SONY WX-GT90BT Bluetooth 2-DIN Head Unit
In A Nutshell
A double DIN headunit. Or at least on the face of it, that despite looking all low tech and merely having a few flashing lights, does in fact take the digital world on in pretty much hand to hand combat, has a remote control and a really cool touch screen optional remote control as well as long as you have a smartphone with a cradle to hold it in ergonomic reach for App Remote use.
Manufacturer: Sony
Product Details: CD/MP3 player, smartphone/Walkman/iPod/iPhone connectivity via front USB, Bluetooth & App Remote
Website: link
Typical Selling price: £199.99 Typical Internet price £169.99 (CAD)
SCORES
Overall 8.2
Sound Quality 10
Appearance/Display 7
Ease Of Use/HMI 8
Features 8
Value For Money 8
Editor Review : SONY WX-GT90BT Bluetooth 2-DIN Head Unit
What a modern and deliciously strange head unit this really is. It looks like a fairly boring fill-the-hole-and-stop-the-draught product. A sort of ‘OEM-esque’ item, so you could add ‘with stereo’ to the lineage ad when you flog the car. But that is a ‘Hong Kong Phooey’ disguise. For like the minor superhero that was disguised as the Mild Mannered Janitor, the Sony WX-GT90BT is a bit more than she seems. Fire it up and POW! A full specification CD deck and some almost casually potent processing (versus a few years back) make for a startlingly clear CD section. And then you get the Bluetooth doings and of course an Auxiliary socket and a USB hole under a little slidey door that opens. Both these are audio-only as the unit is not an AV product. But, with what’s called App Remote, it is as whizzy and funky cool as many a unit costing a lot more.
How Well Does It Work?
The front display is all driven in the same colour at once, but as the sticker (that most owners will simply leave in place throughout the unit’s lifetime) says, it can make 35,000 colours. So even if the lights in your dash are wonky for shade. You will be able to match them. I, like so many folks also will, left it in full Christmas Tree mode of pretty scrolling colourful show offy lunacy.
Relatively easy to get a grip of for use and function, I did enjoy the GT90BT. For one, it is NOT double-DIN. It is quite unlike anything else I have ever seen before. For while I have seen a single DIN chassis that has a ‘swollen’ fascia, so it displays like a DIN-and-a-half, I have never seen a proper double-DIN front that simply housed a skinny CD mechanism at the top of the box and then a bit of electronics in much less ‘real estate’ as engineers call it, downstairs in a shorter chassis, where you keep the three sets of RCA outputs.
The unit’s pretty easy to get an understanding of, but I wondered why I could not hear my chum Roo from EMMA when I telephoned him through the unit. Turned out, I had plugged my test rig speakers and amp into the rear RCAs and phone output only comes from the front! I did an RTFM, reconnected and called him back and swore I would confess my crass stupidity!
When it comes to sheer performance, the WX-GT90BT is almost arrogant in its Sony-ness! It has the resources to be mighty and with no big fanfare, it just is mighty. The Sony days of lowest-common-denominator super-affordable are crushed in history. For one, this bloody thing sports a 120dB signal to noise ratio for the CD section. This is due to a simply a monster processor versus what CD needs, for ‘giving it large’ and sounds arrestingly clean and rich and above all, dynamic. It will impress if you play something with sudden booms, bangs and crashes from CD.
Likewise the iPod was really and I mean REALLY clean, actually impressing me on a bit of Yello. Then, the App Remote was used and it’s moron proof. Just fires up and turns into a selected (i.e. NO VOLUME) control system for sweepy-gesture controlling track and album on the iPod’s screen, or by tickling the BACK spot, can get at a whole lot of control, like making preset number single-press phone calls – optimised for brief-glance driving safety, see? Or else choosing sources, or lots more.
GT90BT has a seven band EQ onboard and a seating position time alignment system to play with to better the stereo imagery for the passengers – or just for the driver. The call quality was excellent and the little op amp behind the 3.5mm plughole is really sensitive. Which is just as well, politically, as the unit I like to test this sort of input with, is a sweet little Sony MP3 Walkman that has been treated with disdain by another brand’s Aux input, wanting more milliVolts of signal. This input is so sensitive, you can hear how my MP3 files or rather their little output amp on the Walkman, are less crispy than the Apple Lossless files I play Yello with on the plugged-in iPod Touch4.
So, it works well and can really impress. You need the Android or Apple app called App Radio is all.
Why Buy It?
Sony’s WX-GT90BT is a real niche-filler unit. Not only does it look like a sheriff, with a badge and all – I mean like a ‘real’ car radio but it also has lacks no tech smarts and is easy to learn how to boss. If you are not a smartphone owner, then the little dinky remote control it comes with, will offer extra gadget VFM, as well.
Also, the casually as-good-as-CD-can-get sheer high sound quality means it is a good idea to connect an amplifier and some bigger, badder full range speakers up in your car and enjoy them on CD!
Full Features & Specifications
– MOS-FET 52W x 4
– Bluetooth Wireless Technology with A2DP music streaming
– External microphone included
– Front USB Port, direct iPod/iPhone connections
– AUX Input (Front)
– MP3/WMA/WAV Compatible with ID3/WMA Tag (CD/USB)
– Radio with RDS (Radio Data System)
– EQ7 Equaliser
– Time alignment preset
– Rear Bass enhancer
– Loudness Control
– High-Pass Filter/Low-Pass Filter
– Three RCA Pre-Out Terminals (Front + Rear & Dedicated Subwoofer)
– Subwoofer Control
– Automatic Level Optimiser
– Piano black finish
– Variable key illumination
– Steering Remote Control Ready (requires optional adaptors)