I'm lookin for a name brand (read audio quality i'm familiar with) head unit that plays mp3's as they are meant to be played with all the advantages of no moving parts like my diamond rio 500. Sony is coming out with a head unit that takes their proprietary memory stick chips and does just that . in addition to the usual cd changer control / am/fm. The model is MEX1HD if i understood an asian guy with heavy accent. Any way he is emailing some stuff on it tonite that i will be happy to post. cost is high at $1499. But i would rather spend more than buy a head unit that is barely any different than my 11 year old alpine. The usual questions apply if anyone has heard about this also.
The unit i mentioned has a hard disk in it to hold a huge quantity of songs, sony is releasing another unit w/o the disk for $999 which has what i want - memory stick access + single cd /cd changer
the Rossmon

 

Rockford Fosgate have a solid state chip changer that works with their head units. You can plug up to 8 256Mb chips into it.

A single Sony MS is max 128Mb so not much in the way of MP3 storage. The MS support is more for transfer of MP3's and graphics than actual playback. And HD's in S2000's (stiff suspension) is not a good idea.

 

thanks for the info will check out as the cony had other disatvantages too like no amp, and expensive display that i have no use for.

 

Panasonic has a SD deck reader. I believe these go up to 512mb. Decks play Mp3/wma reasonably priced as well.

 

thanks Lucid
i checked out the panasconic which looks great but isn't exactly cheap at $1399 plus the cost of their memory modules. In fact after looking at these types of systems which are just coming out (funny since i have my diamond rio personal mp3 player for 2 years now) for car audio i think i will wait until prices come down and i'm lookin at the mid range stuff for mp3's on cd like the kenwoods u sell and alpine.
and since it's a transition unit 4 me i just might get something used if the right price shows up 4 a mp3 cd system, gotta think, meanwhile i'm putting together the speakers, subs and amp for the stock unit and figuring out how to rip out all the remote stereo controls and put something useful (to me) in there.
Also has anyone researched removing the stereo cover in our car. Guess what I like to see my fancy head unit and don't like looking at the open and ugly unasthetic stereo cover!