USB and SD CD head units

[Huw]

I would like a new head unit because my Toyota Land Cruiser factory CD
changer had packed up. Unless someone knows an easy and cheap fix for it
then a head unit as described would do it for me. It has to have a mute lead
because a Parrot bluetooth phone unit is to be installed at the same time.
Any tips or views or experience welcome.


As far as I can make out there are a choice of four.
British, Inphase UPS920SD
H & B CA-5555 at a very competitive price
Audiowave sourced from Hong Kong through ebay
Yakumo unit through Amazon which has a poor write-up.

What do you all think?
I know that the Toyota does not have ISO standard leads so is there such a
thing as an adaptor or will I need a soldering iron or scotchlocks etc.
As you can tell, I am a car audio installation virgin so any help will be
appreciated.

Huw

[In-Car Express]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 22:45:16 -0000, "Huw"

Post by Huw
What do you all think?

They all appear to be of equally poor quality, and units coming from
Japanese and US markets are not especially suitable for use in the UK
(wrong tuner sensitivity, step frequency, no RDS, etc, etc).

We're hoping and praying that JVC will announce an equivalent to their
new US units
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-320B2g1qTKy/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=300&I=257KDG720
when their range gets announced shortly as, yet again, the mainstream
manufacturers are completely failing to keep up with technological
progress.

Jon

[Huw]

Post by In-Car Express
On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 22:45:16 -0000, "Huw"

Post by Huw
What do you all think?

They all appear to be of equally poor quality, and units coming from
Japanese and US markets are not especially suitable for use in the UK
(wrong tuner sensitivity, step frequency, no RDS, etc, etc).

How can you tell the quality? The Yakumo certainly appears to have a poor
write-up from reviewers but the H&B has pretty universal rave reviews. The
Inphase is claimed to be British but apart from colour is very similar
looking to the H&B. I don't believe price is neccesserily a good indication
of quality in this market so what exactly is the indication of poor quality
among these?

No mention is made of an electric ariel control on any of these. My car has
one so a control is essential. Is it an universal feature on head units?

Post by In-Car Express
We're hoping and praying that JVC will announce an equivalent to their
new US units
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-320B2g1qTKy/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=300&I=257KDG720
when their range gets announced shortly as, yet again, the mainstream
manufacturers are completely failing to keep up with technological
progress.

Even that JVC does not have a SD card slot although it has USB. Storing
music on an USB dongle is fine but it is a rather prominent and vulnarable
feature when plugged in to a head unit compared to an SD or MM card.

Huw

[In-Car Express]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:05:05 -0000, "Huw"

Post by Huw
How can you tell the quality? The Yakumo certainly appears to have a poor
write-up from reviewers but the H&B has pretty universal rave reviews. The
Inphase is claimed to be British but apart from colour is very similar
looking to the H&B. I don't believe price is neccesserily a good indication
of quality in this market so what exactly is the indication of poor quality
among these?

When you work in the industry, you tend to get an almost constant
bombardment with information from Far Eastern suppliers desperately
trying to flog cheap product, a large percentage of which is
rock-bottom budget produced. One common sales tactic is to offer to
brand product with the company's own brand name. At least one of the
products apears to be a product of that nature.

Display quality also tends to be one of the biggest indicators of how
well the rest of the unit is made. If they're not spending money of
decent quality displays, then it's a pretty safe bet the rest of the
unit is made with similarly poor quality components. If you look at
the H&B and the Yakumo, it's evident that the displays are very
similar, and they probably share at least some common heritage.

We'd been considering offering a non-mainstream brand product to fill
the gaps in mainstream ranges, but after seeing a couple of them in
the flesh, my underlying fears were confirmed.

Price is also very much an indicator of quality, but what won't you
won't see is the real indicative factor - large scale internet
businesses are probably making around 1/4 of the profit margin on
mainstream product compared to non-mainstream product. If you can make
4 times the profit, it's also very much worth the time and effort
required to make sure that the general hype surrounding a product is
positive.

Post by Huw
No mention is made of an electric ariel control on any of these. My car has
one so a control is essential. Is it an universal feature on head units?

Generally speaking, yes.

Post by Huw
Even that JVC does not have a SD card slot although it has USB. Storing
music on an USB dongle is fine but it is a rather prominent and vulnarable
feature when plugged in to a head unit compared to an SD or MM card.

Some current JVC models already have SD card slots, and it seems
likely that this will move down the range over time.

It's probably unlikely that products of this type will ever be
especially popular though - end consumers don't want technical hassle,
and trying to establish whether they're using the right size and type
of memory card, whether these will then be compatible with their PC,
etc, etc ar exactly the things that scare the less technically minded.
It's clearly evident that the future lies in two types of product -
units with integrated flash memory and user friendly management
systems like Sony's MEX-1GP, and units which integrate with popular
mainstream product like iPods. The first big manufacturer to come up
with a head unit containing a universal iPod dock within the main head
unit chassis is likely to make a lot of money....

Jon

[Huw]

Post by In-Car Express
On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:05:05 -0000, "Huw"

Post by Huw
How can you tell the quality? The Yakumo certainly appears to have a
poor write-up from reviewers but the H&B has pretty universal rave
reviews. The Inphase is claimed to be British but apart from colour
is very similar looking to the H&B. I don't believe price is
neccesserily a good indication of quality in this market so what
exactly is the indication of poor quality among these?

When you work in the industry, you tend to get an almost constant
bombardment with information from Far Eastern suppliers desperately
trying to flog cheap product, a large percentage of which is
rock-bottom budget produced. One common sales tactic is to offer to
brand product with the company's own brand name. At least one of the
products apears to be a product of that nature.

Yes the Inphase which is only cosmetically different to the H&B while being
marketed at a fairly consistant £50 more.

Post by In-Car Express
Display quality also tends to be one of the biggest indicators of how
well the rest of the unit is made. If they're not spending money of
decent quality displays, then it's a pretty safe bet the rest of the
unit is made with similarly poor quality components. If you look at
the H&B and the Yakumo, it's evident that the displays are very
similar, and they probably share at least some common heritage.

Aha! I have not paid much attention to the Yakumo because of poor reviews on
Amazon but then all three units might be basically the same.

Post by In-Car Express
We'd been considering offering a non-mainstream brand product to fill
the gaps in mainstream ranges, but after seeing a couple of them in
the flesh, my underlying fears were confirmed.
Price is also very much an indicator of quality, but what won't you
won't see is the real indicative factor - large scale internet
businesses are probably making around 1/4 of the profit margin on
mainstream product compared to non-mainstream product. If you can make
4 times the profit, it's also very much worth the time and effort
required to make sure that the general hype surrounding a product is
positive.

Some of the reviews I have read of the H&B and Inphase are identical which
makes me suspect that some reviews are planted and fraudulent.

Post by In-Car Express

Post by Huw
No mention is made of an electric ariel control on any of these. My
car has one so a control is essential. Is it an universal feature on
head units?

Generally speaking, yes.

Post by Huw
Even that JVC does not have a SD card slot although it has USB.
Storing music on an USB dongle is fine but it is a rather prominent
and vulnarable feature when plugged in to a head unit compared to an
SD or MM card.

Some current JVC models already have SD card slots, and it seems
likely that this will move down the range over time.
It's probably unlikely that products of this type will ever be
especially popular though - end consumers don't want technical hassle,
and trying to establish whether they're using the right size and type
of memory card, whether these will then be compatible with their PC,
etc, etc ar exactly the things that scare the less technically minded.
It's clearly evident that the future lies in two types of product -
units with integrated flash memory and user friendly management
systems like Sony's MEX-1GP, and units which integrate with popular
mainstream product like iPods. The first big manufacturer to come up
with a head unit containing a universal iPod dock within the main head
unit chassis is likely to make a lot of money....
Jon

But I have a Creative Zen! That is why an USB port on the head unit is
useful [though messy due to cables] but anything that can be loaded to a Zen
or Ipod can just as easily be stored on an SD card of any capacity and this
is a very tidy arrangement. I want my music on the Zen but also on an SD
card or/and an USB flash dongle. All such storage types are just as easy to
fill with music using the same program, be it Windows media player or any
proprietary program such as suplied by my Zen, so there is no problem.

The head units with a CD player and a hard disc are interesting and if they
had sufficient capacity [40gigs say] would be an even better solution to my
need, being essentially an Ipod/zen type storage device combined with
conventional disc head unit. Is there such a thing with quality and features
at a reasonable price, say less than £450?

Huw
Oh, and thanks for your input so far.

[In-Car Express]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:24:48 -0000, "Huw"

I want my music on the Zen but also on an SD card or/and an USB flash
dongle. All such storage types are just as easy to fill with music using the
same program, be it Windows media player or any proprietary program such
as suplied by my Zen, so there is no problem.

Assuming you use a Windows PC. Lots of iPod users don't. The fact
you're posting to usenet highlights the fact you're probably
inherently more technically minded than the average consumer. Until
you can ask the average person on the street what an SD card is, and
expect to get anything other than a blank stare in the majority of
cases, manufacturers probably won't consider the market big enough to
warrant development time. We had similar problems with MP3 in the
first instance. We were asking for MP3 units 2 or 3 years before most
manufacturers even knew what they were. Some even said it would never
catch on....

The head units with a CD player and a hard disc are interesting and if they
had sufficient capacity [40gigs say] would be an even better solution to my
need, being essentially an Ipod/zen type storage device combined with
conventional disc head unit. Is there such a thing with quality and features
at a reasonable price, say less than £450?

Not at the moment. There are rumours that Sony may produce one, but I
can't really say whether there's any truth behind them. I'd suspect
that mainstream product of this nature will never become common using
hard drives, and that it'll eventually happen when large capacity
flash rom can be integrated cheaply.

Jon

[Huw]

Post by In-Car Express
On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:24:48 -0000, "Huw"

I want my music on the Zen but also on an SD card or/and an USB flash
dongle. All such storage types are just as easy to fill with music
using the same program, be it Windows media player or any
proprietary program such
as suplied by my Zen, so there is no problem.

Assuming you use a Windows PC. Lots of iPod users don't. The fact
you're posting to usenet highlights the fact you're probably
inherently more technically minded than the average consumer. Until
you can ask the average person on the street what an SD card is, and
expect to get anything other than a blank stare in the majority of
cases, manufacturers probably won't consider the market big enough to
warrant development time.

Gazzillions of digital camera users now know what an SD card is and some of
them will take it to a chemist and pop it in a machine and a few seconds
later out pops the prints. Having got that far it is not much of a stretch
of the imagination to persuade them to store music rather than pictures.


We had similar problems with MP3 in the

Post by In-Car Express
first instance. We were asking for MP3 units 2 or 3 years before most
manufacturers even knew what they were. Some even said it would never
catch on....

Yes, but it has caught on.

Post by In-Car Express

The head units with a CD player and a hard disc are interesting and
if they had sufficient capacity [40gigs say] would be an even better
solution to my need, being essentially an Ipod/zen type storage
device combined with conventional disc head unit. Is there such a
thing with quality and features at a reasonable price, say less than
£450?

Not at the moment. There are rumours that Sony may produce one, but I
can't really say whether there's any truth behind them. I'd suspect
that mainstream product of this nature will never become common using
hard drives, and that it'll eventually happen when large capacity
flash rom can be integrated cheaply.

Well I can get a 1gig SD card and a 1gig USB flash already so those units
that I listed can have 2gigs of removable storage and however many wmp or
mp3 files fit on a CD. That would do me for a while.


Huw

[Glenn Richards]

Post by Huw
The head units with a CD player and a hard disc are interesting and
if they had sufficient capacity [40gigs say] would be an even better
solution to my need, being essentially an Ipod/zen type storage
device combined with conventional disc head unit. Is there such a
thing with quality and features at a reasonable price, say less than
£450?

The Sony MEX-1HD is pretty good, I've got one of these in my A4. It's a
little awkward to get music onto it though as you have to rip each CD
individually (although apparently you can use a memory stick to move
ATRAC files between your PC and the unit, but I haven't yet done this).

Capacity is 16GB, but bear in mind this is ATRAC at either 105 or
132Kbit/sec, which sounds easily as good as MP3 at 192 or 256Kbit.

Once you've actually got your music onto it then it's a great bit of
kit, they seem to go for around the £3-400 mark on eBay.