Blaupunkt Toronto 420 BT Car Radio with CD-Tuner, USB, AUX and Bluetooth

One of the few car stereos designed by someone with taste and distinction, the Blaupunkt looks clean, neat and functional.I bought it to put in my Mercedes W124, because I wanted to replace my CD changer with a modern iPod-compatible unit, but most stereos look like they were designed by someone too blind to legally drive. This on the other hand is restrained, nicely square and elegant. it matches the interior style well. There aren't too many pointless buttons either - all the set-and-forget stuff is hidden in easy-to navigate menus, leaving the fascia free for radio presets, source, volume, etc. The quality and finish appears to be high. I don't know why it is not sold more widely in the UK.Fitting it was a piece of cake, as it's one of the few modern devices which still comes with an ISO connector instead of something proprietary. This means that as far as wiring goes, for most people it's simply a case of unplugging the old unit and plugging in the new.The sound quality is really good - better than the Kenwood it replaced.It's easy to store radio presets too, though the reception on some could be better, maybe that's my car aerial to blame?The selling point of this stereo is its USB and aux inputs iOS integration. it has USB inputs front and rear. I plugged a standard iPod cable into the back and it charges my iPod Classic and iPhone whenever I plug the device in. It also displays track details and if you get a call it tells you who's calling. The sound quality over this connection is great, but there are a couple of small niggles. The first is that usually it reads the phone really quickly and starts playing immediately, but sometimes it gets stuck in a loop reading the phone (it also reads your phonebook contacts) and you have to unplug and try again. You can switch the source to Bluetooth and get the sound that way but the quality is lower. Sometimes that's enough to nudge it into reading the phone though, so you can go back to the USB input. The second niggle is Apple's fault, really, and it's that while an iPhone is still functional when plugged in, so you can have your passenger choose music on the phone itself, on the iPod Classic the device switches to connected mode, and the only way to operate it is through the stereo itself. Blaupunkt tried their best, but choosing from 160Gb worth of tunes with a rotary dial and a push button is not the easiest thing. You couldn't do it safely while driving. Better to make a playlist up beforehand, or choose an album first, then start it playing, then pause before you plug the iPod in - it will then start playing that selection. Using the right-hand rotary/push dial to switch tracks on the move is manageable, however.There's an SD card slot under the fascia (which removes for security - do people still nick car stereos? - and stores in the case provided) and a front aux input, both of which I have never tried. Apparently if you plug something into the front it plays over any other source, so you can have your Satnav instructions come through the stereo. I've never bothered, so I can't report if this works well. I don't think the bluetooth input can be set to do the same, which would be more useful for those with bluetooth compatible Satnavs.Bluetooth integration is first class. The phone pairs as soon as I get in the car, and if someone calls I can answer or reject the call using the two buttons nearest the driver. hands free through the fascia microphone is fine for me, possibly as my car is very well soundproofed, but there is a remote mic input on the back and an accessory mic for those with noisier car interiors.The manual, incidentally, does have English in it, and the radio range picks up all British stations, so don't be put off by the fact that it is shipped from Germany. Delivery was very fast.

Now here's my horror story with this radio:I mainly use the car stereo to play CDs. I thought it was time to update my cheap and old Kenwood radio and chose this Blaupunkt mainly becasuse of its looks. Also, having Bluetooth was a bonus as I didn't have that on my car. So 5 months ago I bought this beautiful Blaupunkt Toronto 420BTAfter only a few days of use I realized there were two problems with it, both related to the CD player:1: The haptics of the selection wheels is awful (absolutely the worst I have ever seen on any car radio... ever) and it is imposible to know how many tracks are you changing while driving. Think on when you want to play that song again or you want to jump a couple of tracks? No way you can do it without looking at the screen. And even then it is not easy...2: Randomly, it would stop playing the song, while the screen will be showing the exact second of the track you are playing and then, after a while (somewhere between half a minute and half an hour) it will all of a sudden continue playing (but not on the exact point where it stopped, just seconds later). Also, related to this issue or not, the response when changing tracks was a little bit too slow (it would take 4 or 5 seconds to start playing).Apart from that, everything worked good for a radio on this price range: connectivity is good, radio, USB, settings, sound quality... Maybe I'd say the microphone for the bluetooth system is not very good as soon you'll find yourself screaming so they can listen to you, but I'd say that's normal as the radio is far down on the console (and that's what the accesory microphone is for).So, I decided to test different CDs (both brand new and old, original and CD-Rs) to make sure that it wasn't caused by a faulty CD but ALL of them will fail (sometimes will take minutes and sometimes will take days) so I contacted the seller (Autosound LTD UK).Their response was quick: they will change the stereo for a new one if I send the one I have (at my own expense, of course). Good news. So I did and some days later I received another unit. In the meantime, I used my old Kenwood with no issues whatsoever.I got it installed and... exactly the same thing happened. Awful haptics (clearly they have been engineered like that by somebody who obviously don't drive while listening to a CD) and faulty CD player functioning. Contacted the seller again and, apparently, the unit I sent had been checked and was faultless so everything was tracked down to a faulty wiring on my car. Back to the workshop again where the technician will check the system. Again. No issues were found. Again. Back to the seller and then their brilliant response:'We have a failure rate of around 0.5% on our radios so to have 2 radios in succession with faults on them is impossible.You need to have the radio installed by a car radio specialist if you do not have the skills to do it yourself'Well. So I had already done (3 times!) and the radio never worked properly. After spending almost the same amount of money on triple-checking everything and sending them the radio at my own expense, that's all I have.I am no expert but two different specialist have checked my car and say it's fine and my old Kenwood keeps working faultlessly to prove it but Blaupunkt/Autosound LTD UK say it is impossible that that happens to their products so it's clear I'm being let down on this one.Solution? After spending almost £200 my radio is still not working properly plus it's dangerous to use while driving and I'm not willing to spend any single cent more on this absolute crap. Well, it looks like I'll have to go back to the old Kenwood or buy another radio. It won't be a Blaupunkt, of course. And it won't be at Autosound LTD UK. Clearly.

First problem encountered was when I connected the unit up to the wiring on my Fiat Panda,had problems starting the car, but on making sure the radio was turned off prior to tryingto start the car, no problems.Once I got the car started and turned the radio on, no problems, until whilst travelling along,when the radio goes into signal search mode, all the instruments went off until it found a goodradio signal then they came back on.I contacted Blaupunkt about the problem, and they told me to disconnect certain wires, whichseemed to be something to do with the instrument panel illumination wiring, once I had disconnected them,no problems.One other problem, on a sunny day, you cannot see the display on the radio panel, at night or on darkerdays no problem, contacted Blaupunkt, they said "that's the way it is, and there is no fix for it".One good point is that even when the radio is switched off, and a phone call comes in on the Bluetoothit will automatically switch on so that you can answer your call, and switch off again automatically whenfinished.All in all a good radio, Bluetooth streaming is good, and the aux input port on the front is handy (Iplug my little Roberts Sports DAB 2 radio into that, and it works well, even on the move).

A quality product that is relatively easy to configureI would recommend the addition of a remote microphone to assist in the quality of outgoing callsIt does not suffer from the same going off station that other models in the range doThe sound quality is superbI do not work for the company but I can not speak highly enough about this model.It has exceeded my expectations