A Good, Basic CD/Cassette Stereo

(Updated audio troubleshooting results on October 18, 2004.)

I recently bought a 2003 Subaru Legacy sedan and needed to upgrade the factory CD/radio to allow for listening to cassettes. I frequently listen to books on tape, which are still mostly on cassette at this point. In addition, I occasionally get music cassettes from a friend who is determined to keep me aware of the latest young female pop singers.

To give me both CD and cassette in this car, I initially bought a JVC KW-XC777, a double-DIN stereo that had some nice features and superb radio reception. However, it started distorting after a couple of weeks and I returned it for replacement. (My review of the JVC KW-XC777 can be read at http://www.epinions.com/content_136689585796.) The dealer (Crutchfield) did not have another KW-XC777 to send me, so I opted for a Sanyo FXCD-550. The unit's cost was $280.

The Sanyo FXCD-550 is a single-DIN car stereo with CD, cassette and AM/FM radio. Since so much is packed into such a small amount of space, there is little room for buttons and displays. Most of the buttons that exist are quite small and the modest display gives only the most basic information.

Here are the important specs for the unit:

RMS power: 20W x four channels (3 percent distortion)
Load impedance: 4 Ohms
Cassette freq. resp.: 50 Hz to 15 kHz
Cassette S/N: 52 dB
Cassette wow/flutter: 0.1 percent
CD freq. resp.: 20 Hz to 20 kHz
CD S/N: 90 dB
Outputs: Back-panel RCA line-out jacks for front and rear.
The FXCD-550 does not support MP3 playback.

With its DIN form-factor, the Sanyo FXCD-550 is very easily installed in most cars. A big exception is my Subaru, which does not support DIN-style mounting where a thin steel frame mounts in the dashboard and then the stereo slips into that frame. With the 2003 Subaru Legacy, I had to disassemble much of the center of the dashboard, remove a steel frame from the dash and attach the stereo to this frame. Fortunately, the Sanyo FXCD-550 has screw holes on its sides that perfectly matched with holes in this frame, so I didn't have to drill any new holes. The resulting mount is very firm and rigid, much better in this regard than the typical sleeve-mounted DIN stereo.

I hate to dig stereos out of the dashboard to fix a bad connection, so I soldered my wires. Crutchfield supplied a wiring harness for my Subaru that made the connection easier.

Once mounted, the Sanyo FXCD-550 is attractive and conservative by the standards of today's car stereos. The CD slot is on top of the unit, slid as far to the left as possible. The cassette slot is in the center-right and the display is on the lower left. The on/off button is a tiny thing on the very lower left corner -- it's illuminated when the car is running, which makes it easy to find at night.

The volume up/down switches (no knob, unfortunately) are on the far right, as far away from the driver as possible. To make up for this, they are a decent size and surprisingly easy to find without taking my eyes off the road. Wedged between the volume up/down switches is the function button that steps the stereo through functions such as bass, treble, balance, fader and volume. The default is volume.

The other interesting buttons select among CD, cassette and radio; these are on the upper right. I can have both a CD and cassette loaded in the Sanyo FXCD-550 and switch between them (and switch to the radio) using these buttons. The "Tape" button doubles as the reverse switch for the cassette, so I don't have to pop the tape out and flip it over.

There are a smattering of other switches on the front of the Sanyo FXCD-550, mostly for selecting the radio station. There is also a release switch for the removable front panel and two tiny eject buttons, one for the CD and one for the cassette.

The display on this stereo is minimal. It does have a clock that only illuminates if the stereo is switched on. (This isn't important for me, as the car has a nearby digital clock.) The display also shows the radio station frequency as well as the CD track. Other than that, there are no animations and no distracting blinking displays, which is exactly the way I like it. There are multiple settings for the brightness of the display, but it does not connect to the car's dashboard lighting. I find that the default setting (setting 5 out of 10) is adequate for both day and night operation.

One other curious operational note: The Sanyo FXCD-550 has a maddening little pause when I first press the on/off button. The unit takes a couple of heartbeats before it powers up and it always makes me think that it's dead. It switches off immediately, but powers up only after an unusually long delay... weird.

FM radio reception is very good with the Sanyo FXCD-550 but not quite as good as the JVC KW-XC777 that it replaced. It is more than capable to hold stations solidly in suburban areas but loses the signal somewhat in the mountains.

CD and cassette playback have been completely without incident so far in several months of use. The CD has yet to skip, including during some jaunts on bumpy roads in the fairly stiff Subaru. The manual doesn't say anything about skip resistance but I'm very impressed with the unit's rock-steady CD playback. Likewise, the cassette mechanism works well in both forward and reverse, and I detect no change in sound quality between forward and reverse.

There are two small oval buttons for fast forward and rewind of the cassette; these same buttons step between tracks during CD playback. This re-use of buttons for the active playback makes a lot of sense to me and I found that the Sanyo FXCD-550 was very easy to learn. There is no remote control, so everything must be done on the front panel. Resetting the clock is intuitive and I got it right on the very first try without reading the manual.

I initially had some problems with the sound from the FXCD-550 and I went for several months with the audio faded to the front speakers only, as I had distortion when the rear speakers were turned up. I installed new speakers that had better sound than the factory speakers, but this did not fix the distortion problem.

After a lot of thought and few chances to work on this stereo, I finally got at it again this weekend (October 17, 2004). I removed the stereo one more time and carefully examined all the connections. I tested the wiring to the speakers, assuming I had made a mistake in wiring the stereo; after all, two different stereos showed the same distortion problem. However, the factory stereo sounds perfect. This led me to believe I had miswired something.

I examined the wires carefully, double and triple checking the manual, but everything was correctly hooked up. Since I soldered the wires, the connections were all solid. So I taped everything up and tried the stereo again. This time, it worked perfectly at even way-too-loud levels.

Since then, I've listened to both music and books on tape, and everything plays fine -- even when driving down the road. The sound is very pleasing now that the distortion is gone and all four speakers are working. I have no idea what caused the rear-channel distortion but it is gone now. Perhaps simply re-seating all the connectors did the trick.

One feature that I like for music playing is the front-panel "Bassexpander" switch. At one push, this is a "loudness" function that boosts both the bass and treble. With the Pioneer TS-A1654 speakers that I installed in the doors, this is just the right amount of tweaking for low-volume music listening. In this mode, the bass is clean and pleasing and the treble is excellent, perfect for the mostly acoustic music that I listened to the other day.

Another press of the Bassexpander switch gives a bigger bass boost and returns the treble to flat. A third push brings the stereo back to its default setting.

In addition to the Bassexpander switch, the Sanyo has bass and treble controls that are accessed through pressing the "Vol Sel" button. I have them at their flat setting.

I am pleased with its sound quality and simple ergonomics of the Sanyo FXCD-550, although I wish it had MP3 capability. Its inability to connect to the car's dashboard lighting circuit is another disappointment.

Overall, the Sanyo FXCD-550 puts a lot of functionality into a very small space. The fact that it has a DIN mount means that it will be easy to get this functionality in most cars. In my case, I was able to return a nice little storage compartment to my dashboard once I removed the double-DIN JVC stereo and installed the single-DIN Sanyo.

At $280, the Sanyo FXCD-550 is not cheap. However, it is about as good as it gets for a combined CD/cassette player. It does both those things very well, and throws in competent FM reception in the bargain. On the other hand, its display and controls are minimal; enough to get the job done but nothing more. And it does not have MP3 capability.

This unassuming car stereo packs a lot of capability into a small space. Assuming it remains undistorted, I recommend it.