iPod integration

[Glenn Richards]

Doing some research on behalf of a friend (I have a Sony MEX-1HD, so
don't need this at the moment).

Looking for some means of integrating an iPod. He currently has a Sony
MD head unit with Unilink port, with CDX-656 CD changer. He's quite
happy to lose the changer though and replace it with an iPod if needed.

Now, I've seen this one:

http://www.incarexpress.co.uk/view_product.php?partno=ASOIPOD001

but does it use the line output from the iPod, or does it mount the iPod
like a removable HDD and play stuff itself?

Alternatively Alpine do a unit that has the iPod adaptor (with onboard
DAC) which is currently on offer at Halfrauds for £199 with free fitting
(although I'm not sure I'd trust them with fitting it!). He's not averse
to changing the head unit, but obviously would like to avoid doing so if
possible as he'd then lose his MD deck.

Any thoughts?

[In-Car Express]

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 17:57:34 +0000, Glenn Richards

Post by Glenn Richards
Looking for some means of integrating an iPod. He currently has a Sony
MD head unit with Unilink port, with CDX-656 CD changer. He's quite
happy to lose the changer though and replace it with an iPod if needed.
http://www.incarexpress.co.uk/view_product.php?partno=ASOIPOD001
but does it use the line output from the iPod, or does it mount the iPod
like a removable HDD and play stuff itself?

The interface connects to the docking port on the iPod and effectively
uses the unit as a slave hard drive. You can also use it in
conjunction with an XA-C30 switching unit if you wanted to retain the
CD changer (assuming Sony ever manage to supply more stock of the
latter - it's been on back-order a fair while now).

Jon

[Glenn Richards]

Post by In-Car Express
The interface connects to the docking port on the iPod and effectively
uses the unit as a slave hard drive. You can also use it in
conjunction with an XA-C30 switching unit if you wanted to retain the
CD changer (assuming Sony ever manage to supply more stock of the
latter - it's been on back-order a fair while now).

Ok, so the unit's also acting as a DAC? What's the sound quality like,
compared to say using the USB input on an XA-300 aux input unit? This
uses a PCM-2702 chip as the DAC, and did sound rather good,
unfortunately my XA-300 was lost when my car got written off in
September last year...

I have an XA-C30 kicking around up in the loft, my previous in-car setup
was MDX-CA580, CDX-757 and MDX-66LP, until I replaced the whole lot with
an MEX-1HD. If they're in short supply at the moment I could probably
lend this to aforementioned friend until one came in.

Now... if the unit is using the iPod as a slave hard drive, would it be
possible to simply plug a USB hard drive (with the correct directory
structure obviously) into the unit and use that?

[In-Car Express]

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:48:13 +0000, Glenn Richards

Post by Glenn Richards
Ok, so the unit's also acting as a DAC?

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't tell you - it uses the iPod docking
connector, but I'm not sure whether it's using the analogue line
outputs or one of the digital signals. My gut feeling is it's probably
an analogue audio connection with serial control, but for all I know,
they could just as easily be using the USB or Firewire data.

It's all connected to the head unit via an analogue RCA connection
anyway. Sound quality's generally OK, but it seems most people with
iPods tend to use 128-160k encoded MP3s anyway, so it's not often you
get the chance to really assess it's full potential.

Jon

[Glenn Richards]

Post by In-Car Express

Post by Glenn Richards
Ok, so the unit's also acting as a DAC?

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't tell you - it uses the iPod
docking connector, but I'm not sure whether it's using the analogue
line outputs or one of the digital signals. My gut feeling is it's
probably an analogue audio connection with serial control, but for
all I know, they could just as easily be using the USB or Firewire
data.

That's what I figured, although if it did use the USB data as mass
storage it should be trivial to hook up an external hard drive to act
like an iPod and have a fairly cheap HDD based in-car player.

I'm currently developing a device similar to this (hard drive that plugs
into a Sony head unit) similar to the PhatBox. I'm guessing the iPod
control protocols are publicly available someplace? If the unit does
simply provide an analogue pass-through then it should be fairly trivial
to build a piece of hardware that emulates an iPod but without the
portability.

Have contacted Connects2 directly anyway, will see what their response is.

Post by In-Car Express
It's all connected to the head unit via an analogue RCA connection
anyway. Sound quality's generally OK, but it seems most people with
iPods tend to use 128-160k encoded MP3s anyway, so it's not often you
get the chance to really assess it's full potential.

I previously had a Sony CDX-757 changer with MP3 discs, and I could
actually hear compression artefacts (sort of a swirly sound) at 192Kbit.
I re-encoded to VBR which seemed to get rid of this problem but did mean
I could only store 10 albums on one CD rather than 12-13.

With ATRAC encoding at 132Kbit (using MEX-1HD) I don't get this problem
though.