That is MUCH better than the BWM/iPod integration as this unit can be installed anywhere in the car...

FYI, this has been out a long time. It's cool, but I'm not a big fan of Alpine decks... nor the cost. I'll just take a nice deck with auxilary inputs....


- Rob

I thought that as well at 1st; however, when I found out that the Alpine solution will also charge the battery and show the song information on the display, the higher cost of the Alpine solution became much easier to take with those added benefits...

Anyone have a suggestion on a good, relatively cheap deck with an aux input? I have an older Panasonic deck, which doesn't have an aux input or the ability to hook up a cd changer. I figure it'll cost me about $60 (Canadian) for an iTrip, so I'm wondering if it'd just be better to get a new deck.

I'd take a look at the Aiwa decks that come standard with AUX-IN from what I remember...

http://www.crutchfield.com

and buy from crutchfield, they have the cheapest prices around.

</sarcasm>?

Wrong. If you want rock bottom prices, try www.sounddomain.com

- Rob

My deck has aux input, and once I'm all finished my iPod will be charging while I drive also... but no song control FROM the actual iPod. I agree that controlling the iPod from the deck is a good feature, but it wouldn't work with 1st gen iPods, and I hate the ugly interface of alpine units, so... meh. No thank you.

- Rob

k i guess my sarcasm didn't come across, crutchfield has about the highest prices around. Etronics.com ususally has really good prices, or hell guys on ebay have unopened items really cheap, a friend of mine bought from both and had no problems. He has alpine all around including two V12 amps, 3 type R subs, and their componets and loves it, and to be honest its the best sounding setup i have heard in a car.

BTW cash weren't you complaining a few months ago about having an ipod hooked up to and aux input and how messy the wiring will be and accessing the ipod?

Yep. Wires hanging everywhere sucks. I found a way around that. Mine will be completely internally wired, and my iPod will slide into where my ashtray is located, and charge at teh same time. Plus I can close the ashtray door and it'll be invisible.



Right in front of the shifter is the ashtray door... it'll slide downward into that. I won't even have to see the iPod.

- Rob

Sounds very nice! What kind of stuff/hardware are you using to accomplish all of this? How difficult of an install once all completed?

$60? I paid $40CAN for mine.

XM compatible (no thanks), MP3 cd ability with ID3 tags, and aux input.... plus it's REAL aluminum, not plastic, and has some pretty sweet visualizers.....

About $200.

- Rob

PS: The reciever's aux in RCA jacks are in back, I'll run an RCA- miniplug adaptor behind the deck, into the back of the dash, and back up into the ashtray. As for charging, I'm going to use a 12v ipod charger hardwired into the bottom of the ashtray... Basically, I'm going to be reworking the ashtray kinda extensively, removing the little cigarette rakes, and using acrylic to mount the miniplug and firewire port, so all I have to do is drop the ipod into the ashtray and it'll be automatically connected to the stereo and charging.

good thing it matches your interior...

i am doing something similar with my car, only luckily, the car has built in mobile phone wiring that i can get power from

let me know how yours goes

I got an ALPINE CDA-9827 and the Alpine iPod interface. While I like the audio quality, and the fact that it charges my iPod, I think the interface is garbage. It is like putting a Ferrari engine in an old VW bug. Why you ask?
And my reasons. Well the navigation is awful. I was prepared for the 8 character screen, though if the unit scrolled when you were selecting so you could see which playlist by which band it was, it would be much more usefull. And if you get the wrong playlist, you have to go all the way back to get to the right one, and that takes a long time!!

And to my biggest complaint. Searching. Instead of a smooth scroll through your playlists, this thing is so damn slow. It goes one playlist per turn, no matter how much you turn, and you must stop and turn again to go to the next one. And I have a lot of playlists. It takes minutes to find a playlist that isn't in the beggining or end. I want to scroll quickly through my playlists, not this one at a time thing! This is ridiculous, especially when you can't tell which one is which.

In fact I have found it is so hard to find the right playlist, that I have taken to going to the playlist on the ipod, and getting it to play, then connecting it, so it goes to that one.

Now I like the audio quality, and that it charges the iPod, and it can navigate within a single playlist alright, but when searching other playlists this thing is useless.

I would have preffered a better stereo head unit, and just used an Aux input and then plug the iPod into my cigarette lighter for power.

Really the interface feels so slow and bad, I think this thing is awful!