Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony CDX-GT610UI In-Dash CD Receiver with iPod Direct Connector and USB Input

The stock cassette/CD player ("heat unit") in our 10 yo Subaru wagon hiccuped the other day. That was all the excuse I needed, I began shopping for something with an audio-in jack. I'd gotten tired of using the iPod through a cassette adapter -- they kept wearing out and I hoped a better interface would get better sound out of my feeble stock speakers.

I couldn't find a cassette/CD player with an audio in jack. In fact, it was hard to find a cassette player at all! That's a shame, as we've quite a few books on tape. What I found, instead, was the Sony In-Dash Player (CDXGT610UI).

I'm not an easy going consumer, and I've found a few warts already, but I must confess I have been surprised by this toy. I rather like it. Here's an edited marketing blurb, emphases mine:

52 watts x 4 peak power: Sounded very good until my speakers started rattling. A big improvement on my original player.

MP3/WMA playback: MP3/WMA/AAC and ATRAC3Plus on USB mass storage, CD/CD-R and CD-RW. I haven't tested this yet. The max supported bit rate is 320 kps.

Satellite-radio/iPod ready: ...XM(tm) and SIRIUS satellite radio compatible... more on the iPod below

Set of pre-amp outs: A set of pre-amp outputs..

Detachable face: The fluorescent design face flips down and is detachable...

Remote control: Can do everything on the face plate, but the remote may be handy.

Auxiliary input

Installation instructions: A vehicle-specific wiring harness, antenna adapter, installation kit and in-dash player wiring harness are required to install this in-dash player...

XM(tm) and SIRIUS Radio require a subscription, tuner and antenna.

I plugged in my iPod and it started up playing some great Jazz (default is "resume mode"). It sounded fabulous. I thought I had a new car. Evidently the speakers have been underutilized for a decade. I did notice that I had to spin the volume dial a bit to crank it up, but there's lots of ceiling -- more than my speakers can handle. Here are my comments so far:

* you should download a manual, you don't want to be without one. Unfortunately SONY's web site is broken, I've tried IE, FF and Safari on PC and OS X -- nothing works. I'll try again in a week or so.

* I could detach the face plate easily, but I had a very hard time restoring it. I had to put the top right corner in first, then the bottom right, then I could lay in the left side

* You can use the iPod with the aux in or through the iPod cable. The latter charges, has a bit better sound, and has a much weaker UI -- but it's easy to control while driving. On balance I think I prefer using the iPod cable; the ease of pause/skip/replay while driving outweighs the clunky UI. I select my Playlist before I plug in the cable. I'm going to rename the Playlists I most often use in the car so they'll be at the top of the SONY's alphabetic sort. If you study the manual and use Playlists I think you can make the SONY UI work tolerably well.

* the preprogrammed equalizer modes are silly

* the USB connection is powered, so you might be able to run a USB powered hard drive with a single cable. A car is a tough place for a hard drive, but it sure is tempting.

* I'm going to experiment with leaving some old thumb drives or adapted CF cards in the car with specific excerpts from my music. I'll also try having 3 or 4 AAC CDs with music and podcasts arranged in folders -- for children, me, etc. Note a 2 GB thumb drive is usually under $30. Techbargain and similar sites often point to sales on these things. I'm looking for a short usb extension cords with a right angle turn ...

* the volume dial is the "select" control and the source button is also power on

Some notes from the all too easy-to-lose manual

* set the clock

* press and hold select button
* press repeatedly until clock-adj
* press seek + to get hour indication
* rotate the volume control to set hour and minute, press Seek +/- to toggle time unit
* press select to complete.

* a reset button is located behind the front panel. RESET if buttons don't work or CD won't eject.

* if press seek twice within 1 second and hold on the second press it will "skip tracks continuously"

* press and hold DSPL to change display brightness

* BTM is "best tune mode": press and hold and it will very quickly autoassign the first 6 stations to numbers 1-6. Probably best when traveling, switch to FM 3 for example. I don't know if it will remember what station was last assigned, if it did you could auto-assign 12 stations between FM2 and FM3. Save FM1 for memorized using the standard "press and hold" number to memorize.

* iPod starts in 'resume mode'. So you can select on iPod where you want to start, then sleep, then connect and it will play. Press 1/2 to enable the repeat, shuffle, and scan functions. 1/2 also skip and (if held) skip continuously. Mode changes album -> artist -> playlist. During play 3/4 give options to repeat or shuffle track/album/artist/playlist/all. In non-shuffle play hold 5 to enter scan mode, play 10 seconds of each track. (Press again to stop scan?)

* Press select button to get balance/fade/subwoofer and to customize equalizer curve (spin dial) and to enter setup and change setup menu options. Volume dial selects. I turned off "beep" but I'm still getting an annoying 4 tone warning when I turn off the ignition. It's a reminder to remove the face plate, but I don't want it. I don't think this can be disabled. You can also set "Local-On" here, that limits radio pickup to stronger stations.

* USB (thumb drive) mass storage device. Press 3 or 4 to move between track, album, shuffle album and shuffle track modes. Select shuffle off or "orff" to return to normal play mode.

* CD: Folders show up as albums. Max 150. Max 300 tracks and folders. 32 char for names is safest. Don't use multi-session CD.

* USB: Folders show up as albums. Max 512 albums, 65,535 tracks.

* iPod's supported: all recent, first generation Nano and beyond, 3rd generation iPod and beyond, iPod photo.

* Error messages:
* OFFSET error message: it's broken. Bring to dealer. (Try reset?)
* OVERLOAD: bad USB device

This is an excellent deck packed with features and great quality sound. You get a tuner, MP3 CD player, USB port, portable MP3 player input and a cable that comes out of the back of the deck so that you can attach your IPod (the cable has enough length so that you can run it from the dash to rest near say the handbrake console). The deck is also Satellite radio ready and has CD changer capability.

When you connect your IPod the deck takes over control of the Ipod and you can use the included remote to shuffle through the songs. I have used this deck for the past 3 months and I'm very happy with it. Don't know what one reviewer is talking about when he referred to receiving radio stations poorly. I have had no problems with receiving stations. The other reviewer talked about having to shuffle through his IPod using the face controls to find songs, but please....just use the remote control, that is what it's for.

The USB port is great. No more CD's to slide around the car or fall out of the glove compartment every time you open it. I have a 2GB stick and at approx. 6MB a song (higher quality), it holds about 300 songs! What a convenience, you can arrange your MP3's into albums and skip from album to album with the remote. Tired of the songs on the stick? Simply plug it into your computer and delete & re-arrange the MP3's to your heart's content.

The display is blue in colour and visible even in bright sunlight. The name of the artist and song scrolls across the display. It looks very impressive. The face of the deck is detachable.

There are about 6 preset equalizer settings and one preset that you can customize. The sound and power are great. The deck also has an output for a sub-woofer.

All in all, an excellent product at a great price. Hats off to Sony for design, features and pricing. I would recommend it to you without hesitation. Very pleased with it.

If you are considering buying this because of it's built in iPod connectivity, read this first: If you have an iPod with a lot of songs on it, this receiver will disappoint and annoy you because of a very poorly developed song navigation system. Here is why...to scroll through your library, you are required to depress a little button as the unit takes almost a full second per selection to scroll. This means that if your iPod contains 500 artists and you want to scroll to an artist in the middle alphabetically, you must depress this button for 250 seconds..or almost four minutes of continually pressing a little tiny button. This is not only annoying, it's downright dangerous for a car stereo to require that much focus to adjust. I'm for one very disappointed in Sony for marketing a product like this with such poorly developed features. It seems like the people who developed it only had a few dozen songs on their test iPods and real-world testing was never a consideration. The iPod features of this stereo are a novelty at best.

The one way around this nuisance is to make playlists of songs, albums, or artists you like...however this is inconvenient and you quickly run into the exact same problem as you accumulate more and more playlists. Not only that, but when the iPod is connected to this stereo, it's totally locked out and you can't control it using the far superior iPod interface.

However...every other aspect of this stereo is pretty good, and that's why I'm giving it two stars. The connectivity options are great (USB port is a cool option!). The analog 3.5mm auxilary port is probably the best way to use your iPod with this stereo as you can continue to use the iPod to navigate your music. Other standard features of this deck are fine and work well.

It's a shame that a receiver with this much potential falls totally flat on one of it's most appealing features. I'd not recommend this stereo if your iPod music library is larger than a few hundred songs.

I was running an Alpine CDA 9847 when my son picked up a Clarion with a front USB port. Hmmmmm what a concept. After researching Alpine`s solution to USB connectivity (the KDA 620 adapter) I decided it wasn`t for me, I mean why buy a USB adapter that doesn`t work for the price of a whole new head unit? So as much as I hated to do it I replaced my head unit with his Clarion to try it for a while. It worked great, the USB was practically instantaneous when anything was plugged in however the sound quality was less than great, there was no sub out, discs took forever to load and it wouldn`t recognize most of my data discs.....weird?!?!?!

Anyways, that`s my long boring story on how my research led me to this unit.........

There are a lot of music formats out there now a lot of us use, iPods, MP3 players, flash drives, portable satellite, discs and sd cards just to name a few and it`s hard to find an affordable head unit that supports them all.

The Sony comes close.........

The sound quality of the CDX-GT610Ui is awsome, the controls are laid out well and easy to understand. The settings are easily tweaked (the SUPER annoying BEEP was the first thing to go, WOW what were they thinking? Who would want that?) I have no problem with the radio reception and so far this thing has played every disc I`ve thrown at it just like my Alpine did.

The iPod connection work pretty much like every other one out there and is a great feature and selling point of this unit.
My Sandisk also plays through the USB port and it charges as well.

The text display is tolerable and searching through folders on data discs or MP3 players is easy if you`ve ever done that kind of stuff before and you have your files tagged and set up in folders correctly.

The USB works good once it loads and does support resume on flash drives and MP3 players which is a must have when you`re talking hundreds of songs.

The detachable face is a nice thing to have and I use it all the time when my truck is going to be parked at the boat ramp or a trailhead somewhere.

The front mounted aux input works like any other aux input and is also a nice feature considering I had to AI net-RCA-mini jack my Alpine to get the same thing.

Did I mention the sound quality is awsome even through speaker level inputs? Well it is and this unit blows away the Clarion and is as close to the Apline as you can get.

No problems there.

However.........

1)The lack of preamp outputs required a little creative wiring since I`m running a passive EQ through a 4 channel amp, I knew this going into it and could not believe it only had one set (c`mon guys, 1 set??????)The sub out works great but just one more set of preamp outs would have made connecting this unit sooooooo much easier. Front, rear and sub should be standard on all units imo. I guess if you`re not running an amp or don`t mind speaker level inputs it`s ok.

2) The unit resets when the engine starts and the USB resets both when the engine starts and when the unit is turned off which leads to....

3) The USB takes FOREVER to start up! Read-Read-Read-Read-Read is all it says. The load time is just unacceptable. I can go to the store and back by the time it plays. I am using several thumb drives from 512 up to 2GB and it is the same with all of them. It does seem to load quicker with the MP3 players hooked up to the USB. Every time I turn off my truck or start the engine it reboots the USB all over again.
Good thing the cd loads normally.

4) The buttons are bright, the dim works only on the display. The Alpine has a feature to change colors AND dim the buttons but it`s display was too bright, a little window tinting fixed that. A dim on the buttons would be nice but that`s a minor thing compared to the lack of preamp outs and the load time on the USB.

5) Where is the case for the faceplate?
Luckily for me my Alpine came with one and the faceplate off this unit fits perfectly but not eveyone has a case just laying around (again...c`mon guys?!?!?!?!?!)

All in all Sony got very close with this one......but no cigar.
I still give it 4 out of 5 stars.
I like it enough that my Alpine is staying on the shelf kicking out tunes in the garage and this unit is staying in my truck until someone gets it right.

Hopefully this helps someone and hopefully someone is listening (hello... Clarion? Sound quality? I`d try your new one DXZ375MP except the USB is gone and there`s still no sub out?????? Alpine! Now that you`re done playing with the iPod (IDA-X001) could you get back to making stereos for the real world? Oh, and Sony.....could you maybe add a set of front and a set of rear preamp outs and do something about the load time on the USB -Thanks-)

I guess by real world I mean my world (and a lot of my friends)
I`m ready to go discless but some of my friends are not so a non motorized cd player (I do a lot of four wheeling and do not want a face plate hanging out of the dash so I can break it when changing cd`s or a removable face plate to get to the cd slot so I can drop it) is still a must have, the front mounted (or even remote mount if it works) USB is the way to go for thumb drives and non iPod MP3 players, the front mounted mini jack aux in is always a good thing for portable satellite connections, the iPod connection is becoming standard on most players which is also a good thing and preamp outputs are important to those of us running amps and subs.

I bought this deck a month ago and Im really satisfied with it. The sound is great and i haven't seen my ipod since installed it. The good is that you can manage your ipod through the deck (you can scroll only by playlist, artist or album at your choice) and the bad is that if your ipod has a lot of songs on it, the unit scrolling is quite slow. I would be really happy if the unit could scroll by initial letter, this would make the navigation a lot faster. The solution to this problem is to have few playlists, each one containing the diferent kind of music you could want to listen.