I then purchased a MDX-400 from Ebay. I tried to ask Sony to sell me a refurb, but they would not. Since the MDX-400 at the time was outdated and no longer sold, I tried to go thru the outlet centers via mail order. They would not sell. The eBay seller sold me a deck that was broken, and refused refund. The MDX-400 had a bad changer mechanism and has never played a MD.

I then purchased a MDX-C8900 from the Sony Factory Outlet in South Carolina while travelling. I was passing on my way to Atlanta, when I got this idea. I was looking to buy a MDX- 400, so I could then swap out the mechanism from my deck and have them fix it at their expense. They had no MDX-400s, but had $299 MDX-C8900 decks. This deck looked sleek and good.

The wiring harnesses molex connector was keyed differently from the MDX-C150. Although the wire pinout appear to be the same, they connector shape was slightly changed. Upon initial install, the deck seemed promising. An ES series, it talks and has a two line display.

The 8900 has a feature called Voice Drive. A tinny annoying voice tells you what feature you just selected. Buttons with little bumps are more useful for finding your place on the face of the deck. The first thing anyone will do is turn off this feature. It seems neat at first, but it quickly becomes annoying. I am wondering however if the deck has multiple languages, and if there is a way to change the region.

The next thing I do not like is the fact the face has to be dropped down to insert and remove a minidisc. The lower model (C7900) does not have this feature, the disc slot is in the upper middle of the deck and not behind the face. It would be one thing if there was useful display use on the front of the deck to warrant putting the slot behind the face. The only thing in that region on the front is the time, the rest of the display appears wasted. A large portion of the LCD is also taken by a large green icon thing that means little and looks tacky. The display could be layed out better.

The next gripe is the backlit LCD is hard to read in the daytime. My old car, a Ford Tempo had the deck at a different angle. My new car, an Accord is at more of an angle to the driver. Even with contrast adjustment, during the day it can become hard to read during the sunlight. It wasn't quite as bad in the Tempo, but still bad. The MDX-C150 and 400 both had the older style display which was only dot matrix text. The display wasn't covered with tinted plastic and offered a level of reflectiveness along with being sidelit. Both older decks are much easier to read and seem to offer less silly icons.

The tuner performance the MDX-C8900 seems much worse than on my old MDX-C150! With the 8900 the deck switches between wide and narrow mode, and this is highly audiable in the sound. It is fairly annoying. I do not remember this on the MDX-C150, and it doesn't appear that the sound from the 8900 is much better. Yet another dissapointment. The antenna was exactly the same between the two decks. I have tried it with the deck forced wide as well as auto selecting. Neither is an absolute winner.

There are other things I miss about the MDX-C150 when compared to the much more expensive and newer 8900. The button layout on the 8900 is odd, with some of the buttons very small. There is no mute button on the 8900 as well. I do not use the supplied wired controller. I wish they would have included the wireless remote instead, as the install for the wired "thing" is much more involved and difficult.

The audio quality from the Minidisc seems good. The tuner sounds good as well when the audio is in wide mode and reception is good. When travelling though, get used to it switching back and forth. Reminds me of other people's Pioneer decks.

The volume control knob and trace change lever feels a little loose. Definitly not tight and refined like the similar optical encoded controls found on Alpine decks.

Overall, at $300 I don't think the deck is bad. I don't know how they consider it ES, and if I paid retail for it I would be heavily dissapointed. I wish the MDX-400 would have worked, it seems like a much better deck, except the ATRAC is of an earlier revision. It is obvious Sony has lost quality on its newer deck offerings.