Customer Reviews
Great Stereo!!! 
2008-01-04
This is just the best stereo out there... for the price. I bought it on Amazon for $120 and it is one of the best deals you can make. Great features, good sound quality, excellent price.
The USB port is great, you can have all your music at any moment. The ipod connectivity is great also. I cannot find any other car stereo that offers all these features for the same price.
100% RECOMMENDED
excellent 
2007-11-12
This is a great system but the only thing that I don't like is the input for 3.5mm jack - hardly any sound out of it with iriver h10 but having USB takes care of that problem. Yes USB connection is a little slow to start - couple of minutes but i don't find that an issue.
Good Features But No Loudness or Bass 
2007-09-18
I bought the Sony CDX-GT610UI when my favorite stereo of all time, the CDX-5705X, stopped working after three years. I was so excited to get a stereo with a USB port. What I didn't realize was that the 610UI doesn't come with a loudness control so there is very little bass or accentuated highs.
According to Sony documentation, "Loudness: When the Loudness function is activated, the receiver gives a +9dB boost at 100Hz and a +5dB boost at 10kHz."
I'm so disappointed by Sony's decision to remove that feature that I'm leaning toward replacing the unit. The sound quality was far superior in the older model than the current one. I've done everything to bring out the bass such as turning on the low pass filter and setting the three band equalizer to high on the low and high range while reducing the mid. That reminds me, whatever happened to the seven band equalizer that was in my former stereo?
I would have been willing to pay more but I have a rule where I don't buy a stereo which has a motorized faceplate so as to reduce the moving parts. That's why I bought the stereo with a USB port.
Apart from those two items, the stereo performs but since the sound quality is so inferior, I struggle to give it much of a positive review.
Nice try........ 2007-09-09
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.
perfect except the annoying beep 2007-09-02
The gt610ui has everything: aux-in, ipod, usb, cd changer input. The controls are super easy to use.
Some annoyances such as the Sony logo reflecting sun light, and two buttons being too bright at night can be easily fixed with black marker.
However, the unit beeps when turned off, to remind detaching the face plate. It is super annoying, and cannot be disabled.
Affordable Reliable Head Unit 2008-07-10
I purchased this head unit after being recommended to it by a co-worker. It's a great little unit to hook just about any device up to it. I did have one slight problem with it though. The iPod dock connector on my unit managed to get a break near the dongle in the wire that carried the sound for the right side of the stereo separation. It was intermittent and would cut in and out as the iPod shifted around in my glove box. Aside from that small problem, i did have one issue with a flash drive, but i have no idea whether it was a problem with the head unit, or just the cheap drive. Regardless, this is a great buy for all the features you get with it. Just don't leave your iPod in the car if there is extreme hot/cold! It will melt the circuitry in it :-\
Excellent choice of Head Unit 2008-06-24
I bought 2 Sony CD Receivers, one for myself and one for my sister. I must say I am satisfied with the quality so far. I have three choices of how I can play my music. Ipod, CD slot & USB port. I love it. The remote is quite handy as well, especially if you want to keep your eyes on the road when skipping sounds. I upgraded my current speakers and the sound is amazing. 2 x 120W Woofers in the back and 2 x 65W 3-Way in the front.
Click on it anyway, I'm sure someone is selling it through Amazon 2008-06-19
This is just one of the few ATRAC CD players still available for purchase. Get it before it's gone forever.
ATRAC: A technology that has revolutionized the way we listen to music.
Just like the "electric car" was taken away because it was a threat to the oil industry, Sony's ATRAC CD burning program has been discontinued probably because the music industry doesn't want too see an artists entire music repertoire burned onto one CDR.
Are you aware of Sony's SonicStage and the ATRAC CD format available through this car stereo? If you're interested, I'm gonna tell you just how wonderful this CDR burning program really is. It has truly changed the way I listen to music, and the fact that I have put over a thousand of my CD's onto just a small box of CDR's to be played at work on my Sony ZS-XN30 boombox, my Sony D-NE10 Walkman, and my Sony CMT-HPR99XM home stereo in my bedroom, and my Sony MEX-1GP car stereo, similar to this unit here.
Today, we take for granted that we can carry a whole music library with us and listen to it wherever we like. It was Sony that first made this possible with its audio compression technology ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding), which was introduced with the MiniDisc in 1992.
ATRAC uses a variety of advanced technologies to analyze digital sound data, allowing it to reduce the size of that data while maintaining superb sound quality (ATRAC compresses music data to approximately 1/5 the data rate of a CD; ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus are able to compress music data to approximately 1/10 and 1/20 the data rate of a CD, respectively). This ability to reduce the size of data has enabled recording media to be made smaller and more tracks to be recorded on them, changing the way we listen to music.
First of all, having an ATRAC CDR player for the car is the greatest thing because when you have ATRAC CDR's, you don't have to change CD's and endanger yourself while driving because it will seem like you won't have to change CD's for many weeks. One ATRAC CDR in the car will play practically forever. This one particular Sony car stereo, the MEX-1GP, has a removable faceplate that you can hook up to your computer and load up to one gig of your mp3's directly from the computer just in case you don't have a CD with you, at the time. So with this unit, you can play either, the radio, XM satellite (a program you pay for), the mp3's in the giga panel, or your CD's. What more do you want?
Sony's SonicStage and ATRAC CDR burning program has been discontinued. Like I said, probably for legal reasons because it was just too damn wonderful to allow the world to continue to embrace. The music industry must have felt a whole new threat in new CD burning technology.
All the boomboxes seem to have disappeared or they are selling at either a give-away cost, or at an extremely high price because some people out there know just how valuable they really are. A few years back, Sony created the program called SonicStage. You set this program up in your computer just like you would load Nero, or MusicMatch or any other way that you can burn CDR's on your computer. SonicStage is totally a Sony program where you can put all your CD's and your MP3's into a library and then burn CDR's that will hold up to nearly 33 hours of music on to one CDR, and with excellent sound quality. Actually, sounding far better than just transferring MP3's to a CDR as a data transfer.
Now, all of a sudden, these Sony ATRAC CDR playing stereos (which include boomboxes, walkman's, and car stereo's) are suddenly discontinued and I believe it's a conspiracy to stop a fabulous music sharing option, however, that's not why I love the invention of the ATRAC CD player. Back in 2004, I bought my first ATRAC CD playing boombox (Sony ZS-XN30), not yet knowing what ATRAC even means. But the booklet instructed me to set up SonicStage in my computer so that I can now put lots of music on one CDR. Their advertisement was "Atrac3plus: 490 songs on one CD. Burning software supplied". That caught my interest so I set it up right away into my computer. Now I'm ready to burn some CDR's to play at work. To set up my library in SonicStage, I just started caring over a few mp3's that I had, but then I started to load a bunch of CD's of music that represented a certain theme. I put all my "blues" collection CD's, plus some James Brown, Ray Charles, and other important blues singers into this SonicStage library. After I put all I had into the library, I ended up with about 27 hours of music. All "blues", and about 550 songs. I selected the burning option of 48 kps so that all my songs can be put on to one CDR. I carried all the songs over to the burning option and started the burn. This CDR took about 2 and a half hours to burn. Sure, that's a long time, but it was worth it. When the burn was complete, I put this Blues CDR into my Sony ZS-XN30, and pressed shuffle. After about 25 seconds of the unit needing to read the CD, song number 312 started to play. It even displayed the name of the song and the artist on the LCD screen. After that, it jumped to like song number 185, and that song played. It was suddenly so wonderful to hear songs shuffling without hearing CD changing noise and having a long delay like a multiple CD player (shuffling whole CD's). Instantly, this new CDR that I just made became the most valuable CD that I owned because it had so much on it. So, that Monday, I took my Sony boombox and my "blues" ATRAC CDR to work. Set it up, and hit shuffle. It played all day long. When I turned it off at my lunch hour, I came back, turned it back on, and it continued to play where it left off. That was great because this allows me to play the whole CD without hearing even one song repeated, all week long. By mid Thursday that week, the last song on the CDR finally played then the CD stopped. I've come to realize that Sony's SonicStage and the ATRAC CDR burning program is the greatest invention for storing music on a single hard copy unit. This is better than just floating all your mp3's in an inferior sound carrying unit like an ipod. How much music can your ipod hold? 60, 80, 100 hours? With Sony's ATRAC CD burning program, you can make 33 hour CDR's, and as many of them as you want. And all my ATRAC CDR's can be played on any Sony ATRAC CD player. I now have about 100 ATRAC CDR's and no reason to play any of my other CD's. I boxed them all up and put them away, never really needing them ever again. That is, not until the day I lose my last Sony ATRAC CDR player.
So this is why I'm buying up as many Sony ATRAC CD players that I can so I can be set for life to always be able to play my ATRAC CDR's. It seems now (as of June 2008), Sony's car stereos that play ATRAC CD's are still only available through independent sources. You can't get them directly from Sony anymore. These units are discontinued. I don't know if you can set up SonicStage in your computer anymore as a new user. Call or write to Sony and learn more about ATRAC and see if we can bring this back, because this truly is the greatest breakthrough in storing and preserving all our favorite music. I don't think it got promoted very well. I'm loving my Sony MEX-1GP, and I've got three more Sony CDX-GT710 (W) car stereos in my closet for my cars I'll have in the future. I can't let ATRAC go. This is just as wonderful as the "Electric Car" was before Bush and the ever-threatened oil industry took that technology away.
Here are other Sony ATRAC playing car stereos still available through independent sources selling though Amazon. In many cases, selling far cheaper than their original intended price because Sony has currently discontinued supporting and pushing its SonicStage (Atrac CD) technology. You'll have to type these in individually.
CDX-GT500, CDW-GT420U, CDX-GT510, CDX-GT81U, CDX-GT610UI, CDX-RA700, CDX-GT710, CDX-F605X, CDXF5510, CDX-GT620UESRP, R5515X, MEX-1GP, SNY-CDXR5715X.
These are the ones I've discovered through Amazon. If you have any questions, call Sony at:
1-800-222-7669 (Use 1-866-456-7669 for Digital Music Players)Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00AM-12:00AM (Midnight) / Sat-Sun 9:00AM-8:00PM EST
1-866-962-7669
Great little stereo. 2008-04-23
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2YBXDMRG0VLHG Here's a video showing how quickly it loads music off the USB Flash Drive. It also picks up right where it left off.
More than 4 stars, but not quite 5! Best Bang for your Buck! 2008-01-08
If I could give this 4.5 stars, I would. For the most part, I'm very pleased with this car stereo, but there are just a few negatives worth mentioning to the prospective buyer:
* If you're buying this for the convenient USB port (as I did), don't expect the stereo to understand playlists. And, although the file system on the thumb drive can be as complex as you'd like, the stereo assumes that those directories (or subdirectories) containing music files are "albums". And, to this stereo, an album and a playlist are one in the same.
* My suggestion for those who want to "fudge" the playlist concept on a USB thumbdrive ... as an example, if you want a playlist for country songs, create a directory on the thumb called "Country" and put your songs in it. Don't use subdirectories. Repeat this for other pseudo-playlists.
* The receiver is not as strong as my factory unit (but it is adequate).
* You will need to commit many of the button functions to memory, especially at night, because the text above the buttons do not light up at night. Over time, this will be insignificant, but in the intial days of use, it's annoying.
All that said, I can deal with the above-mentioned cons .... and, this is clearly the best after-market car stereo I've ever owned. This is the best bang for your buck.
