Installed the unit, worked great for 5 minutes. removed the cd, put it back in, and ever since that the unit makes noises and I get a "load/eject error" I am awaiting a replacement unit from crutchfield. Dissapointing that the unit was defective, but crutchfields return policy is hassle-free.

value!

It would be nice to somehow get direct access to folders/tracks without being forced to go through the folder/tracks sequentially.

I had been shopping around for an mp3 car deck to replace my old Alpine, which had started to skip on CD playback. When reviewing mp3 decks, I liked the price of the MP3000, and was encouraged by the fact that Costco had been carrying it. In my experience, Costco carries merchandise that is reasonable quality at a good price. My local Costco didn't have it, so I ended up ordering it on the web. I didn't go for the lowest price available, because of all the nasty things I've heard about New York mail order houses. It was very easy to install on my 95 Ford Tauras. Playback of regular CDs, CDRs and CDRWs is great, and so is the tuner. But I bought it for the mp3 capability. I have had no problem with playback - all the disks I've burned play back with absolutely no problem. But it has taken some experimentation to find what works best for sound quality. The manual recommends a minimum bit rate of 128k, but I found that while the music sounds OK, it doesn't have sparkle. MP3s at the highest bitrate (320k) sound fabulous, but I can only get about 4 albums worth on one CDR. I found that if I used a variable bit rate (VBR) setting of 128k to 225k, I get reasonable file size and excellent sound. By the way I rip all my mp3s from my own CD collection using CDEX (an excellent free software ripper/encoder) and burning with the software that came with my burner - the stripped down EZCDCreator (Roxio). I don't know why other people have had problems with mp3 playback, but my unit has had absolutely no problems with chirping etc. The folder skip works really well to get to the album I want and the text scrolling is definitely nice - you get to see all the nicely tagged information (typos and all). For a reasonably priced mp3 deck with good performance, I would heartily recommend the Blaupunkt MP3000.

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Several Alpine cd decks. This is my first mp3 car deck

MP3 play. For my car the display is good. The radio sits LOW in the center console.

Display may be too bright for high mounting

Plays MP3 files wonderfully now. Even at 92kbps. Before a warrantee repair I had the chirps and pops so I called Blaupunkt. Thay said to send it end for Warrantee repair since I had the early decoder chip. After the repair it functions great. It even remembers where it was last playing in a song after being turned off. I use Windows media player with an MP3 plugin. For some reason Real Player did not record the file and folder names like the MP3000 likes. So if you have and early player call in for repair. The new units should be fine.

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Rio Volt, Memorex MP3 CD player

Big, bright display. (Some say TOO bright, but I haven't found it to be a problem - and there IS a contrast control, contrary to what some have said.) ID3 tag support. Quick cueing with MP3 discs. Great price. Detachable faceplate. Good looks. (It's more handsome in person than it is in the photos - the finish is actually a classy charcoal, not the gaudy silver that it looks like in the pictures.)

It would be nice to have dedicated knobs for bass and treble, instead of having to page through the Audio settings menu, but I guess this is a pretty common deficiency among car stereos, and it's nothing I can't live with. I wish the scrolling of the track titles was faster. Even at the "Fast" setting, it still crawls by. These are minor annoyances, though.

I could not be more pleased with this unit. It works flawlessly, sounds and looks great, and is reasonably easy to operate. When you first insert an MP3 disc, it spends a few seconds scanning the filesystem, and then you can skip between tracks and folders as quickly and easily as if you were listening to a CD. The ID3 tag support is a nice feature too. Wow, I can have my entire music collection (or at least a sizeable chunk of it) tucked under my visor!

Great Value!!! Lots of features that you may or may not use. Powerful built-in amp, with source-tone-memory. Excellent FM tuner (Very sensitive). Clean sounding AM. Signal strength meter. Rotary encoder knob that actually responds properly when you try to adjust the volume quickly (unlike certain Alpine models). ID3 support. Separate digits for the clock. Very easy to operate while driving.

The "too bright" display really is bad on dark rural roads. The quick-and-dirty (but effective!) workaround is to flip down the faceplate if you're not operating the MP3000, just listening. The power stays on unless you remove the faceplate. It sounds like a bother, but it's really quick and easy, and not so bad considering that the MP3000 is otherwise near perfection for the price.

If you rip your own using a good CD-ROM drive from non-mangled source CDs, or if you seek out the highest quality downloads, you won't have a problem with extraneous noises on this player. I use the LAME encoder for ripping my own CDs, and if I download files, I don't touch anything under 192 Kbps. If I can't find a good 192 Kbps file, and can only find a bad sounding file, I don't sweat it. I live by a "you get what you pay for" mantra, and people complaining about poor playback of stolen artwork receive no sympathy from me. The MP3000 is a great value, a real sleeper of a deal. If you're not one to piss and moan about chirps and pops in poor quality, stolen music files, and would rather listen to high quality MP3 files, you won't have a problem with the MP3000. I recommend the LAME encoder for best results. BTW, it handles VBR files just fine, except for the time display _IF_ you FF or REW during playback.

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"Regular" CD players from Kenwood, Koss, Pioneer, Sony.

Price. Good sound quality. Installation took less than 30 min. Knob for volume. Removable faceplate. 3 different bass controls.

CD gets really hot. Faceplate not dimmable. FM autotuner not sensitive enough. Had to manually tune even decent-strength stations.

Overall, a pretty decent bang for the buck. We've had no problems playing MP3's, no chirps or pops, etc. However, like too many car CD players out there, cd's get SO HOT you'd think they'd MELT!!! Why can't manufacturers/engineers do a better job of dissipating the greater heat generated by a laser-based device? Maybe that's what Blaupunkt tried to do with that poor heatsink at the backend of the unit. But I could fry an egg on it after less than 10 minutes use...and that heat really has no where to go. I plan to put a couple of little computer fans back there behind the dash/console and see if it helps. The only other complaint is not being able to dim the faceplate for nighttime driving. It's so bright it's actually a true hazard since it interferes with your eyes having to adjust to the dark. It lights up the entire interior. Again, I plan a modification by putting a small piece of dark film over the blue for night driving (sunglasses for the faceplate?). But overall, these are really minor considering what you do get for your money...very decent sound, and lots of it per disk!

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Sony Aiwa

Like the controls and volume knob. Display easy to read.

Immediately had problems playing mp3 discs. Sometimes will work fine. Other times comes up with Comm error message. Have tried various cd brands with same results. Plan to return if mp3 problems continue.

Bought to install in Chevy K1500 pickup. Had to buy dash kit and antenna adapter from local stereo shop to complete install (added another $20). I am a newbie on installing car stereo so found instructions poor-had a tough time installing. Finally got up and working.

Clean looking display Volume Knob (I hate the puch button volume controls) great mp3 playback

only available in silver buttons are somewhat hard to push in compared to other radios

After having some trouble installing it into my car, the wire skematics from crutchfield were wrong, I have had no problems. The deck fits perfectly in my 98 VW GTI, even though Crutchfield said I would have to remove an OEM radio mount in the back of the DIN slot. The deck plays mp3's wonderfully, I'd use a brand of CD-R recommended in the maunual for best results. The display is bright but a believe it is only because it has suck a large display the sheer size makes it seem brighter than a normal small er display. If you take some time in organizing your CD-R(W)'s with folders the mp3s will be very easy to find and play as opposed to just using one folder

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nothing, this is my first mp3 player and it is awesome, I'll never use a regular CD in my car again.

* Terrific feature set for the price; you will not find a better deal on an MP3 deck if you buy this at Costco - I have been shopping for about a year. *Support for WMA files. Let's face it, if Micorosoft has their way (which they usually do eventually), we will all me standardized on WMA files at some point. (They are smaller, but no ID3 tag support) *Great ID3 tag support - displays file name, then artist, title, and album information in sequence (assuming they are all present in the file). Display can be set to flash or scroll, at two speeds. *Ability to navigate folders on a disc - I have seen this work; so I think my problem is related to the way I have my disks encoded. *High power - about 25 watts per channel means good, clean sound. *Fast reading of MP3 files – some other decks I have used take forever when you first insert a disk, and then take several seconds between tracks. This unit very quickly scans the disk on insertion (about 10 seconds or so) and then jumps between tracks as quickly as a standard CD player. *Great removable face - the nice thing is that you fold down the face and simply slid it off, no messing around with additional buttons to "

* Single pre-amp output. Not ideal if you plan to build a high-end system with multiple amps. No amp fader, for example * Bright display - for me this is not a problem, since the deck is mounted down far enough away from my face, but if you are in a tiny car where you sit close to the deck, this could be a problem. *Silver-colored face and bezel - I have a black dash, and I think that the unit "sticks out" too much - it looks glaringly like an add-on to the car rather than a nice, clean stock component. *Sensitive to disc quality and encoding method. I think this is the reason why some people complain about this deck. All auto MP3 players that I have tested seem to struggle with disc quality and encoding issues. My advice is to stick to high-quality name brand discs. I use TDK 32x discs, and 128 bit files burned at 24x using either MusicMatch Pro or WinXP (Roxio). I have no problems with sound quality on this player or any other. I have several older discs that were recorded at 4x using off-brand media and they simply will not play in this unit (or an Aiwa unit either) even though they play fine on my laptop. *No remote. The remote is available, but separate. Crutchfie

I installed the Blaupunkt MP3000 deck into my '89 Vanagon, and it fit like a glove. According to Crutchfield, the deck does not fit, but I can tell you that it fits perfectly. And installing a deck into a Vanagon is SOOO easy, since you can pull the ashtray and have access to the rear of the deck. The MP3000 unit is currently available at Costco for $179 - that is $80 less than the best price anywhere else, and the best price I have seen for a deck that will play MP3-encoded CD's of good quality. So far, I have been impressed with the sound quality (through my wimpy Alpine 4" single cone speakers). An amplified bass module and an upgrade to a 6 1/2" component speaker system, and I expect this to be a system with great performance for the price. According to the manual, it is supposed to be able to navigate folders, but I have been unable to get this to work properly (I think it must be the way I have the CDs encoded - I have only used the "Copy to CD" function in WinXP). I get "Comm Error" messages on the display when I try to navigate folders. For example, I have a disk with two folders at the "root" level: Jazz and Blues. Under the "Jazz" folder is another set of folders like "Miles Davis" "Chet Baker" "Thelonious Monk", etc. Under the "Blues" folder is another set of folders like "John Lee Hooker", "Jonny Lang", and so on. If the disk is inserted and the deck is left alone, it will play all the tracks on the CD in alpha order (regardless of the folder). "Mix" mode similarly shuffles tracks from any folder. However, if I use the "Folder+" or "Folder-" buttons, the unit does not seem to be able to read the folder information and craps out after about 30 seconds with a "Comm Error" message. I am confident I will work this out with the encoding method. In fact, I plan to buy another unit for my wife's car to replace her aging JVC "regular" CD unit.

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Aiwa CDC-MP3 player Blaupunkt San Jose

Price...but that is all

Display does not dim at night Middling sound on standard cds. Poor performance on wma and mp3 files. Just one set of preamp outs. Not ready for prime time.

I purchased this unit because it could play mp3 and wma files along with standard music cds. The unit died after 3 weeks. Starting with the way too bright at night display and the very poor performance playing mp3 or wma files this unit is a thumbs down loser.

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Kenwood, Pioneer, Sony, Alpine