Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After researching the Boss 612 and 625 units on Amazon, because I was pressed for time I purchased the Boss 625UAB at the local Frys. The installation was simple, and splicing the supplied connectors to the harness ends on my 1997 Toyota T100 was also very simple, due to the fact that the Boss connectors wires were both well-marked and color-coded to match the standard (also used by Toyota). The mounting holes also matched, so the Toyota mounting bracket fit well to the unit. It worked first time I turned it on. While researching the 612, I found a number of reports about the unit powering on at a high volume; I'm happy to say that that is not an issue with the 625. It is well-behaved and powers on at a comfortably low (and safe) volume. The FM radio works OK; sometimes ignition noise is heard. The USB port works as expected. The "manual" is pretty terse and not very useful. Expect to spend about an hour experimenting with the 625 itself before you will really understand it (not while driving, of course!). The remote works well, and is much safer to use while driving rather than trying to adjust the tiny controls. There were/are two quirks, though: 1. When I first began testing the 625, it would always start at the first MP3 file on the 32GB SD card I used. This is even after verifying that the unit continued to receive the +12 VDC backup power via the yellow wire (as I recall). Then, after a couple of days, it simply started "remembering" what song it was playing when I turned off the ignition. I made no wiring or other changes during that time. This feature is still working. BTW: I sent an email to Boss about the original behavior (that is, while it did not remember what song was playing when powered down); I received no response. (This, essentially, is what I expected for an inexpensive unit. So, if my experience is typical, once you buy this unit you can assume that you'll probably be on your own.) 2. The second quirk, though, is bizarre. The volume control of the unit is a rotary encoder (which means that the sound volume is being controlled digitally, rather than being a potentiometer in the analog signal path). This is the reason that the unit can power up at a safe volume: the internal microcontroller "sets" the volume to a fixed level as part of the initialization sequence during power up (basically emulating a real volume pot). But, it also means that the volume can change when no one is touching the front panel of the unit or the remote! I have noticed now about three times that the volume will decrease "by itself". This is easy to fix (simply turn the volume back up), but it is very strange behavior. Anyway, because the 625 more or less works OK for an inexpensive unit, has no apparent support from Boss, and likes to change its own volume, I'm giving it a rating of 3. Would I recommend it to someone else? If someone was technically competent to install it and understood (and accepted) the unusual quirks, probably. Otherwise, I'd recommend that you spend a bit more money on a unit that is more stable and has better FM signal quality. Additional Notes Nov 1, 2013: I've encountered two additional quirks since posting this review: 1. There is something else that was not well thought out regarding the files that are stored on an SD card. I had about 200 songs on an SD card and was simply listening to the tracks in order. At around track 103 (or so) I noticed that the track number showed on the display, but nothing was playing. I advanced to the next song; still no sound. I kept advancing until I found a song that would playback (about 15 tracks or so). Later, I removed the SD card and plugged it into the computer to look at the files. What I found was that in the place where I encountered the issue, I had accidentally copied some .TXT and .WAV files to the SD card. The 625, rather than simply skipping the files that it didn't recognize, it instead attempted to "play" them. But, since these were file types that weren't recognized, it simply stopped and did nothing. It did not even indicate an error. This would have been such a simple feature to design into the 625's firmware - skip files not recognized as audio! 2. The 625 in not completely consistent in it power-up logic. There have been a few times that when I turn off my truck while the 625 is playing, then restart the truck later, the 625 will automatically turn itself back on. (Usually, I have to manually turn it back on when restarting the truck.) This behavior is harmless, but implies that the devices firmware is not really stable. Really, Boss - couldn't you filter the directory for file types that your player recognizes? When this first happened, I thought the player suddenly quit working. I have to regard this "feature" as USER HOSTILE. I'm leaving my rating at three stars (because both of these quirks have simple workarounds), and the unit works to play songs. It's just that, inexpensive unit or not, I don't really expect to have to "work-around" various quirks for a simple commodity device like an MP3 player. Additional Notes Jul 15, 2014: Over about the past two weeks, I began to notice that the unit would reset, and sometimes power off if I merely touched the cover plate. I wasn't quite sure what was happening, but decided to watch for this. As of today, the unit won't power up. If I move the cover plate back and forth, it sometimes shows the WELCOME power-on message, but only for a moment. So, for all intents and purposes, it's dead. I've reduced my rating to 1 star; I expect a player to work more than 10 months before failing. Given the unit's anomalies and general "flakiness", my recommendation is simple: stay away from it. It's time - again - to research simple, reliable CD/MP3 players for my truck.