Sony CDX-GT610Ui

"I bought this deck because I like to have options in playing music while in my car during long commutes. I have an iPod that I keep most of my music on, but I like to download podcasts to USB sticks. On top of that my sister has plenty of mixed CDs that she still likes to listen when she drives my car.

So, to me this seemed a good mix of all those technologies. A bit more than I wanted to spend on a deck, and I'm not a big fan of Sony technology, this was one of the few decks out there that include USB playability.

The USB player works well, I've only gone up to 2GB sticks, so I'm not sure how big of a stick it will work with. The 2GB has no issues with the deck, and it plays and navigates through the songs and albums rather quickly. I wish there were a better way to navigate by album name or song, but the only way you can navigate through the USB stick is by album number. If you have one album with ten subfolders, it will go through all of the folders until it reaches the next main folder - which can be a bit of a pain, but if you keep that in mind when setting up your album structure, you can reduce that headache.

The iPod playability is decent, and there are really two ways to hook your iPod up to the deck- either through the auxiliary jack (which plugs into the headphone jack on the iPod) or through the cable directly hooked into the deck (the installers routed mine through the glove compartment to hide it). Hooking the iPod up to the iPod cable allows you to navigate the iPod through the deck but you won't be able to access the iPod at all through its own navigation screen (which is better). If you go the auxiliary hook up, then you can navigate the iPod through its own screen and not through the deck, but I'm not certain it sounds better than when played through the iPod cable.

I've had no issues playing CDs (-R,+R, RWs, etc.) and they all sound great on this deck. Now all I need to do is upgrade my speakers..."

This deck is worth getting having the built in ipod cable makes it so simple and and the front usb and and heaphone jack makes it easy for any other mp3 player or storage device simple to connect to. The rca jack in the back makes it easy for an amp to be hooked up.

I've owned this head unit for over 6 months and couldn't be happier.

If you're looking for something with clean lines that almost looks OEM this is a great choice. USB jack works great and will auto search your drive for music. The iPod jack works equally as well. My only complaint is searching music on your iPod could be easier. I found it is easiest to have your iPod turned on with the playlist you wish to use already selected.

I have the unit hooked up to my factory amp and speakers, everything worked within my 3000GT just as it did stock.