliary Input?

The only thing I really want in a car stereo is an Auxillary Input. I want to be able to take my portable CD player, iPod, whatever, and plug it into my car stereo with a minimum of sound quality loss.

I have used one of those Tape Deck inputs
(One end looks like a cassette tape, other end is a stereo jack. Plug the stereo jack into your device, insert the cassette into your tape deck, hit play), on & off for 15 years, but the sound for those things is horrible: all treble, no base. Sound is muffled (This is on 5 different stereos).

Is there some conspiracy against manufacturers putting a simple stereo input jack on the front of my stereo?

very interesting

[bareminimum]

The price is a little steep at $1,499.99, but it's still nice to see a major car audio manufacturer delivering what the public wants.

Especially when said car audio manufacturer is the biggest proponent of audio cd protection schemes.