tarasgrosh

Good evening everyone, NE is having amazing weather finally, perfect for window down open roof cruising!

My 2007 S8 lacks the AMI option. After searching through the forums I have identifed the following (Please let me know if there are more/newer/cheaper methods or which is superior to others- there was mention that the OEM AMI is 'crappy'???)

1) AMI retrofit kit from www.genuinevwaudiparts.com $755

Great deal of info: http://a6retrofit.tripod.com/articles/a4a5amiparts.html

2) Denison Gateway 500

"recently gone to audi to get the AMI retrofitted...and then paid £400 just to find that theyve installed a dension 500 gateway. Thinking its all good i plugged in my USB full of songs, but the way it displays tracks on the mmi is absolutely rubbish. I mean, you only get 30 tracks before having to manually change to the next screen (meaning sifting through your music to find a track is a pain) and it basically doesnt display the tracks like on a cd full of mp3s, or even like on my old b8 a4 which had the SD card slot."

3) VNS media??

4) Audi Bluetooth adapter: https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho....php?t=2797886

Brozee

Ebay for the AMI unit, make sure it includes the fiber optic most cable.

I like the seamlessness and OEM of the AMI over the dension. The bluetooth adapter is useless as it is up to the phone not the adapter to which is played over bluetooth. I.e. iphone firmware 4.1+ ruined the sound over bluetooth unless running only ipod function (cannot use pandora)

Definitely go for the AMI unit + the ipod cable. Or USB dongle.

tarasgrosh

Brozee, thanks for the quick response! Also, was it you that recommended BRENT on eBay for AMI? I contacted him waiting to hear back.

I found this as well: looks promising considering you have audio/visual options. http://www.xcarlink.co.uk/product.ph...1&cat=0&page=1

Brozee

No problem, I have the e-mails sent directly to my phone so I generally respond quite quick. I don't think it was me that referred you to him. Although i at one time contacted a e-bay seller and he offered to sell it to me directly for $50 cheaper, avoiding e-bay fee's etc. The whole video on MMI screen is a whole other game. Quite hard to have it implemented and even wired. Or else all of us would be using it

Edd W

Is there a way of telling if you have the AMI installed - my car has twin CD changers so is it possible the second one is linked via the AMI and if I remove it I will find the interface?

subit0

No, you don't have an AMI. It's roughly the same size as a CD changer, so there's no way it's lurking behind the second CD changer.

The good news it that you already have a fiber optic MOST cable and power cable installed (to the second CD changer) so you don't need to purchase a retrofit kit, just an AMI unit. It should just be plug and play to remove the second CD changer and plug in a new AMI.

Brozee

Hmm; why two cd changers?

ModestW12

Maybe one is the original pre 2007 CD changer and the other is the newer MP3 capable CD changer?

tarasgrosh, here is the email address of a guy for on your side of the US that sells AMI kits and cabling: bdbrouse@hotmail.com

He's also sells on ebay but might as well just contact him directly. I purchased an AMI retrofit cabling kit as the kit that came with my AMI unit from the UK had working CAN bus splitter but not properly wired for media player 2. Brent's pricing (~$500) is as good as I've seen on eBay save the very rare private seller auction. I suggest giving him a try. If he doesn't sell anymore try turboherbie on UK ebay but tell him to make sure he sends you a proper CAN bus splitter. It took 2 days for my AMI kit to get to Cali from UK.

From what I've seen online, VNS media makes a cheaper AMI emulator that is superior to the Dension in that it looks and functions exaclty like OEM AMI on your MMI screen (vs. the Dension emulates a second CD changer and play all tracks from CD7 position or something along those lines).

If you go with AMI, check out the link in my sig to MP4.2+6.0's original AMI self install thread. No need to remove glovebox. Would be the same process for VNS AMI emulator install. Basically remove CD unit and filler piece in glovebox with keys provided with kit, insert CAN bus and Most splitters on to electrical and optilcal connections, and put everything back.

Oh yeah, you'll need Ross Tech Vag-com/VCDS to tell the controller module you have media player 2 but it worked for me without doing that (but gives error visible in VCDS till you code it and who knows if it causes other problems).

ModestW12

In case it's not clear after your research, you need AMI in order to use the Audi Bluetooth music dongle as it plugs into the AMI via an AMI USB cable (comes with the bluetooth kit).

You sacrifice a bit of quality for convenience with the bluetooth kit but if you have a smartphone with a data plan you also get the ability to stream form Pandora and other streaming services.

The ideal quality way to listen to music is a dedicated iPod encoded in Apple lossless connected to AMI.

Brent Brouse also confirmed to me that you can get rid of the CD changer and do 2 AMI's, one for iPod and one for bluetooth dongle for when you want to stream off the net.

Edd W

That is bad and of course good news in one - thanks.

I will look out for the AMI unit ob its own, although most on Ebay seem to be the complete kit.

Thanks for the help.