IPOD Car kits

[GTiMK5]

Hi all,

Just joined the site.

I have an IPOD mini and have a Dension ICE link IPOD plus fitted into my car. Highly reccomend it, much better than the type that plugs into your tape deck (if you even have one). Its a neat bit of kit, looks cool and costs 140 ish quid and 40 quid to install by unicar. More info on http://www.ipodmycar.com  I dont work for them, just impressed with the kit.

The ice>Link Plus plays high quality music from your iPod through your existing car entertainment system's CD changer port. There is no longer a need for cassette adapters, cigarette lighter chargers or bulky FM transmitters. You can start enjoying crisp, clean CD quality music with charging and iPod control from your exisitng car entertainment system. Imagine having access to over 10,000 MP3s at the touch of a button. The sleek design of the ice>link cradle will compliment most vehicle interiors as if it were offered form the factory.

When used wth compatible vehicle entertaiment systems, the ice>Link Plus starts and stops the iPod as you enter and exit CD changer mode on your car's entertainment system. Fast Forward, Rewind, Search and seek commands are passed to the iPod also - this is really great for vehicles with entertaiment controls. You can also select your first five playlists by selecting disk numbers 1-5 on your radio.

[Diesel_head]

That is a good bit of kit.

                              i don't have an ipod, it's a create version of it, they're a lot cheaper and have better soound quality.. but still ipods are easier to use.... anyway.
                                                 basicly i just thought i would say that if you want to do the same sort of thing then you can buy an RCA cable that goes in to a 3.5mm headphone end so that you can connect it to the CD input on your stereo... this cost me ?25 for a decent one thats sold for Ipods but you can get ones as good for ?10. Then i got an adapter that goes in to the unilink part which is where the CD changer is controlled from, this was ?30... thats a lot less... so you spend betwee ?40 and ?55...
            about ?100 less.....
                                          i'm not knocking the other thing as it controlls Ipods from the head unit, but if you can cope without that then that's ?100 to spend on that set of speakers you wanted.

                                                 Josh

[Dizzie]

Alpine's KCA-420i interface will let you connect your 'pod to the headunit and the track names will come up on the headunit. also you can control it just like a cd.

Kenwood are just about to release a similar system for their range of headunits.

Creative Zen are a lot more reliable than apple's 'pod, but there won't be an interface like the apple one for car audio for a while. I spoke to James @ Kenwood this week regarding this and he said the ipod was the only one they'd be making given the sales in the UK last year of the ipod.

[Diesel_head]

Dizzie.. do you work in some part of the car audio industry? you seem to know a lot about it and obviously a few ppl as well..
      just wondered as i'd like to know if its enjoyable, lol, better than asda i would expect.
                josh

[Dizzie]

LOL, yeah I work for Sextons in Cardiff

It's great. I love the job. It's only a 5 min walk from my flat. I get up at 8.50am

Have a read of the haynes ICE manual. There's loads of info on every asspect of ICE. Well worth it.

If you haven't got a Alpine or Kenwood system you can always use an AUX input. you'll just have to contorl the tunes from the ipod instead of the headunit.

[vaughn]

right being a bit of an anything hi-tech numpty, i saw an article on a car that didn`t have a head unit and ran an ipod instead now i quite fancy having a set up like this but what do i need? and how much is it going to cost me?
c`mon dizzy sort me out please

[Dizzie]

if you haven't got a headunit that actually supports the ipod interfaces you can run one through the AUX input on your h/u. if you haven't got an AUX input then you can get a FM modulator which basically makes a mini radio station inside your car, but these are prone to interfearance unless you get the digital ones that are close to the £100 mark, but the quality is a lot better.

[vaughn]

sorry dizzy you`ve half baffled me, can i get an ipod that will run without a head unit and if yes how much

[Dizzie]

any ipod will run without a headunit. I thought you wanted it to play through your car speakers?

[vaughn]

so you need a head unit to run an ipod through your speakers then, sorry for all these questions dizzie but a bit thick wwhen it comes to technical stuff