[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pinky:
[B] Ahhhemmm(pinky clears his throat) You mean had your harness! #$%#% Q#$%

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by AusS2000:
[B]

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bbsilver:
[B] Sound quality?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by AusS2000:
[B] The Sony is one of the more powerful heads on the market. Most current decent quality heads output around 40W. The Sony is 50W. There is one other I've heard of (Alpine or Pioneer) that outputs 60W.

This is PMPO (which I think stands for Pretty Meaningless Performance Output). In real Watts (RMS) its only about 17W.

But the proof is in the listening. If you put some decent to good quality speakers in, you'll appreciate the difference even with the stock head unit. Put the Sony in and you'll wonder how it could get any better. Put and amp in and you'll know

 

Ok, just managed to get the Neo 35 working last night.

I should have it installed properly by the end of the weekend.

As this thread is really about MP3 players I have to say that I'm impressed with everything about the Neo 35 except the manual, and the support from SSI (MTE).

I spent over a week emailing them before finally getting in contact by phone. They then sent me on a wild goose chase with regards to powering the unit. I told them I'd tried it on my cars 12V battery and they said that it wasn't powerful enough. Sure, it can turn over a 2 litre high compression engine, but a small electrical device was out of the question . If that's the case, maybe they shouldn't be selling it as an in car solution!

Turns out it has nothing to do with the power and is to do with the partitioning of the HD. If you're a PC technician and know this stuff backwards, this is the MP3 player for you. If not, make sure you buy it with a HD installed.

Another thing I wish to report on is with regards to the posts I have about delay between songs and fast forwarding etc. The Neo 35 is seemless. It jumps to the next track immediately. Fast forwarding is much like on a CD player in that you seem to here snippets of the track as it advances at high speed.

Navigation is beautiful and entirely dependant on how you set the tracks on the HD. You can make folders for different music types and move down through folders or across to tracks. I have read that in recent versions of firmware you can have multiple levels of folders but I haven't tried it yet.

Full review next week.

 

Aus's, how long have you had your Song head unit? The reasoning I'm asking is b/c one of my friends work at Best Buy (An electronics store in America) and he said those Sony active black panel head units are returned the most for defective reasons. Apparently, after a couple of months of usage, the mechanism for the motorized flip down face would not work. He highly recommended to me I don't get it b/c of this. Then again, Best Buy only sold the non-Mobile ES lineup (I don't know if that makes a difference or not).

Yeah, I saw those 60x4 head units by Alpine. They look pretty good. Pinky, would you go with the Sony's or the Alpine's?

For those of you w/MB Quarts, how are you installing them? Did you take out the basket or what? Which model did you use? Would you get coaxials or components (I'm worried about the cutting into my door panels).

 

I have MB Quart 6.5" Referenz coaxials. The coax setup works very well as it's not like some coax's where it's just a low end speaker. With the MBQ's, you get the same speakers and everything as with the components, except the tweater is mounted on a peg that sticks through a small hole in the center of the midrange. I got mine with the regular crossover and then found out a week later that a friend of mine had a brand new pair with the musicomp crossover that he would have sold me for half the price. But it really doesn't make any difference for sound quality - the fancy crossover is just for show.

Anyway, to mount them, take the stock basket and cut all the backing away so you just have a ring to screw into and mount the speaker with. Try to leave as much of the backing above the speaker as possible as this serves to divert water away from the speaker when it rains (water DOES go into your door when it rains). Anyway, you get the idea.

As for the NEO 35 - what head unit are you using that with??? It sounds like it's a great unit.

 

I'm not quite sure how long I've had it now. A couple of months maybe. I can imagine this sort of thing being a problem. Especially if people try and force it closed, or it opens behind a panel. If the front is open when you stop and turn off the engine it closes by itself. If you then close the flap, have your latte, then start the car again the face trys to open behind the flap.

It really isn't a problem. I just make sure I close it manually before turing off the car.

 

Congrats Aus on getting your Neo working! To all, I've had mine in for over a month now and I simply love it - I don't carry CDs in the car any more. I've Mpeg'ed about 60 of my CDs, still have about 240 to go. At this rate I'll be able to store about 800+ CDs on my Neo. I went with the SSI included HD solution, but I did have to d/l the drivers for it, which actually was a program that formatted and partitioned the drive - and also added the drivers. I guess I got lucky, going this route.

Wesmaster

 

Hey Wesmaster, could you please send me that software. Can't believe the boys at SSI (MTE) never even mentioned them!