Sound, Vario-Illumination, customizability and features, Looks, Full-Logic Cassette player, Quality of Blaupunkt Products I've owned in the past, KeyCard (a bonus, but not necessarily useful in my particular case)

Amplification Power, Almost everything about the interface (from the button size to the counter-intuitive functions of each button), Display, no clock

I would recommend this head unit on its two strongest merits which I have found useful to me: 1) Sound reproduction (imaging, range, and amplitude), and 2) the appearance and its seamless integration into the dash of my vehicle.

First-off, you must understand that I have an eclectic taste in music, but based on my experience with my factory unit, one frequency range it was never able to reproduce was a clear mid-range for vocals and talk radio (despite aftermarket speakers). With my Sony, it could never hit the bass beats. As everybody else has stated here, I find that the Blau is successfully able to accomodate all kinds of musical preferences. With respect to the sound, my only complaint is its lack of power, but you must understand that I drive a very noisy car, so it is a constant battle to try and drown-out road noise with music.

Now as for the weaknesses, the interface . . forget it! While this unit is full of features, I cannot utilize a third of them for they are convoluted and separated into tiny little buttons of uniform size. It simply cannot compare with that of the Sony XPlod series' interface. The only redeeming aspect of the interface is the KeyCard (which allows individual programmability between users in addition to being a safety measure), and the Vario-Color display, which can range from Green to Red, and almost any primary color in between. The lack of a clock is a problem for me as my car does not come with an integrated clock other than the one built into the factory radio. This has always been the case with the domestic built cars I've owned. I cannot say that the FM reception is weak, however, considering that it is picking-up more signals than my factory radio ever did, and about as many, if not more, than my stereo at home with an amplified Terk antenna.

I, too, echo the sentiments of two specific reviewers on this site: 1) i had a problem with the display being defective, and therefore sent it back to Crutchfield (where they happily replaced it with another unit free of charge). However, the replacement shows the same problem, being certain dots (on the dot matrix) not showing-up. This problem seems to go away after a bit of use, perhaps after the unit warms-up. I have learned to live with it. 2) I, too, was forced to buy a Blaupunkt A-08 CD changer as the only option . . and while the changer is of high quality, again I feel that the head unit's changer controls are confusing enough to defeat the purpose of a changer if you care to jockey your discs during the drive as I do.

Overall, I love this head unit, and based on my past experience with Blaupunkt, I will most certainly recommend it, especially for the price. The only other alternative I would consider, which I believe is as understated as the Sydney, is a Nakamichi HU.

Similar Products Used:

Blaupunkt, Sony

Fine music reproduction. Customization/security with smart cards. Vario-colour illumination. Attractive, classic design. RDS.

Terrible radio reception. Much worse than the stock unit in my Audi (a rebadged bare bones Blau). Teutonic labelling and interface design that is not exactly intuitive.

A great looking replacement for Audi and BMW stock radios. Its "vario-colour" LED and illumination can be adjusted to match your car's red, orange, yellow or green dash lighting. Great sound. Decent power. Beautiful clean design (if a bit abstruse). Personally, I appreciate the simple design: the last thing I want is a video game in my dash. The unit's achilles heel is its subpar FM reception. My unit also had a defective LED display: Crutchfield replaced it with no questions.

Similar Products Used:

Other Blaus, VW stock units, Fujitsu Ten

It's about the only stereo out there that blends perfectly with the stock red BMW dashboard lighting. The preamplifier section is very good, and it's as flexible a receiver as I've ever used. You can program the turn-on volume, the color, the amount of loudness compensation, etc. If more than one person drives the car, the keycards store all preset information so each driver can tune the stereo to his/her preferences.

The ergonomics are confusing. There's about a billion little buttons with tiny labels, and the CD changer controls are confusing. Double-arrows usually mean "change tracks", but on this unit it means "Change disks". If you accidentally change disks instead of advancing a single track, it takes about 20 seconds of fiddling before you get back to where you want to be. The display is VERY limited, and does not have a clock. Although you can name disks when using a changer, you can't shuffle through the titles without stopping at each and every disk and listening to the first few seconds to tell what each one is. Can't they store this info in memory, or something? The FM section is also fairly weak.

I paid around $450 for the Syndey, the 10-disk changer, and the steering wheel remote. I'd highly recommend it for the sound, as long as you're a "set it and forget it" kind of listener. If you like to fiddle around with the stereo while you drive, the tiny buttons of the Sydney will put you in a ditch in short order. If I had it all to do over again for the same money, I'd probably buy a Sony or a Kenwood because I'm tired of fighting the poor faceplate design. Perhaps someone more flexible than I would have better luck with it.

Similar Products Used:

I've had lots of Blaupunkt equipment in the past, and each has been a very good value for the money. The sound out of the Sydney is better than the Sony or Ultrexx, but worse than the Concord, the Harman Kardon, and the Nakamichi. Ergonomics are the worst of any stereo I've ever owned, but the good sound makes up for that.

Strong tape section, about 25 clean watts per 4 channels, able to adjust color of lighting top match dash lighting, security smart card instead of removeable faceplate, blends in well w/ european dash instrument layout,

Radio section worse than my factory Becker (and that is saying ALOT) but I generally only listen to PBS/NPR stations and they tend to be lower wattage stations; stopped reading smart card almost right out of box requiring multiple insertion / rejection cycles to get the thing to come on, (dealer worthless on getting this problem resolved - will be more than happy to tell you who it is - just email me), forget the rated 35 watts claimed by Blau - a clean ~25 or so is much more realistic; to hook up a CD changer you must use a Blaupunkt unit, others will not hook up.

Excellant tape section and cosmetics. So far appears to be very well built (excluding the smart card issue - but that is probably a one off problem). Have had the Blau for 2 years now and generally have been happy with it. Will be installing a blau CD changer in about a month along w/ a larger amp.

The reason I bought it is because I am not into the look of large flashy screens with endless menus, I liked its style. I also like the thumb remote control, this worked well.

Build quality, and pretty much everything about it. I am planning on throwing it away soon.

Quite frankly, this is the worst piece of electronics I have ever purchased. The first problem I had was with the display. More and more of it failed to light, and eventually it became completely dead. Although the unit continued to function, it was a bit hard to use without the display. The next problem I had was that the tape jammed and can only be removed with a screwdriver. This happens with every tape I stick in there. The third problem was that the amps seemed to degrade quickly until the sound became flat and barely powered. The cd changer was also sub-par as it skipped like mad no matter how i mounted it in the trunk. The keycard, while a good idea, turned into nothing more than a silly gimmick that i never removed from the unit.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer, Acura stock. Like i said, it only worked well for like a month, and does not compare well to anything