silly CD changer question

[Iain Robinson]

I think I know the answer to this question (having looked the the
groups' archive) but I won't be able to sleep at night if I don't ask.
We have an old Sony CDX-51 10 CD Changer in our 1999 Golf, run by a Sony
XR-CA400 HU. After a year or so it stopped reading CD-Rs that I had
written, despite using lots of different types of disks (and 2 different
CD writers). It played bought CDs okay but no CD-Rs. After trip to the
garage (new gearbox - ouch!) no CDs would play at all. I took the
changer out and cleaned the head and it sort of came back to life but I
feel it's time for a newer model (that knows about CD-Rs).

So;
1 - A friend has a fairly new JVC multichanger going cheap. Is there any
chance of getting it to work with the Sony HU? Using an adapter?

2 - If not, what if we put the original VW radio cassette back in - I've
seen adapters on the Connect 2 site that say you can fool the VW kit
into thinking it's seeing something it knows (a VW changer?) and the 3rd
party changer thinks it's seeing a HU of the same brand. Is that right?

3-If none of the above are likely am I safe to assume if I buy a new
(cheap) Sony changer, such as the CDX-656, it will just work with my HU?

Apologies for the dumb questions - I've never had to get involved with
this before.

TIA,
Iain

[In-Car Express]

Post by Iain Robinson
1 - A friend has a fairly new JVC multichanger going cheap. Is there any
chance of getting it to work with the Sony HU? Using an adapter?

No-one's ever produced interfaces from one brand to another,
presumably due to the large numbers of variations they'd need to
develop.

Post by Iain Robinson
2 - If not, what if we put the original VW radio cassette back in - I've
seen adapters on the Connect 2 site that say you can fool the VW kit
into thinking it's seeing something it knows (a VW changer?) and the 3rd
party changer thinks it's seeing a HU of the same brand. Is that right?

Yes, but you won't get an interface for a JVC changer AFAIK.

Post by Iain Robinson
3-If none of the above are likely am I safe to assume if I buy a new
(cheap) Sony changer, such as the CDX-656, it will just work with my HU?

Any of the current changers should work OK (CDX-T69, T70MX, 757MX and
656).

Jon

[Iain Robinson]

Post by In-Car Express

Post by Iain Robinson
1 - A friend has a fairly new JVC multichanger going cheap. Is there any
chance of getting it to work with the Sony HU? Using an adapter?

No-one's ever produced interfaces from one brand to another,
presumably due to the large numbers of variations they'd need to
develop.

Post by Iain Robinson
2 - If not, what if we put the original VW radio cassette back in - I've
seen adapters on the Connect 2 site that say you can fool the VW kit
into thinking it's seeing something it knows (a VW changer?) and the 3rd
party changer thinks it's seeing a HU of the same brand. Is that right?

Yes, but you won't get an interface for a JVC changer AFAIK.

Post by Iain Robinson
3-If none of the above are likely am I safe to assume if I buy a new
(cheap) Sony changer, such as the CDX-656, it will just work with my HU?

Any of the current changers should work OK (CDX-T69, T70MX, 757MX and
656).
Jon

Brilliant! Thanks Jon. I thought that was the case but just wanted to be
sure before doing anything rash. A Sony it is.

cheers,
Iain