danteBirosel 5,000+ posts
CarAudio.com Veteran
Very great information so far guys. Keep em coming.. im interested to read more about the Ipod and the PhatBox.
-Dante
-Dante
Hello audionewb,Like what? I am not pro ipod although i do own two. I prefer the creative ones myself and have had 2 of those as well. I switched to the ipod for the aftermarket products. I looked at the website that you listed and I don't see what is so great. True audiophiles are not going to use a compressed format such as mp3s anyway. The ipod is not perfect, but if you use the dock connection output vs the headphone output, the audio quality increases. You are talking about a price/per sound quality issue. Yes that device is cool, but it is not nearly as supported as something like the ipod and will not be around as long. I held out as long as possible when I got the ipod (although they were gifts) but unless your car is extensively done properly for sq, this is a mute point anyway. As for the rio car, hasn't it been discontinued?
Complete trash and no support. I had one but it broke within 2 months of using it. The ****er didn't even ship with the ability to fast forward/rewind. LOL.omnifi dmp1 hard drive 20gig with controller that looks like a hu face plate.
As in elegant, I meant the most 'integrated' solution.. Clarion's iPod interface (a-la the VRX765VD) looks to be even better.. Alpine still has a long way to go to make it's interface truly 'iPod-like'..Even on your most elegant solution you've found, it's a pain to simply add a track to the playlist out of your archive? Doesn't seem very elegant imo //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif
I looked into a RioCar a while back at the same time I was looking at the DMP-1, and I picked the latter for it's price.. I'm not a fan of having so many faceplates installed on my dash.. It looks like ass IMO.. Hence the reasoning for my 'elegant' solution above..On a riocar, You can select any one track from any feasible sized library with less than 5 button presses after entering 'search by title' mode on a riocar //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif...most of the time less than 3. It's like dialing a phone...the dial-a-track. You can then choose to insert, append, enqueue or replace in current playlist that track. Same interface goes for genre, artist, album, or year. All tracks are given unique PIN #'s so you can pull them up with those if you have favorites memorized too. You can mark tracks on the road with a single button then get a playlist of all marked tracks displayed on your pc when you return home... it even has a self calibrating mode for it's PEQ a-la eclipse's microphone calibration routines. Weeee.
Yes, I hacked mine, although it was for reasons other than seeking in tracks (which it was now possible to do) since I've never found the need to do that.. Is it really necessary when listening to music? I also found the DMP-1 to be very easy to navigate.. But it was buggy and had to be rebooted daily, some days more than others..how you can say the omnifi DMP1 worked well when it worked is beyond me; it didn't even have a seek ability in tracks (until it was hacked into the player by a third party after the player was discontinued)
Not true any more, with Alpine's 2nd gen iPod interface, aka FullSpeed. I've got 5000 tracks on my iPod and, using the touchscreen on my W200, I can navigate about 95% as quickly on the HU as I can on the iPod itself.Ipod's can be integrated directly into your system to be controlled by your deck (at least I believe your Alpine head is new enough to work with an Ipod adapter), but from what I've heard control is sluggish and seeking out songs from a large playlist is frustrating. From what I've gathered, most are just as happy with a simple auxilary input connection and simply being about to control it by hand. (plus then you don't need to use a crappy Ipod, you can use any external source of your choice such as something by Creative Labs or Toshiba) //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
you are correct but the fact is ipods **** A$$ and are way over priced not to mention the built in battery ( ask people who have had to send one in to get a new battery) cheap screen that breaks easy not mention all the extras ipod needs to be on an even playing field with the zen ( zen has better sound quality) plus built in voice recorder comes in handy for memos and replaceable battery .Errrr, ummm. You can put data on the iPod without having to partition it.
And, you can use it and control it from MANY HU's without having to clutter up your car with a separate wired controller.
And, if you have a decent HU, you should be doing your EQ there, not with the MP3 player.
I reckon you get what you pay for. And I did send my 3 year old 30gig iPod in to Apple for the $69 battery replacement program. I got back a 30gig iPod that is, as far as I can tell, brand new. Sweet deal, as far as I'm concerned! How much are batteries for a Zen? Are they Li-ion? How long do they last before needing to be replaced?you are correct but the fact is ipods **** A$$ and are way over priced not to mention the built in battery ( ask people who have had to send one in to get a new battery) cheap screen that breaks easy
I can get a 60 gig iPod for less than double what you paid for 6 gig. And you think you got a good deal?!?i got my 6 gig zen for $169 local no way ipod can touch that . the only advantage that ipod has is the marketing makes it the "in" product with more add-ons .