Sony Ships its Top Line Deck

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Sony New High End Car Radio

Sony is shipping its first deck in years under the Mobile ES line.  The new 10.1 inch model is the company’s new top-featured deck, coming in at a price of $1,299.

The XAV-9500ES’ key features, include Hi-Res Audio streaming, Maestro capability, and built in DSP capability. The unit is also Sony’s first deck to permit wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto wireless.

But another key benefit of the deck, according to retailers, is it is simply one of the only high end car radios available from suppliers at present, during this time of severe shortages.

Sony says the deck delivers the same caliber of sound quality as its high end home audio products with an ESS DAC chip for digital to analog conversion.

Mobile ES was Sony’s high end, premium series popular in the 1990’s. It was eventually discontinued and returned to the market this year starting with speakers.  The XAV-9500ES is the first radio under the new lineup.

The XAV-9500ES permits Hi-Res Audio streaming via LDAC over Bluetooth and supports 192 kHz / 24-bit WAV, FLAC, ALAC audio files, and DSD (22.4MHz) files via 192 kHz / 24-bit PCM conversion.

It has a new user interface to work with the radio’s hi definition screen.

Sony has offered compatibility with a Maestro interface in the past (to allow retention of key car features such as OnStar or Sync) but the XAV-9500ES is its first full-featured deck with Maestro compatibility, said retailers.

The XAV-9500ES’ DSP offers 6-channel time delay capability, an 8-band Parametric EQ on each of the 6 channels, and a 14-band Graphic EQ. The graphic EQ can also be used on top of the Parametric EQ.

As for other Mobile ES radios in the future, Sony Car Audio National Product Trainer and Team Lead Kris Bulla said “there are numerous new Sony mobile ES products that will be revealed over the next year.”  He added that features seen in the 9500ES such as “Wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, iDatalink Maestro, will eventually be on other products that will be revealed in the future.”

 

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