I'm interested in how many scooby people actually own an ipod. Hooking your ipod to the head unit seems to be an increasing pastime.

I get the impression from this forum that many are highly techie and knowledgable about their audio, yet the ipod doesn't play .ogg, .wma, .FLAC or any form of gapless music. Are there any other pitfalls from owning an ipod and using it with your head unit?

 

I have one of those cheap as chips new alpine headunits that you can plug your ipod directly into the back of and control it through the face panel. ipod is then hidden away in glovebox.

Its great for sticking it on shuffle as there are potentially thousands of instantly enjoyable tracks.

Major problem - you dont want to be trying to find a particular song among thousands when you are sitting in traffic, never mind driving. It takes bloody ages if you have hundreds of artists!

It is definitely a good idea to create playlists if you are going on a longer journey. Thats if you can figure out how to play them on the headunit

I actually think it'd be far easier to use the ipod to search for the songs, though it is nice to have them displayed on the headunit.

 

I've got an iPod connected up to a Pioneer headunit, only had it for about 2 weeks now & so far (touch wood) it's been a great purchase. iTunes software on the PC is a bit of a pain to use but the iPod is out of sight and is fully controllable for the head unit.

The CD-IB100 adaptor between the headunit & the iPod was about £37 off of eBay.

 

I have just fitted this. It can be quite distracting at times though, when you constantly try to skip to a better song.

 

Ipods are also crap interms of not playing many formats, totaly intrusive copy protection and breaking all of the time

 

iPod's great for what it is; I bought mine speficially to connect to an Alpine HU (details of the install in the FAQ if interested).

As far as I'm concerned there's no point playing lossless formats in 99% of listening situations (and especially in the scoob) as I cannot here the difference. I've made sure all my music is ripped to mp3, so I have no need for ogg etc.

I've generally gone away from high(ish) end hi-fi both in the car and at home, for the sake of convenience; iPod in the car and wi-fi streaming Netgear audio server thing at home.

Playlists are definitely needed for the 'first generation' of Apline ipod interfaces due to the slow artist/track/album scrolling speeds, but apparently the new one is much better (not tried it myself).

Gapless playback is a bit rubbish for dance mix CD rips I agree, but it's not the end of the world for me.

Having over 3,000 tracks in the car all the time (apart from when it's parked up, thieving scum) is great. If I really want to find a particular track or artist etc. I unplug the ipod, find it, plug it back into the alpine I/F and there it is. Otherwise its playlists and random all the way.

 

I dread to think what the old one was like. The new one is fine if you dont have that many artists as you can search by them, but most of my artists only have up to about 4 songs. It is not nearly as fast as searching on the ipod unfortunately.

Its still great having your entire music collection playable in the car though.

 

I personally have the Kenwood Music Keg in the boot of my scoob as most of the albums I listen to are dance, trance and house. It has a 20Gb hard drive, supports .mp3, .wma, .FLAC, and most importantly gapless .ogg files which is great for gapless dance albums. It also supports playlists and displays all the ID3 tag info for each track on my Kenwood KDC-PSW9521 head unit [HU about 5 years old now].

Most importantly for me [as well as gapless playback] was the ability to search through the playlists whilst driving without looking at the head unit. The Music Keg has speech software that reads the Playlist names for you as audible speech files through the speakers.

I bought it new for £185 on ebay, upgraded the 10Gb HDD to 20Gb again through ebay [USA purchase] and then sold the 10GB cartridge on Ebay to refund the upgrade.

Over the last 18 months I have sold 182 CD's second hand on Amazon which I first ripped to lossless FLAC for digital storage [I then convert to .ogg from .FLAC]. I only have 24 left for sale . This has more than paid for my Rio Karma HDD DAP player, my Kenwood Music Keg, and of course a Samsung YP-U1 Flash based DAP for the gym.

I have an "Ipod" theory based on the PC boom about 5 to 8 years ago when everyone went out an spent £1000 to £1500 on a PC from Time, PC World, Dell etc because they were sucked into thinking they needed the fastest most up to date all singing all dancing PC without actually realising it wasn't necessary.
Whereas now people are building their own or buying the cheapest they can which more than does the task.

I think Ipods will go down the same route. They are popular because they are the branded accessory we all know but I bet most people won't be buying Ipods second time round due to their limitations.

Who knows...

 

I got an Ipod car kit from www.ipodcarkitdirect.co.uk works fantastic...

I have seen another site which supports the Sony HD series units so going to be putting one of these in my wifes VW as she has a Sony HD-3.

Has anyone played with the New Sony NWA series??

Thanks
Alex D

 

Ru,

I have had aplay with the new Alpine units they have a better chipset which can handle data at a lot faster speed.

The old Alpine headunits work so slow.... compared to the new ones.

A mate of mine has a Alpine TDM head unit with the Dension kit and it works ok..

Alex D

 

Look for a high speed interface - it makes the world of difference

 

alpine 9857 and ipod is a great combo.... couldnt be happier

 

I have tried several ipod car interfaces and the becker is literally light years ahead of all the others. it is almost as fast and as easy to use as the clickwheel ipods themselves.

The alpines don't come close.

full charging and proper high speed, not the "high speed" that alpine use to brand theirs.

 

how much is a becker?

 

Mexico pro is about 250 quid, plus the interface. They've just replaced the mexico pro with the grand prix at about 290, again I think it's about 50 quid for the interface.

If buying second hand, be aware that there's now many series with the name "mexico pro", so check that it's ipod compatible if that bothers you - model number 7930-7935 aren't, 7936+ are...

Adam fails to mention the problem that's plagued him with beckers: they won't fit into cars designed for double din because there's no removable plastic bezel! They'll fit fine in UK/EU classics, but not in Japanese spec or any MY01+

 

am i mistaken or is the standar headunit on a 03 wrx not a kenwood? would the kenwood i-pod adaptor work for it?

 

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/prod...oducts_id=4679

+

Forrester pocket

= FULL speed searching bliss !

Using something that mimicks a CD changer does work but is slooooow and you have to rely on playlists