1990 Sony CDX-7520 Car CD Player Review and Test 

Comment below about your first car audio head unit or one you recall from your dad or uncle from way back. Thanks for subscribing and remember to keep it old school!

That cassette deck is sweet! I'd love to have one wired up today and listen to my tape collection!

My first system was fairly basic. Was back in 1999 i had a Sony cdx4005 running jbL 6x9s in the rear deck and a clarion pro audio 15" woofer in a nasty box i made at midnight in my mums garage. I picked up a nasty 2 channel audioline amp to run the sub and even at 200wrms my friends at the time were pretty impressed!

My first CD player was the CDX-7560 & XK-8D tape deck. The CD player was notorious for skipping, and always had the E-04 code flash. A technician in the day told me that the laser(eye) mechanism in these units were very weak. The XK-8D had issues too, but less frequent. Still have the XK-8D, but junked the 7560 years ago. This review brings back vivid memories.

Wow I had the 7560 pullout. Thanks for the video

Glad you invited us on the trip down memory lane. My first system was a fultron 100 amp on a kicker comp 15. Wish I still had the amp to this day.

I was so freaking excited to see the actual tests! I'm also excited to see how clean it was, it makes me think about the Monty Python skit where the old man was yelling that he's not dead yet. Like, if your using the aux, it's still a great unit.

Well, the tape drawer I sent you I imagine is the one you used in the video I had along with the pull out version of your CD player and then I had the XE8 digital eq all stacked up in my 73 Mach 1. My amp was the series 7 Hifonics Thor running the MTX Road Thunder 10" full range truck boxes I had seat belted in the back seat. I tried laying them down in the rear because my Mach had the fold down rear seat but it didn't sound to good s back seat it was. Oh the good old days!

Had the Sony XR7400 along with CDX7520 and the XE90 MKII EQ installed in my 1988 RX7 in 1990. Kenwood amps, Altec Lansing and Polk Audio front and rear speakers and two 6 X 9 Pyle Driver subs. The system looked and sounded awesome

First head unit was around '93 a shaft style Alpine tape deck with matching underdash EQ. It didn't have an internal amp. My second headunit was a Kenwood CD player around mid '96. Rocked that thing in my Grand Am until late '99 when I sold it. Lots of different amps and subs in & out of that car through those years.

That motorized cassette transport is DOPE!! :D

My first head unit in my first car was the Pioneer DEH-P7200 aka "The dolphin radio!" I still remember people getting in my car and how amazed they were to see the moving graphics on the head unit. That was revolutionary for 2001. Up to this day I've always had Pioneer HU and never had a problem with any of them. Also my system at the time was 2 Pioneer IMPP 12's and a 1600 watt Power acoustic amp (SPX-1600.) That Amp looked so cool with the clear top and the neon lights inside it. The whole trunk would light up at night!

That tape deck is so cool! You can even give the tape head a proper cleaning with that setup.

Awesome video brought back so many memories, my first stereo was a Sony that looked just like that I don't remember the model number but it was like this just made a few years later. Good times your videos always take me back thanks so much!

Awesome video!!! My sister use to have a Sony like this back in her old Nissan Sentra. My first system was a Radio Shack Optimus tape player. I couldn’t afford a CD player until way after I left college.

I love that half din tape deck, I liked how the Sony stuff looked like it was made for Ford. My first install I did myself was some blaupunkt by Sony any it didn't last long. It had a mechanical detachable face. My dad also borrowed my truck and cranked the based up when listening to new age. Replaced with a Pioneer Deh P3100 head unit and Cerwin-Vega 6002 speakers. I added a Hundred watt RF amp,. Wish I remembered the model. I also had a boss Iq 12 sub that I put behind the seat of my truck. It was an 80 F-150 I had In high school and college. Late 90s

I LOVE these old school Sonys! The styling of the buttons and the amber illumination matched the design of the dash in my older BMWs at the time. I wish head units in 2017 would take some styling cues from the clean design of the old ones. I had one of the Sony cassette decks from around this same year. So, I was running the Sony deck, a Jensen four-channel amp, a Coustic 2-way crossover, Rockford mids and Kicker tweeters mounted in custom kick panel pods, and a lone 15" JL Audio sub. This was my first real system after I was working during the summer after just graduating high school back in '92. I really kind of miss the "golden age" of car audio back then. :)

My filesystem was in my first car, a 91 Ford Escort hatchback. A detachable face Pioneer CD player, Rockford 6"1/2s 2 way coax in the front door kick panels, Rockford 4x6" 2 way coax in the inner rear fender humps, a Boss 900 watt two channel amp, and two 12" Cerwin Vega subs in a gigantic sealed enclosure bridged to 2ohms on the amp.

Very cool, I'm not too surprised at the awesome thd measurements on this old school deck. My first "system" was a crappy kraco cassette and realistic (radio shack) "booster" on wonderful factory speakers in my 4 cylinder Mustang! System & car were garbage, but that all changed a year later! My 5.0 Mustang I got when I was a senior had a Kenwood KRC-959 cassette with a Sony CDX-A10 changer! The factory speakers ran off of a Unic amp but my Collins 10" subs (tubes) ran off of my first "real" amp...my Kenwood KAC-920...which I still have!:)

my uncle had one of these in his 75 c10 with 4 mtx terminators behind the seat. all powered my hifonics amps.

Still rocking my CDA-9827. Got it in 2004, and my dad's old Coustic 380 amp from like 1986

I had that same CD player in my 1987 Mazda B2000 along with Rockford Fosgate components and a Punch 150. That CD player went through several amps and speakers. It would always skip so many seconds into the first track into a CD unless you pressed previous and then next. The little amp screwed to the back. An employee at the local car stereo store kept the amps from installs that did not require an "internal" amp and powered a system off of the little Sony amps.

I actually got into car audio recently (2015) so weird cobbled setup. Stock headunit (for car systems integration), run into a Sony XM-GTX6040 driving some JBL GTO8608Cs, GTO8628 in series on the front outputs and a Infinity 860w subwoofer bridged on the rear outputs. It was an experience to wire and hear for the first time. Hope to have after market audio for the rest of my car buying career. Love your videos.

My first car cd player was a similar era sony. It skipped so bad I ended up complaining to the audio store and they finally let me trade it in for in store credit. Bought an Alpine one and it cost me $150 more than the sony. It was way better and I still have it. Still works too.

Back in the day I had an 86 Camaro Z28 with an Audiovox Prestige CD player (my first CD head unit), Pioneer 8 inch IMPP in a bandpass box stuffed in the well ran off a 300ish Watt Rockford amp, Kenwood 4x6 speakers in the front and some cheapo Pioneer 6x9s in the rear factory locations. Pretty simple system, but sounded pretty darn good to me in the day lol.

Oh man!!!!! That thing is awesome!

My first HU was a JVC single din (I forgot the model; I bought it in 2003). I was running Pioneer 2-ways, no-name tweeters, a Bazooka amp, and a pair of Kicker 12's at 8 ohms.

my first was a pioneer shaft style cassette player from the mid to late 80's, with some inexpensive K-mart urban audio works 12"s, jensen 3 way 6X9's and a booster equalizer. I didn have much money ate the time, so i had to use what i could afford. Funny thing is, i still have the 12's some where around here 20+ years later, and they work just fine.

Great video! My first real head unit was Kenwood kdc-9000. I loved that thing, actually still have it and a Kenwood ps900. That 9000 had the quad illumination ..... was so awesome! My favorite of all time tho back in the day was Alpine 7930! It was pure heaven to have subwoofer control and be able to title radio stations and cds. Even better if you got the cd changer. I still use that Alpine hooked to my home audio set up. Or I can switch it to run off my power supply and Rockford 25 to life punch 150🤓

I would love a review of the Pioneer DEQ-9200, I miss that EQ from back in my car audio days. I used to have that paired to a a Clarion, with a Kicker 12" Square-frame solobaric sub S12-L7 hooked up to old school Fosgate 500a2 and a 200a4 running some clarion components and a pair of Focal TN45's that just sounded wonderful. Ah I miss it all.

My 1st car audio system was a Craig AM/FM cassette stereo, with 1 6x9 in the dash using the front channels bridged, and 2 Craig surface mount 4" speakers mounted overhead at the back of the cab of my 66 F100. The gas tank was behind the seat, so no subs and the door were steel, so I didn't want to cut them for speakers. Total cost was $100 in 1988.

My first audio system was in my father 89 Ford Aerostar back in 95 i was jamming with 2 - 15's MTX Thunder 7000 "Black Model" with the last good damn amp that Boss Audio made Chaos Series 2000.1 "Plexiglass Version".. In the doors I installed 4 - 6x9" Pioneers 2 way with another Boss Audio Chaos Series 1000.4 "Plexiglass " with 1.5" Boss Audio Component Tweeter and Radio was Power Acoustic with 7 band Equaliser of the same brand..man I miss the old days cutting class Fridays to go to the Beach! 😎👌

That tape deck is awesome

used Orion 2125sx, single used Orion XTR 12 in a bandpass box. 2 sets of matching Orion components 5 1/4. Then 2 10" XTR IB in a sealed box blew them. Ditched everything bought 2 10" Kicker Comp (gold lettering) big sealed box and at the time isobaric setups were getting popular tried that with Infinity reference 6.5 componets. First CD player a was a Blaupunkt pullout...that someone stole with my Trineer and Friends disc in it...they left the cage though. I love the channel! You got me hyped up and I put a system in my garage. Alpine CDA9883/JL audio bluetooth/MTX Thunder 275x/MTX 12"/2.5cu.ft. ported box/ 4 Pioneer 6.5 coaxials.

Back in the day I used to have the combination Sony CD player and tape player in my Buick Regal. I also had two Autotec amps, Kenwood components and two 10 MTX FREE AIR SUBS. Man those were the days, ✌️ out bro

My first was an early 90s alpine cd player, power acoustik 12 inch woofer in a truck rider box, power by a power acoustik 2 channel amp. Ran the stock dash speaker in a 1981 ford f-150. Back in 1993 i thought my stuff was awesome haha.

Early 1980's, I had a 1975 Camaro LT with a Sony XR-35 receiver, a pair of Pioneer TS-69's on the rear deck and a pair of Kricket 6 1/2's in the doors. The Pioneers where powered by an Alphasonik 40 watt per channel Class A amp and the Kricket's where powered by a Magnodine 22 watt per channel Class A/B amp with a built-in 7 band EQ. The whole system put about every thing I drove up beside to shame, the Pioneers couldn't handle half the Class A goodness from that Alphasonik amp even if they where rated at twice the wattage of the amps out-put. The Krickets did a fine job of handling the Magnadyne although the unit wasn't as beastly as the Alphasonik.

Yeah Son !! Blue Thunder 10s. First woofers I ever saw and heard.

Dude, love the Nostalgia stuff. My first indash car CD was a JVC with the caddy. (remember those). I was in the electronics service business in the 80s and 90s and if you recall skipping was a major issue for in-dash CD players. The life of the CD laser pickup was short. You could only get a good couple years at the most from the unit before the laser diode got too weak to play reliably and it would in turn be more likely to skip and reject discs. A replacement laser pickup was usually in the $100 range plus the cost to install and align so very few people decided to fix them.

Many cd players have a potentiometer internally to adjust the pickup laser intensity. Helps a lot of units that wont read reliably and also helps against skipping. If they dont have the potentiometer you can identify the circuit and add a shunt circuit...

Awesome throwback video. Love the graphic equalizer. I had a Alpine 7385 Tuner/Cassette Deck.

cdx 5180 was my first back in 92. I agree the skipping was pretty bad. moved on to an eclipse 55040 years later and loved that one. I probably still have them both packed up somewhere

Wow... Pulled out my CDX-7560 I originally had on my '87 Toyota Supra. Connected up the head unit with cassette. Cassette works great. CD would just load then eject also. Unit was stored in a box for over 25 years so not surprised. Seems like CD player didn't age well. From the service manual appears CD hub is direct drive with no belts. I never hear it spin up so assume motor has seized. Will check it out later.

Now thats old school bro!

My very 1st car stereo was a Sherwood tape deck, two thump 12" LOLZ. Powered by a marantz powered eq. Wow how times have changed lol. The marantz was the best thing in the car then.

Mine was a Sony tape deck pull out and a kenwood amp with some Jensen 10s sealed house boxes.

my 1st one too

My First Decent System Back in 1987,, Alpine Tape deck, pairof 6" Clairons in the front an 2 MTX (pink series cant remember the model but they needed no box,, infinite baffle type subs). all ran by a a small RF Punch 45.. lol. i remember i had to get a Co-Sing to get it Finance, i total was like 800 some dlls.

The cdx7520 was my 1st deck I got..like a year or 2 later I upgraded to the amplified version after I swapped out one for someone and traded my 7520 for his amplified version which ran to an old orion 280gx out to 2-12" mtx blue thunders

Holy crap! I had a similar version back in 1990/1991 I think it was the CDX-5040, fed into a Kenwood 4042 for sub control/crossover. Two kicker C10s in a DIY sealed I forgot what mids/highs, most likely coax. I know for a fact the one I had was a pullout, not detachable. I pulled it out every day/night, was a PIA after a while. It did skip with every bumpMust of bumped it too hard one day and the laser "lost track", cost me a fortune getting it fixed. Sure beat the JVC twin knob tape deck that preceded it!

first system. two kicker comp 12's. Jensen 400 watt amp. some old Toshiba CD player. stock factory speakers in my 1979 ford ltd the two door version. My hoopty back in 98

alpine cva-1000 was my first and been in love with alpine every since....but it did cost a months pay back then lol

My first was a pioneer DEH-10, I used it to power two house speakers in the backseat of my first car. I have no idea what the ohm load they were, I had no knowledge of such things then. Back then I thought it sounded good.

Urban audio head unit. Single Atomic 12" urban audio amp. I dont remember the serial numbers. But i also had a pair or urban audio 12" i bought from Target back in the day. Those things took a beating.

Man I couldn't afford a CD player head unit until after high school. My car had a JVC tape player with the adapter for a Discman, and a Punch 60 transana I bought at the thrift store pushing a pair of JBL dual voice coil 15s that I learned to wire at 1 ohm from reading a magazine. Sometimes I miss being 17 and stupid as opposed to being 36 and stupid like now.

Dude I'm going crazy over that eq. I miss eqs like that. I love knobs and tiny leds. Buttons are o.k....but knobs to me just have more of a classic audioplhile look and feel(the good ones LOL! ). Finer control of your adjustments. But, I think that my first head unit was a Sanyo tape deck. I was in love with that unit. I remember buying it from Bud's. As soon as I got it in my car in the parking lot of the store...I hooked it up right there. You couldn't tell me nothing. It didn't have that BS tone control...it had separate bass and treble controls. It had the feature that would allow you to flip to the other side of the tape without having to take it out manually. Was this called the PROG feature? I think it was even good enough to stop at the beginning or ending of songs whenever you press RR or FF. My first C.D. player was a Sony that came from Crutchfield probably around 1996 or 1997. Sounded very good, but the skips were too annoying. It cost between $200 - $220. I'm that guy who was and still is anal about my CDs. I kept them clean as possible. What pushed me away form Sony was when a $99 Kenwood kicked my Sony's "butt" in CD playback. One of my friends had that Kenwood and he was the type of guy who just tossed his CDs around like rags. LOL! I will never forget that day. He had a stratched up C-Murda CD and he was bumpin it. So, I wanted to see what it sounded like in my car...well, that Sony wasn't having it. Spit it out. LOL! He had one Petras Prowler 15 and I had 3 10 inch W6s on an MTX 2300. Ah man...I miss those days!

First system: Flea market Pioneer coaxials, Alpine "2-knob" in a 1983 Nissan Sentra. Couldn't complain though.... being 16yrs old and not a care in the world back in the early 90s.

Mine was a cdx-5460. I had the remote too.

I had a sony do the same thing back in 93 and i found i had to have the antenna hooked up or ground the antenna input to the CD player case

The blue thunder woofers were one of my favorites...dont remember the model number but my first legit head unit was the first pioneer CD with the dolphins on the display

My first was a nakamichi cd-7 paired with a MB-7 in the trunk. With a Yamaha ypa-1000. MB quart qm components.

I found that every time I ever had this problem finding a model of electronics if it was a computer or stereo surround and even my HDMI Cables, it was a Black Friday Deal, not kidding and that explains late in 1990. I'd bet that's when you bought it...

Awesome vid. Man my first system I had was some pioneer from the early 90s deck and 12s not sure if they Watts and I had it in a 85 Dodge Caravan and I loved it everyone in highschool loved it too poop can with some bass what is there not to love

that " tape " was sum rocken shit! nothen but head bangers here till my bro started playing some m&m stuff.... not my flavour but to each there own.... had Alpine decks because, used and what was cheap lol

The red and black Orion is a 1994 amp xtr first amp in 94 I have the book on that year

Wow dude that's a time capsule right there. Lol. I had one of the first Sony CD players too. Thing gave me nothing but problems with skipping. Any little crack on the road would make it skip. Eventually I ended up with Alpine and never had a problem again and stuck with the brand. My first system was a pretty much all fleamarket stuff. Lol. Had a set of Pyle 12's and two Motorola piezo tweeters pushed by a Sentrek 100w amp.

Mine was a Pioneer DEH-1500 "Super Thunder 3D"

The reason they skipped is because they only had a damper on the cd mechanism. Back then they did not have what's called a "buffer". or "read ahead" A buffer is a chip or circuit that the cd writes to, then the chip outputs the nessasay 1s and 0s to the output circuit. The CD may be skipping but you will not hear the skipping because the buffer puts the digital signal back together at the skipping points before its outputted to the output circuit.

Used to have the tape deck

we had the sony cd-x4040 that looks alot like this head unit and a ocustic amp and we had a denon dcr 5320 cassette pioneer deh 730

My cd player like that had the aux hole on the front for your walkman lol

Deh-980 bt premier lost the face plate in a fire still got the unit though best deck ever made even to this day i cant find its replacemen. My dad had tye krc-999

Dude great video if you ever sell that Hot Shot eq let me know I had the Fultron model back in the day I actually had 2 different model a full din and that 1/2 din and have never found another one. But my first new head unit was a Fultron cd player 1990 cost $450 and it skipped like a kid.

Idk man this video doesn't look familiar. I have a mobileES tape deck from this same era, obviously the buttons are laid out completely different but all the same buttons are there, and the RCA aux in etc are those same blocks. The halfDIN tape deck here is waaay cool I'd actually like to know more about that!

CDX-A10 for me w/ the analog 'surround' delay for the rear speakers!

getting what you pay for in the hayday of american car audio! bought a car stereo for my friends car at one point in the past.

hmm my 1st system o.o i dont even recall at this point. lol the one i had the longest was a set of pioneers (some old ass ones that were like 10 years old when i bought em and still lasted me another 7 years or so) with a sony amp. when i went to a shop to have the system switched to another vehicle the stupid ass that installed it, cranked the gain and fried the subs -_- so i been upgrading since lol i want more and more power every time i think about it!

Same error for dirty CD reader eye. Clean with qtip and alcohol...

You bought that for 400 and in 93 I bought a Denon slightly used from a local dealers show car for 400

I have one of thos early Sony's as well, skipped like a school girl over every pebble and crack in the road. Garbage. was soon replaced by a Blaupunkt pullout w/CD changer.

did you try to clean the laser with a cleaning disk or qtip? its probably dusty inside

Hey BigDWiz, could you dino an old volfenhag zx7190

My first system had an Audiovox Rampage K-4768Q tape deck from 1998. I was 13 years old at the time with it installed in my dad's old '71 Chevy C10 pickup, along with an Audiovox Rampage AMP772 equalizer/booster, and a pair of Audiovox Rampage TRY32 6x9s in wedge boxes. The deck's knobs broke, and I blew the speakers on a real amp. My absolute first car CD Player was the Jensen CD330X, shown here: i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/$(KGrHqJHJCIE9Ep1Utj3BPVtjgVUqQ~~60_57.JPG?set_id=8800005007, from 2000 that I found in the trash because that cheap blue volume/tuning toggle switch was broken completely off, so I had to jury rig a setup that will activate the push buttons on the PCB that controlled volume and trk/tune, NOT an easy task. The unit sounded awesome, but it had a dark display, and had a very weak tuner that overloaded easily on really strong stations, and it didn't seek out stations well at all. I later got my hands on a Pioneer DEH-31/DEH-345 from 1998 in a trade around 2002, but it had been fried and abused previously and I had to repair it with a soldering iron, and It still didn't outlast a Pioneer KEH-1800 I had since getting it new in 1999. I had the '1800 for 10 years until 2009, and I had the DEH-31 for about a year.

I want to say the Sony cassette tape was like a quartered din 8mm for some reason I don't know why the 8 millimeter sticks out I could be wrong

Yo.... Wizzzz.... Love ya....

I remember the loud button get really loose and fall off

You trying to break the tape deck? 😉

Alpine 7903.

I thought Sony "Xpold" decks and later got finicky and cranky like that and the older ES and prior gear was fairly rock solid. Hope you can figure out why it's acting up and it's an easy fix. :-( As for my first deck, well, it was a rather simple and dull low power Craig AM/FM cassette deck that was better then having an empty hole where a radio should have been in my car. Then I had some cheap 3-way "300W" Legacy 6x9's in the rear and Audiovox 5.25 coaxial's in the front. But things quickly morphed to equaly shady stuff to some pretty good stuff from there. ;-)

Mine was a Sony with the entire chassis pull out. Lol

Every one of those darn models skipped bad...but they read scratched cd good..

My first system was a Kenwood excelon kdx-x817 head unit, some Boston 5.4 components, and an xtant 202m running two Fosgate punch 8" subs. This was all stuffed in a 1988 piece of shit Ford Ranger. It bumped. Wish I still had that amp...