For you ipod users...

[Aaron]

Whats the best way to listen to your ipod in the car? I know, buy a new headunit. But what are your other ideas? Anybody use itrip? If so, I'd like to hear how they sound at Red Robin.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated... especially from you best-buy audio-guru's.

[stichris]

Homer has a nice setup with (i think) an alpine deck, which interfaces with the iPod beautifully. He can chime in here.

Chris

[AllanHIDPlace]

try the icarplay i believe its called its made by monster, but it plugs in to the bottom of the ipod, charges it and it broadcasts the music on one of 8 stations which you can choose.

i personally dont have it but i've used my friends in my car plenty of times and its awesome... i just dont want to shell out $80 for it.

[Aaron]

Alright Homer, whats it gonna cost me for this Alpine?

[Aaron]

I'm so sick of looking at what to do for this. First I hear the FM transmitters are crap. Then I hear Subaru has an abnormal antenna plug so I can't use an FM modulator. I'm looking at aftermarket units and I'd like something that fills out the big rectangle, everything I'm finding is all 2 inches wide. I want to be done with this. I thought there would be more options.

[the mike]

A buddy of mine has the ITunes or whatever it is, the one that runs through the FM stations. Seems to work pretty good, plus you can use it in your house stereo too.



OT, what's up Allan, welcome over. :partyman: ClubWRX in the house....

[criz]

I have a headunit with the aux input jack on the front... I connect my ipod that way... its cool...

I had an iTrip before and hated it... I hate how you had to stop the music whenever you had to reset the channel... if you go radio, get the one with the digital radio output with the channel selector right on the unit...

[Aaron]

criz, do you still have the transmitter? I'd like to try one for a day.

[criz]

I still have the iTrip from the 2G ipod... if you have that gen iPod i'll give it to you... I never got new iTrips when I upgraded to the 3 and 4G

[smoger]

i have a dell dj and i use 2 methods..

in my srt my headunit has an rca input in the rear so i use an rca to mini-jack cable(i have it installed permanently under my center console, the dj sits in a cupholder mount and the wire protrudes from the cupholder only about 6".. get in put the dj in the mount and plug in the wire.. good to go..

in my neon i just use an fm transmitter which works fine as long as you dont mind fm quality as compared to cd quality i am using the belkin tunecast 2 which has its own 12vdc power supply(or use 2 AAA batteries). the reception to the radio is great because on the tunecast2 you choose the station to broadcast to digitally, so you are not limited to 1 or 4 stations and just have to *hope* they are empty. also turns itself on when it gets a signal and offf when it doesnt get one for 60 seconds

[naSTI]

Alright Homer, whats it gonna cost me for this Alpine?

Ok,

So I ran into the same dilema on this subject before:

A) ANY FM transmitter will suck; *even* if you can get a great signal from the transmitter (which is RARE since the xmitters are typically weak in order for them to meet FCC regulation), the FM modulators found in all of these gadgets cannot convey the great fidelity being produced from the iPod's audio output. So the best you can get is "adequet" sound.. Which is ok if you don't mind mediocre sound (and you continue using your factory speakers)

B) The Subaru Factory radios for the MY04-05 (if not all) don't have CD changer control (since its changer is already in the head unit). So, unless you get a new head unit, this rules out using products that can control the iPod using the radio's CD Changer control plug.

You have options:

1) Like Criz said, a simple (and cheapest) solution is to get a decent $150~300 head unit which has some kind of AUX input. You'll still need to select songs/playlists through the iPods interface (not too shabby)

2) Get a $225~$400 head unit with a CD Changer control plug, then buy an iPod controller to use the plug to manage 6~12 preset playlist which you create using iTunes or MusicMatch (or whatever you manage your iPod with)

3) Alpine makes a *semi*-elegant solution where a combination head unit and control module allow you to plug your ipod in, then store it away where you can access your playlists, artists, albums or individual songs. HOWEVER, if you're like me, having over 200 artists, and about a thousand albums, the interface starts to fail because the control module of the Alpine (KCA-420i), similar to the other products on the market, primarily use the head-units CD Changer control plus other enhaced features to allow text for titles, artists, etc (they call it AINet {Alpine Interface Network, I think}).

Now, Alpine's interface has some draw-backs, no input to allow searching by names, it relies solely on scrollwheel input, which can only do one click at a time, so you can't page through artist names to get to the one you want. When I want to get to, say, Beastie Boys, getting through all the artist starting with the letter "A" and all the "B"s before it takes like 14 turns of the dial, it's a pain in the 455!

Despite the existence of products like AutoPC and other ICE, Alpine's 2005 product line seems to be getting a little closer to being a perfect solution. They are responding to complaints like mine about their interface and are looking into PAGING through artists. Also, for the person who cruises a lot, they completely eliminate using an iPod with a HardDrive based product that uses a remove HDD tray you can put your music in from your computer as MP3, then you take it into the car and slide the drive back in to play the music. Some of their head units are Navigation ready as well.

There you have it, it's the best ways I know how to manage an IPOD in the car.

Whew! Ok, that's enough!

./Da Bomber

[Aaron]

Great writeup bomber. I'm going to go for the fm modulator until I figure out what I'm doing. I also will have the same problem as you in that I have a ton of artists. It would be a lot of scrolling even through the Alpine's. I definately need to try one out before I am sold.