December 18th, 2006

On the Dalby to Inverell leg of my trip home for xmas, the cassette player in my trusty stock standard [mazda](http://www.mazda.com.au/) cassette/radio player started playing up. If I put a tape in (or in this particular case, the cassette adaptor for my ipod) it would constantly switch sides. On a few occasions the tape even got stuck inside. I tried with a normal tape as well and the same thing happened.

So, just out of Dalby, with a good 4 hours left to drive I was stuck listening to whatever radio I could find. In a lot of areas I could tune into [Triple J](http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/) which was good, but definitely wasn’t a substitute for my trusty iPod.

Anyway, today Dad and I went down to the local [Super Cheap Auto](http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/) here in Inverell in search of a new stereo.

When it comes to audio equipment for the car, I am more of a practical person than an audiophile. If it plays what I want than I am happy. I have no real wish to have expensive speakers and sub-woofers and what-not. My only real concern was getting something that I could plug my iPod in to, preferably one with a 3.5mm stereo jack connection so I didn’t have to have a cassette player/adapter.

I hadn’t read up on stereos of anything, so I was actually pretty surprised to find one that did actually have a 3.5mm audio input jack right on the front panel. They had a few models there, but the Sony ones where the only ones with the audio input jack. The [JVC](http://www.jvc.com.au/) models said they were ‘iPod ready’, but I would have needed to buy a separate ‘iPod connection kit’ which ended up only having the iPod connector and not a standard 3.5mm plug. The [Kenwood](http://www.kenwood.com.au/) models mentioned nothing about ‘iPod connection’ or ‘aux input’ so they didn’t even get a look in.

In the end, after weighing up all the options, I went with a Sony CDX-GT250S. RRP $299.00, but I got it for $199.00. It supports all I want including:

* Support for CD/CDR
* Support for MP3/WMA
* AUX In

It doesn’t look too shabby either.

After getting it home, Dad helped me put it in. After a small hick-up with the front left speaker, it was working.

Overall I’m pretty happy with it. It looks cool in the dash of my car, it works well and it’s simple to connect my iPod to. I’m not sure what the general consensus is with [Sony XPlod](http://www.xplodsony.com/) systems and I don’t really care, as long as it plays my music I’ll be happy.