Aftermarket head unit ipod integration

(Not for the WRX, but should apply still...)

Of the different manufacturers offering iPod integration, what are the pros/cons? Alpine seems to have a nice setup, but Pioneer, Kenwood, Jensen, Panasonic and Sony all offer iPod integration as well. Anybody here have experience with these?

Not looking for a 'Alpine FTW' comment unless you've actually USED the competitors, so let's get that out of the way.


thanks...

 

BigB would probably be a great source...since he does installs for a job and had an integrated ipod set-up on his car....

 

it really all depends on how you want to do it. The Pioneer and Alpine ones are the better ones i have worked with.

Alpine on this years models 9852, 9856, and 9857 all take an alpine speed cable for ipod. Its a 30.00 cable you buy that plug directly in the back of the head unit and you basically run it your glove box or wherever you want. You plug the ipod in and control everything through the radio.
Possitive on Alpine model: fastest on the market
Negative: usually on have 1 line of text when searching.

The Pioneer one is my favorite but only if you buy the 6800mp or higher model radios. These run from 269+ for the radio alone. I personally have the Pioneer 7800mp which is the top of the line pioneer right now. Takes a 50.00 ipod interface box that runs to the glove box the same. The big difference on this one is searching is a lot easier and you have 3 lines of text to search with.
Positive: 3 lines of text and Pioneer has a much better sound quality from there radio. Models 6800mp has a 7band eq and a 3v preout, 7800mp has a 16band eq and 5V preout and also has time correction.
Negative: Ipod searching is a little bit slower than the alpine.

Overall if your going for sound quality, Alpine is slacking latly with just a 2v preout and limited tuning abilities. I personally used to be an alpine fan but have switched to pioneer due to the fact that they have a lot better sound quality on there head units.

 

now that the resident audio pro has spoken....

Pioneer FTW!

 

I forget which year you have but there is this for some folks, including myself.
http://www.jazzyengineering.com/product_info.php?products_id=44

I would go with the upgraded headunit with aux in since that seems to work so well for so many people.

 

I've got an older Alpine 9813 with the attachment. Its an older head unit than the cable was designed for but it still works. It's a little slow at loading but SQ is way better than out of a headphone jack (although an Ipod dock lets you get the higher output line out). My big gripe is no shuffle feature on the Ipod and how it resets all of my Ipod settings when I plug it in.

 

I don't mean to be rude, but if I'm asking for iPod head unit integration I'm probably not looking for rave reviews on your AUX in jacks.

Thanks! How do you feel about the lesser Pioneers like the 3800 and 4800? I'm not looking to spend more than $150-ish if possible as it's just going in the Buick.

 

If the panasonic is better sounding than the Alpine at the same price point I would be very suprised. I just purchased a Alpine 9856 because it had the ability to control the IPOD and Sirius Sat. I upgraded from a Sony CDX5700. The sound quality out of the box was vastly superior to the sony (not like thats saying much...). I drove to Sea Island and back so I spent about 12 hours in the car over the last two days and being able to control the Ipod from the HU was a joy. I would highly recommend the Alpine HU's. It seems like the big difference between the 9856 (at 199) and the next model down (at 149) is mainly the satellite capabilities. If you don't care about that, then I would say seriously consider the Alpine...

 

I'll probably be going with the Pioneer 4800. The Alpines are nice, but they look like some gaudy prop out of Fast and Furious 4 and will look completely out of place in the Buick.

 

Really? I thought the Alpine's were some of the least "gaudy" of the bunch. The panny's do look nice too though...

 

the alpines are a little bit darker in color so they go well with a darker dash. The alpines are great radios, but its the same thing as of anything each brand/model fits a diff person ya know? I like the Alpine for the speed of it. I would have to say the pioneers are a little bit easier to use and the sound is better though.

The funny thing about the ipod adapters is for someone like me ipod adapters are useless as all i use it for is shuffle mode. I will probably end up gettin the box anywayz.

Moose you will like the 4800, im pretty sure the 3800 isnt compatable(dont hold me to that though) but im almost possitive.

 

i ran across this when trying to look up the unit you guys where talkiing about. $121 free shipping.
http://www.digitalfotoclub.com/sc/from-shopping.asp?id=964604982&rf=dt

 

Good price, but 'digital foto club' is one of the infamous Brooklyn camera stores, and I'd never bother with them. You'd order it, and they'd call you up to offer some $100+ cables to go with it, then if you didn't want them it'd suddenly be 'out of stock'.

 

Remember though that the adapters also allow for the ipod to output to directly to the HU rather than a conversion to analog via RCA cables.

 

i know, i stated that in my previous stuff.....i sell this stuff for a living:wiggle:

 

The 3800 does to iPod interfacing. The main difference from what I can tell is the # of pre-outs (2 vs 3), which I really don't care about in this application. The 3800 goes for $119 and 4800 for $139.

 

3800 is a flat faced head unit instead of a fold down, 2 preouts vs. 3, and thats about it. If you look at them they look nearly identical.

 

I think the 4800 screen is slightly larger, but doesn't have any additional text lines or anything.

 

If you use an Ipod docking station you can use the high-level line out on the dock which has much better sound quality than the Ipods headphone jack. You can still use the shuffle feature but you wont be able to select songs through the head unit.

 

But the docking station would still need to convert to an analog signal going into the head unit right? I am under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that when you use the box or cable built for a HU, the digital signal is played as is, not converted to analog prior to output...

 

You probably wouldn't want to play a digital signal as is.

It has to go through one D/A conversion; whether it happens in the iPod itself or in the head unit (I doubt the signal from iPod to headunit is digital though) doesn't really matter much unless one of the D/A converters is seriously inferior to the other.

 

just barly and thats just because the cd window is behind the faceplate

 

Ahhh, I guess it just goes through one less conversion process than, if it is a digital input, right?

 

Nope... it is converted from digital to analog once.

 

So why use a digital coax or digital optical connection on a home stereo?

 

Because of potential signal degradation in the analog signal between say a CD player and the amplifier. Honestly, in a car I can not see it make a noticeable difference; it's not exactly a refined sound environment... and let's keep in mind we're dealing with a source that's playing back lossy compression music in the first place!

 

mp3 compression (at a decent rate), based on the masking effect, compresses a signal by throwing away components that u won't be able to hear anyways... but thats the source of a whole different discussion

car audio is just weird... too many non idealities / sources of interference, etc

 

What's the 'decent rate' though? Most people use 192 for iPods...

 

I dont think its digital b/c the interfaces are more like the cd changer aux cables where 2 pins are L/R and the remaining at IO communicating pins.

 

i guess a good rate varies from person to person since the masking effect in everyone's ear is different... not sure what a good recommended rate is off the top of my head but usually 256 has worked well for me (dont have an ipod though)

 

Well, picked up the 3800 and installed it. Still need to hook the iPod box up though; it needs its own non-switched power so will have to find a place to tap.

Sounds nice, controls are good.

 

the ipod output out the bottom is not digital even with direct HU connections from what i can glean from the tech specs. Even still, the bottom line out is superior to the top ipod output. Going to analog on the ipod is not going to kill your listening experience. If you want great quality from an ipod you should be encoding things as lossless formats and not mp3 anyhow. Aux in is from what i can tell exactly the same as ipod enabled head units in terms of quality. Benefit is of course that you can control it from the face plate and not the ipod.

I did a report on audio quality for a college class last year (YAY COLLEGE) and mp3 is the first time prices have gone up or stayed the same and quality and usability (eg ability to trade) has gone down. Interesting books about the topic...but i'm rambling.

As long as you aren't doing fm modulation you're good in my book