Are Sony adapters any good?

[gazzaman28]

Hi everyone, I'm seriously thinking about buying a 60gb ipod Video but would mainly use it in the car rather than with the earphones. I've ruled out itrips and tape adapters, I want quality sound and ease of use. I currently have a Sony MP3 CD player with changer controls and I've found 2 adapters available here in the UK which seem to fit the bill:

Sony IPOD-001 iPod adapter (£69.99 from caraudiocentre)
Sony: iPod® Adapter - ASIP-D001 (£59.99 from digitalsounddirect)
I'd post the urls of the sites but ilounge won't let me!

They both seem to be pretty much the same thing but I'm not sure whether they are the same or not. The trouble is I can't find any reviews of them anywhere.

I've heard about problems with these sorts of adapters being slow, having character and folder size issues and generally being not quite as seamless as they would initially seem. My ipod would have about 40-50gb of music on it so I wouldn't want to be messing around for ages looking for an album. Does anyone have any first hand experience of using them? Am I expecting too much? Would I be disappointed?

I agree with some of the other sentiments on this section of the forum - it's about time someone brought out a car stereo which fully integrates with ipods. It would sell like hotcakes for sure.

Cheers people.

[robmir]

I am going through the same road as you. Our 3 vehicles are Sony equiped, and all of them have MiniDisc changers which was my top choice in the past.
All the cars have line input available so on one I use the Blitzsafe universal adapter and for the second one I use a Tekkeon Mypower portable dock. Next week I will receive a Ipod2carGen2 adapter with the Sony interface cable. I choosed it because it still allow to control the ipod from it's own wheel just in case I don't like it's interface with Sony decks.

[gazzaman28]

Please let us know how you get on with the iPod2carGen2 adapter...

As my head unit plays MP3 CDs it has a button to change to a different folder. Does anyone know if this function works to change to a different album/folder on the ipod? If not then just changing tracks with << and >> really isn't that useful for me, and I don't want to be playing with the ipod itself whilst driving, I'd rather it was stashed away safely in the glove box.

Which is the best head unit for ipod support? I'm prepared to spend money to get the right product, but it would have to be a significant improvement on what I can get with my Sony at present.

[robmir]

One thing you must be aware is that the ipod will never sound in your car as good as your MP3 head unit.

Another factor you need to look is that Sony head units doesn't display many lines of text. So interface would be quite limited.

Sony was never too happy with the ipod success since it taked away the miniDisc market.

Look at the new Sony decks available next march which have a USB 1GB flash memory inside the removable face to allow you to download 500 MP3 songs from your computer to the head unit.

[gazzaman28]

Thanks robmir I've heard about the Sony 1gb flash memory head units but to be honest I can't see the point when I can burn a CD with 650mb on it just as easily. I'm a bit of a power user and really want to have all my music available. At the moment I've got a stack of about 30 CDRs in my glovebox all full of albums on MP3.

I'd ideally like to hear and play with an ipod in a car stereo set up before I buy anything. Not quite sure how I'll be able to though, unless I can borrow another ipod and send the Sony adapter back if I'm not happy...

It seems to me that Sony should pull their finger out and realise the potential their business of car stereos, walkmans and mobile phones (ie. Sony Ericsson) and make some top quality integrated products.
Imagine having a radio head unit with a big touchscreen display and a CD/DVD player, worked seamlessly with your mobile phone via bluetooth for hands-free calls, had optional satellite navigation facilities via either the phone or an optional bluetooth device. It could also play MP3s through either a walkman or a mobile phone with memory stick or even a hard drive in it. Have optional devices for satellite or DAB radio, connectors for larger LCD screens, etc, etc. Sony are one of the few companies that could make it happen and they have the technology already available if only they could see the potential. At the moment you get a head unit which has a radio and one or two (if you're lucky) other things. Have they not thought that if their designs were more modular then they would be much more popular?

Grr, rant over!!!

[robmir]

I understand you at all but look it at this way to see it: the flash memory is erasable so perhaps you could have several folders of 1 GB ready on your computer with the musice for the days mood and just in a couple of minutes before leaving the house you just down load it to the display !!!!!

Regarding Sony R&D if you follow it closely you would notice that in the past they got superb designs with their Mobile ES line with digital processors, amplifiers, etc, that blowed your mind but in the last 3 years everything they presented at the CES sucks.

For example their latest A/V multimedia touch controled display head unit, available from last march 2005 (which shamely lacked MD/CD changer control) after only 5 months on the market was suddenly be discontinued but it is still advertised on Sony's USA website. Crutchfield (were Sony forward you for the car products) customer support confirm that, but when you ask Sony's customert support directly they symply are not allowed to comment or confirm on this.

In many ways Sony has dissapointed me a lot not only on your run of the mill gadgets like consumer products but also on broadcasting professional equipments and again is a shame that the had so much resource, surprise us with cut edge astonishing technology and when you see the final available product you start to ask what's happened because it lacks half of what you saw on the presented demo.

As what I saw already on bluetooth featured luxury car head units which recognize any cellular brand and interface right away downloading contacts list and displaying caller id on the cluster or radio display is amazing so why it can't be done with the ipod just make me upset.

May be the few people who had installed computers on their vehicle trunks as sound sources are not as crazy as we think !!!!

[robmir]

Originally posted by gazzaman28

Imagine having a radio head unit with a big touchscreen display and a CD/DVD player, worked seamlessly with your mobile phone via bluetooth for hands-free calls, had optional satellite navigation facilities via either the phone or an optional bluetooth device. It could also play MP3s through either a walkman or a mobile phone with memory stick or even a hard drive in it. Have optional devices for satellite or DAB radio, connectors for larger LCD screens, etc, etc. At the moment you get a head unit which has a radio and one or two (if you're lucky) other things.

Grr, rant over!!!

This is not a dream !!!!!!

Honda's Acura and Toyota's Lexus have mobile bluetooth integrated navigation head units available in the united states. I am not 100% sure but seems to be produced for them by Pioneer.

And I bet Blaukpunt had something ready for Mercedes Benz !!!!!

Not a fan of Pioneer products but be sure they as well as Alpine and Clarion are miles ahead on car audio head units over the mental ######s who manage Sony's car audio division !!!!!

[Nutmeg7]

Originally posted by robmir
In many ways Sony has dissapointed me a lot not only on your run of the mill gadgets like consumer products

Well, that's typical Sony, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, when they're cutting edge & leading the industry in a new direction, they're awesome, but when they make cheap consumer-level stuff that everyone else is making, they're junk (break easily, bad sound quality, customer service is horrendous, etc.)

If you've got an ES head unit, then ok, but if you're thinking of buying a new Sony head unit, do yourself a favor:
Grab a sampling of CDs from all the different genres you listen to.
Go to a small car audio store or a Tweeter.
Compare a bunch of head units. Turn off all the audio processing on each (no extra bass or treble, flat EQ, ect.) Pick some speakers you like, & play some music on a buncha head units. If sound quality & clarity is important to you, you'll prob'ly walk out with an Alpine or something higher end.

Also, the Alpine HUs are supposedly getting better iPod interfaces this year, so you may want to wait & see what people say about them before you rush out & buy something.

[robmir]

Well after 3 weeks on my freight forwarder warehouse he just delivered the ipod2car gen2 and I started to do my tests of it today:
First I did it on my wife's 1994 Nissan Quest which was ordered with the optional premium sound equipment. When I bought this van I replaced the stock receiver with a Sony CDX-C760, added the TV tuner, CD changer and MD changer. Around 3 months ago I added a XA-300 and hooked on it's line input a Blitzsafe ipod universal adapter so here is what I noticed:

The good part is that sound quality from the ipod through the ipod2car is superb and way better against the Blitzsafe line out / Sony XA-300 line in combo. Also as some of you noticed the Blitzsafe usually pick up alternator whine were the ipod2car is absolutely noise free.

Now the bad part: since this old head unit has only one line of text display you need to hit the display button to cycle it as to view playing time, group name and song title. Another big negative is that the ipod2car was reported to allow control the ipod from the Sony head unit but also on the same time from ipod's own wheel which is totally untrue. Once the unit is plugged to the ipod it can only be controled from the head unit and believe me it's interface is akward and slow. Nothing beat the own ipod display.

Next test was done on my Toyota FJ-80 Land Cruiser which has a Sony XAV-7W A/V media center, DVX-11A DVD/MP3 player, XT-63V TV tuner, MDX-65 MD changer. Unfortunately the XAV-7W having a big 7 inch in dash display doesn't take advantage of it. There is a line dedicated to track number and playing time plus only one line of text display which uses only half of the display wide size. Again display must be cycled between group name and song title but is more user friendly against my wife's van head unit .

I was advised that ipod2car interface with Sony head units were poor and that is true.

So my recomendation is that unless you have a top of the line Mobile ES unit with all related Sony accesories or as on my case a very expensive in dash video head unit you could consider ipod2car aproach if you are willing to live with a very clumsy interface and need to hide the ipod on the glove compartment. I also set the ipod2car to shufle the songs so I don't have to hassle much with lists.

One positive design aspect of the ipod2gen is that if you decide to replace your head unit with a new Pioneer, Alpine or Kenwood you only need to throw away the Sony interface cable and order only the matching interface cable.

[robmir]

The ipod2car gen 2 is displayed on your head unit as a MiniDisc Changer. If you have a CD or MD changer and would like to have them work together with the ipod interface, you need to add a XA-30 input selector. The ipod2car gen2 when hooked together with a MD changer is displayed as MD2.