Sony MEX-BT3800U | The Best Car Stereo in Years

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 at 11:33 am

You get a lot for your money with the Sony MEX-BT3800U car stereo. Between the front auxiliary in, USB, and Bluetooth you have plethora of connectivity options so you should be able to connect anything to this unit for a long time. That’s the unit’s biggest plus. You can turn off auxillary in the settings if you don’t want to have to switch through so many inputs when searching for your source. You can also add optional HD Radio through an expensive adapter. I don’t mind the lack of HD Radio since from what I’ve read, the execution isn’t great yet with radios switching back and forth between the HD and analog signal and the signals themselves not being in sync.

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The display is easy to read at a glance, and RDS (displays what is currently playing on the tuner) makes finding new radio stations easy. The iPod controls on the unit are a bit too complicated to bother learning, especially since you can use the iPod’s own controls if you switch to “passenger mode”. The buttons on the bottom of the unit used to switch stations and perform other operations have kind of a sharp edge a the bottom, which can make them sometimes a little painful to press if you don’t aim high when you hit them. The USB will charge your iPod or other device fine.

The Bluetooth connectivity works really well, and sounds great. I use the Bluetooth stereo to stream music from my Motorola Droid with no problems. The Bluetooth hands free functionality is a bit basic since the unit won’t display who is calling you, just that you have a call. Not that big of a deal at this price point. My phone will automatically pair the hands free profile when I turn the Sony MEX-BT3800U car stereo on, but seems kind of hit or miss with pairing the Bluetooth stereo profile automatically. From using my phone with another Bluetooth speaker, it seems like it’s more of an issue with the Droid.

One thing I find really strange with the Sony MEX-BT3800U car stereo is the remote functionality. If I use the head unit controls to turn on the unit / change source, the only control on the remote that will work is the off button. Vice versa, if you turn the unit on with the remote, all the remote functions work perfectly fine, but you can only use the volume controls on the head unit. Seek buttons, etc will not work. It took me a while to figure this out and at first I thought the remote control was defective. Again, this is not that big of deal to me since I would hardly use the remote, I just wish it was documented somewhere.

So overall, this stereo is exactly what I was looking for:
A cheap stereo.
A stereo that DOES DO bluetooth audio streaming(A2DP) out of the box.
A stereo that DOES have usb.
A stereo that DOES have aux front input.

The Sony MEX-BT3800U car stereo is a very simple install so there is not need to hire a professional to do it.
to pair bluetooth with a device simply hold in the bluetooth button on the front of the stereo till the bluetooth icon blinks (puts the stereo into discovery mode), then the device will always be paired when within range.

I would suggest this to everyone who needs to stream bluetooth audio to their car speakers, it has CD-player quality. I run Pandora on my Motorola Droid through the bluetooth channel all day long.

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