AdvICE / Recomendations --> MP3's

[Stronz]

Hi all,

Got a bit of a dillema and need some guidance. Got the standard VW tape/radio and single CD player in my MKIV GTi T, which is fine. Sounds good enough, easy to work and does the job. Most importantly, it does that little trick of turning itself up to compensate road noise and matches with the interior lights at night (red).

But I also have an Alpine HU from my old car knocking about which plays MP3/WMA discs (which is great because it means there is no need for a CD changer and all the song info is displayed). I have 60GB of music on my PC that I like to choose from and burn onto CDRW (much like old skool mix tapes!). The bad point is its a green illumination (to match my old motor) and doesnt do the turning up thang.

So do I swap it over and spoil the red illumination effect at night, just put with swapping CD's all of the time or is there an equally as good HU with red illumination?

PS: can i put a MKV head unit into my golf? That plays MP3's doesnt it?

All comments welcome (apart from how much of a tart I'm being)
Cheers!

[Golf_Spunce]

JVC KD-AR5500 has colour illumiation options.

You can select which ever colour you want. Red is one of the colours!

[Rhyso]

Becker Head Units seem to get a good write up and look fairly OEM; even has the matching lighting!!

Not cheap unfortunately 

[monzablue16v]

Not sure if you can on that one but some Alpine head units allow you to change the colours if not I think Kenwood do

[vin1.8t]

my alpine you can change the colour from blue to red.
if you have a i pod can you connect it to your alpine?
my old gamma played burned cds ok tho

[Stronz]

OK, narrowed it down a  bit to these five.

Alpine:
CDA-9883R: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-cda9883r-p-5763.html
CDE 987 1RR: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-cde9871rr-p-5639.html

Pioneer
DEH-P55BT: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/pioneer-dehp55bt-p-4821.html

JVC
KD-LHX552: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/jvc-kdlhx552-p-4040.html

The Pioneer's looking good to me for its BT handsfree function meaning I wont have to get anything else cluttering up my dashboard to handle phone calls. If anyone owns / has used any of these HU I would love to know your comments. Thanks for the advice so far too. I really need to find a decent shop near to work so I can go and have a play with some HU.

[gtisteve]

Have had 2 Kenwood units and they light up blue / red and match a treat especiallty at night, the latest one I bought is is MP3 for £50 on fleabay. I would sell the Alpine and buy a kenwood.

[bad devotions]

i just bought one of these

http://www.online-caraudio.co.uk/ishop/1126/shopscr54.html

and I am pretty pleased with it. Display is good, colours seem to complement the car too. The display dims when you turn the lights on which is a nice little touch IMO.

it also has a usb port which I plug my 4gb corsair flash drive into. No need to burn cds . Apparently I have heard that you can run 2.5" usb disk drives off them with no need for an extra power supply. So you could theoretically get a 120gb disk and just leave it in your glove box.

it doesn't do the turning up thing though...

[derdle]

Wonder if there is a way you can change the colour of the illumination on your Alpine unit? Perhaps by taking it apart and replacing the bulb(s) or LED(s)??

[Stronz]

Nah, I wont bother with that. Too much faffing about. I'm pretty sure I am going for the Pioneer head unit I mentioned. Just need to find myself somewhere with one on demo to play about with.

Anyway, I am probably going to sell my old Alpine head unit, so expcet to see it in the for sale section shortly.