The Guide to a fully integrated in-car solution

[swy32x]

Checking CNET today, I noticed that there was a special feature on 'iPod your car'.

Upon clicking, I found an 8-page featurette, complete with videos and recommendations and how to's on how to connect your iPod to your car stereo, and have a fully integretated system.

It is well worth the read/watch.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10163_7...1.html?tag=nav

[THX]

Thanks for the link. I was afraid they'd give us bad information and misconceptions but that write-up was pretty much spot on. Someone should tell him about the 255/512 limit though.

If they had the time and resources (which they probably do ) they should do Alpine vs Pioneer vs Clarion vs Kenwood adapters. It also would have been nice if they mentioned BMW has a stock adapter out there now, with Mercedes, Nissan, Volvo, Alfa-Romeo, and Ferrari coming out with something similar by next year.

edit- it's funny how he thought the antenna port was the power

[stickuto]

Nice Post Snowy, and yea it quite a good read, well worth a look.

[the4starish]

Originally posted by THX
it's funny how he thought the antenna port was the power

lol, i noticed that too!!! The videos were good and helpful for people who need to see things done. Other than that, I got most of that information from this forum. But in the end, kudos for the find and kudos to cnet for not butchering that one.

[LesFong]

Originally posted by THX
If they had the time and resources (which they probably do ) they should do Alpine vs Pioneer vs Clarion vs Kenwood adapters.

Would anyone like to comment on what option they think is best? Any good/bad experiences with these? I would love to hear, as I am looking to get my car fitted soon. (The laser on the CD changer in my car is on its last legs!)

Cheers

Matt

[THX]

As far as I gathered:

Alpine has a new interface out called FullSpeed which is supposed to be the fastest. I don't have it but intitial reviews look good, definitely better than the slow KCA-420i adapter.

You need two things:

1) A 2006 model Alpine head unit
2) A $30 KCE-422i cable (no more adapter boxes!)

Couple things to note:

- All new Alpine unit model #'s start out with CDE, older ones were CDA, denoting the older Ai-Net bus which was designed for CD changers.
- the CDE-9857 and more expensive models have percentage scrolling, which breaks up the song/artist/playlist list into 6 bookmarks, fast-forwarding to those points for faster searching.
- According to everything I've read, the 255 barrier is gone

Links of interest:

Official Promotional Page
Alpine's homepage
Crutchfield link

_____________________________________________


Alpine KCA-420i [ link ] [ link ] [ link ]

Pros:

• long 16 character text limit
• Although slow in scrolling, still the fastest of the 4 brands
• Ability to scroll up to 60 artists/songs/playlists at a time with GlideTouch strip
• Great displays for text information in the higher-end 2005 models
• Alpine is a quality brand name

Cons:

• Search scrolling is slow and clunky
• 255/512 song/artist/playlist # barrier *read below
• Alpine uses a 1-bit DAC for all their head units (aimed at sound geeks)
• GlideTouch takes some getting used to
• Cannot search through Genre / Composer / Audiobooks

*There have been some misconceptions on what the 255/512 barrier is. Crutchfield seems to explain it the best: "Depending on the model, '04 Alpine receivers can display the tag info for a maximum of 512 playlists, albums, or artists (depending on what search mode you're in), and for up to 255 songs within a given folder. If you've got more than 255 songs in a single playlist, for example, tracks after the 255th will be identified by number only."
_____________________________________________

Pioneer CD-IB100 [ link ]

Pros:

• Decently-priced head units
• Pioneer is a decent brand name, especially if you get a Premiere deck

Cons:

• Search scrolling is slow and clunky
• 8 character text limit on songs
• Cannot search through Genre / Composer / Audiobooks

_____________________________________________

Kenwood KCA-iP500

Take these user reviews with a grain of salt. I'd rather get info from people here or car audio forums.

_____________________________________________

Clarion

Clarion has two iPod adapters:

1) One for their expensive VRX755VD DVD receiver (CCA649 iPod Cable) [ User Reviews ]

2) One for their regular receivers (EA1251B iPod Control interface)

The two user reviews I see for the CCA649 sound promising but don't give enough detail.

_____________________________________________

I'll edit the above if I hear anything.

[Hawkeynut]

Hey there,

I have a stock unit in a 2003 Chevy Malibu and I would like to integrate my iPod to the unit. My stereo has a cd and tape deck but I havent been able to find any information on if it has the required cd changer input on it.

What I was looking to purchase is this link but I am not sure if my head unit has the required plug in. Before I rip apart my dash to find out, I am hoping there would be a stereo nut that might be able to help me out.

Thanks!

[LesFong]

Thanks THX. I think I'm going to go with an Alpine setup. Not sure which head unit at this stage. (There's a store locally that I can try each unit out with the input linked.)

Cheers

Matt

[ghostdogg]

I bought the Alpine KCA-420i and
Alpine CDA-9847 after reading the CNET article - it is great. Highly recommended

[chelle]

ghostdog...where did you buy them? and if you don't mind, how much did you buy them for? thanks!

[ghostdogg]

chelle,

Got everything from Crutchfield.com. The Alpine CDA-9847 was $199 and the Alpine KCA-420i ipod adapter was $99. Comes with free harness to attach to the cars wiring, free plastic insert so the new head unit fits perfectly on your dashboard, and best of all 1 day free shipping (ordered it 2pm on Wed and received it at my office 11am on Thurs). They also give you install instuctions for your specific car, so the install was super easy.

Good luck!

[lightning iPod]

Even though I'm a huge ///Alpine fan, I don't find the KCA-420i that great of a product because you are still limited to the controls on your head unit - a head unit not designed for an ipod. A cd changer has like 6 total commands for it to work perfectly - and the concept of nested menus, playlists, etc is just not there. It just seems like the reason that the ipod concept works, is that the design of the ipod itself works. So, why not just use the controls on the ipod itself...

Check out the Alpine KCA-801B. It's basically an aux input into an Alpine head unit, but you use the ipod normally.

At least that is my opinion, but I know many people want to control it via their HU. I will as well once the HU is made to control the ipod directly (i.e. no adapter required)

[ZPrime]

Originally posted by lightning iPod
Even though I'm a huge ///Alpine fan, I don't find the KCA-420i that great of a product because you are still limited to the controls on your head unit - a head unit not designed for an ipod. A cd changer has like 6 total commands for it to work perfectly - and the concept of nested menus, playlists, etc is just not there. It just seems like the reason that the ipod concept works, is that the design of the ipod itself works. So, why not just use the controls on the ipod itself...

Check out the Alpine KCA-801B. It's basically an aux input into an Alpine head unit, but you use the ipod normally.

At least that is my opinion, but I know many people want to control it via their HU. I will as well once the HU is made to control the ipod directly (i.e. no adapter required)

For what it's worth, the KCA-801B is supposedly discontinued.

This is a shame, because it allows you to switch between its AUX-in as well as another AiNet device (changer, XM/Sirius, another ipod on KCA-420i? ) I have an 801B and it is nifty. Has two AiNet plugs and then a "remote" lead. Put +12V on that lead and the audio on the RCA jacks takes over. Remove the +12V and the other AiNet device plays again. The headunit controls and display simply reflect status from the true AiNet device downstream - if you have a changer, it will say "disc 1" or whatever even if you have the 801B "active" and pushing your AUX signal from the RCAs.

They also ahve a KCA-121B (i think that's the model) - it's just an AiNet plug on one end and a pair of RCAs on the other. It's a much "dumber" device. When it is plugged in, the head unit just displays "Track 0, 0:00" the entire time.

I'm in the exact same mindset as you though as far as interface goes. I originally bought an iPod after SELLING my Creative Zen 60GB. I got a 40GB iPod solely based upon the selling point of the "wonderful" iPod interface from Alpine. (I've been using Alpine for ages in my cars so was expecting good things.) The KCA-420i is a huge disappointment, at least with my listening style.

I tend to pick an album and listen to the whole album at once, in order. No shuffle/random stuff, and I don't make playlists either. I just want to use the iPod like a MASSIVE, very fast CD changer. The 420 is WAY too slow for this - if you have any real amount of albums on the ipod (i have around 150 at last count) it takes FOREVER to scroll through them. Thankfully it can "loop backwards," unlike the actual iPod itself, but it still takes ages to get to items in the MIDDLE of the album list.

If it weren't so terribly slow i'd probably have stayed with the 420, but instead I'm switching to an aux-in setup with a ProClip kit to mount the ipod on my dash in eyesight and arm's length. It works MUCH quicker and is far easier to read than the 420. There's only one thing lacking now, and this is a problem with Apple - Album/Artist names don't scroll in the selection lists. I browse by artist, then album, and i like my albums sorted by year, so I have them custom-tagged so they show as "19xx Artist Name." This is usually too long for the ipod's display, so I have to rely on my knowledge of the artist's discography and the first few letters of the name to know what i'm going for... The Alpine system at least did this well, since it scrolled the selection items back and forth the whole time. I wish apple would add selection list horizontal scrolling as a configurable option in the next iPod update...

[CAlvarez]

Any good/bad experiences with these? I would love to hear, as I am looking to get my car fitted soon.

I currently have a Clarion VRX755VD (7" touch-screen) with the integration cable. That replaced a Clarion DXZ835MP (standard DIN head unit) using line-in for the iPod. I also spent some time with a few of the high-end Alpine standard head units, didn't get to try the Alpine touch-screen.

Clarion... No size limitations that I've noticed. It shows 1100-some songs in one list, unlike the Alpines. Display of items is quite speedy. Scrolling is ok, but if you have thousands of songs it just takes a while since there is no wheel-type interface, just up/down arrows. Press and hold the arrow and it will flip page by page, then speed up. Not great. Other than a wheel or a slider, I don't know how to make it better. The Clarion head units always have great preamp sections, with very high quality sound with external amps. I've never tried their built-in amps.

Here are the stupid things it does though... First thing you notice is that it turns off shuffle and turns on repeat EVERY TIME you plug it in. At least on my Mini. It also changes those settings on the iPod itself. Stupid, huh? The Alpine doesn't do this. Also, the Clarion starts playing from one particular song every single time you plug it in, the Alpine remembers where you left off.

The Alpines have limits on the number of items per list/folder. Their scroll bar is a nifty idea, but it's not precise or sensitive enough. You'd think it could work like a wheel, but it doesn't. And since the filename reading/display is so slow, you end up jumping ahead too far or waiting for the display. The Clarion display keeps up with fast-scrolling. The Alpine chokes on a filename with non-US characters, while the Clarion displays a "?" in place of the one character it can't handle. The Alpine says "No support" for the entire line, which is dumb. For example, the proper spelling of "Motley Crue" is shown as "M?tley Cr?e" on the Clarion, but as "No support" on the Alpine. Same for the name of my iPod, which contains an apostrophe.

Neither the Alpine nor Clarion support podcasts.

What if I had to do it all over again? I'd buy a standard head unit WITHOUT integration and use the line port again. The iPod's interface is superior to all the others. The large screen on the Clarion helps with driving and listening, but with the other annoyances I don't think it's worth it.

[Nikoos]

Lot of similar sentiments here. I purchased a Pioneer head unit with the iPod adapter. Terrible interface, but from all the reviews I've read, it seems like thats just where the tech is at right now. Sent the whole bundle back to Crutch and am buying a head unit with an AUX in to run the show from the iPod. Anyone heard a word on second gen adapters and should I think about buying one of these higher end Alpine units with the bonus text that might work better with a second gen?