HD Radio, yay or nay + goodies

[doughboyea]

Since I found that my old thread with the busted CD player didn't get much attention towards my questions at the end, here's new thread about those questions.

Is HD radio really worth it?
Recommendations on goodies? (look below)

I'm looking at two of the recommended cd players for my E46. Clarion and Alpine. Clarion looks more simplistic, more normal, more like it fits in the BMW dash. The colors it gives out can match the cluster so, hence, it matches better than other's on the market. Downside, no HD radio either built in or as an add on. Also, it doesn't have the other little goodies that alpine and even Kenwood have.

Now the alpine, roughly the same price range (starting) is HD ready (~$250+ for HD radio module, unless u want to dish out the $1400 for the model with it built in), has accessories for bluetooth integration (~$150+ for the module) and flash card plug in (~$200+ for module) but doesn't exactly match the interior of the car and becomes quite pricey in the end.

So, I guess i can do without all those goodies, though I REALLY wanted a flashdrive port. And for the HD radio, I was hearing advertising for it on local radio and reading a little about it on crutchfield.com. So is it really that GREAT a feature to have so I should dish out close to $1000 for a head unit with an HD module? Or is it better to ignore my wants, go with Clarion and hope that some day in the future, Clarion will release thier own flashdrive port and HD radio device that will easily integrate with a soon to be recent purchase?

These are my dilemas, unless someone else knows of a head unit that can match up with my wish list.

Dough

[celsdogg]

would you really use the HD radio? thats a question i would ask myself, because i dont use anything but cd's.

but that flash card reader would be pretty nice.

[Rooz]

From all the ones I hear and listen to it really does sound good and helps with reception