(ARA) - You're pulling into the parking lot at work when you hear a track from your favorite artist's new CD for the first time. Or you're listening to the ninth inning of a nip-and-tuck ballgame, but it's time to get out of the car for an important appointment.
In the past, you've had two options - keep the car running for as long as you could get away with it, or dejectedly turn off the engine. Now, a revolutionary in-dash MiniDisc recorder makes frustration a thing of the past. The Sony Xplod MDX-C800REC turns your vehicle into a mobile studio for recording music, sporting events, and talk shows, or even dubbing soundtracks.
"The possibilities are endless. With people spending more and more time in their vehicles, this is going to change the way they use their in-dash receivers," said Dan Hodgson, Senior Vice President of Merchandising at Crutchfield Corporation, the leading Internet and catalog retailer of consumer electronics. Crutchfield offers the MDX-C800REC through its popular audio/video catalog and its website at www.crutchfield.com
Even if you arrive at your destination before your favorite song or ballgame ends, you can capture up to 80 additional minutes with a "Timer-off Record" function. When you hop back in the car, your program is waiting for you to play. And, since the feature includes an automatic shutoff, your car battery's performance won't be adversely affected.
Thanks to a 10-second record memory buffer, you can start recording after you hear the initial strains of a song, and still capture the entire tune. Business people on the go can put the MDX-C800REC to work with an optional microphone by dictating messages or memos for later use.
The MDX-C800REC is especially appealing because it incorporates the easy-to-use features and cutting-edge technology that have spurred remarkable growth in the sales of MiniDisc systems.
According to industry estimates, the MiniDisc market reached almost 10 million units worldwide in 1998 and will exceed 20 million units next year. Sony has said that it believes MD and related technologies will replace tape as an audio medium.
A typical MD, smaller and narrower than a pack of baseball cards, is just 2-1/2" in diameter. Yet you can re-record on a single MiniDisc up to 1 million times with no loss in sound quality. The editing capabilities are outstanding, and the MDX-C800REC includes the features that previously were confined to home audio MiniDisc recording units.
Users can move or erase tracks with the touch of a button. For instance, you can cut out the D.J. banter between songs, or the commercials in a ballgame. Or, as with home units, you can dub a CD in your car with an optional CD changer, then delete the tracks you don't want. The disc and tracks can be titled, and the MDX-C800REC will record CD Text information, too.
"This feature will appeal to music collectors who are on the road and don't always have the time to record from a CD to an MD at home," Hodgson said.
The MDX-C800REC, which has a detachable face for security, also offers some of Sony's most powerful receiver technology to ensure that over-the-air reception is as clean and crisp as possible. It features Sony's top-of-the-line Adaptive Reception tuner for clear-channel sound, 40-second shock resistant memory, and 18 watts of RMS power - about four times as much as a typical factory receiver. It also has TV controls for optional Sony mobile video equipment.
Crutchfield carries in-dash, playback-only MD receivers as well and offers a variety of home MD and portable products.
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