Pelican Pete

Reading lots of Crutchfield user reviews, spoke with a Crutchfield rep, and also exchanged several emails with Avincar.

It seems that iPod controls on aftermarket radios are no better than the ones available for our stock radios -- and judging from the reviews, some might be even worse.

The Crutchfield rep said Alpine has the best iPod integration, followed closely by Kenwood. Their user reviews seem to support this. He also said that Pioneer had the worst iPod interface. But Pioneer has a 2nd generation model out, and the user reviews are mixed on it. The guy at EnfigCarStereo (where I bought my DICE) recommended either the Pioneer 6800 or 7800. But I don't know if they will change colors to match the Audi illumination.

While I really like the appearance of the Blau stereos, the user reviews for Blau's iPod interface were consistently negative.

Maybe I should just exchange my DICE for a working unit and stick with the factory stereo.
I am beginning to regret sellng my CD changer.

I also searched for pictures of aftermarket radios installed in the B5 dashboard, but I could not find too many. Is there an archived post with a compilation of pictures?

THanks!
-- Peter

dkelly

i use one with an alpine 9857 works great very fast blue lighting though

HIS4

But I don't have any problems using it. the problem with the first gen Pioneer was that none of the head units were built to accept the Ipod data at the time. So the only thing that was displayed on the screen was the first 8 letter of the song title. The newer model should be a lot better but I'm not sure how the search features work. The first gen would only work with playlists.

A lot of the complaints about the usability of these units has to do with how you arrange your library. If you just throw all your files into the library and expect to search through 20G of files from a HU, it's not going to be easy no matter what interface you're using. Arrange your Ipod into playlists and it makes it much easier to navigate. I have come to the point where I don't even need to look at the head unit to find something because I have memorized what's in each playlist and how many times to press the button to get there. That would be really hard to do if I had 500 songs all in one location.

Pelican Pete

I haven't been able to demo any of the products we are talking about. So all of my data is hearsay -- information from Avincar, Enfig, Crutchfield, and Crutchfield's user reviews.

The CF user reviews of Clarion's iPod interface were comparable to Pioneer's: a mix of good & bad. But a much smaller sample group.

The Crutchfield salesmen seem to like the Kenwood Excelon units. But they, too, have lukewarm reviews from users.

At this rate, I'll probably keep my Concert stereo (i.e. get a new working one) and DICE unit.


Thanks,
P.

SouthboroAudiGuy

You CAN get this to work and it sounds like you want an OEM look. Nothing will suffice in this latter regeard if you pull the OEM HU.

HIS4

Works similar to the Pioneer where it only uses playlists. The good thing about the Clarion is that is will at least display all the information like track titles, artists, etc. It will not do genre, artist or any other searches of the Ipod. In fact, the playback is even more limited because you can only have 6 playlists max. It treats it like a CD changer so its like 1 playlist = 1 CD in the changer. I'm not sure if the newer head units have more capabilities but she doesn't complain and is very happy with it. She is not very electronically inclined but she can organize her Ipod and use the interface with no problems so I guess it can't be that bad.

HIS4

The Clarion gets power through the C-net connector similar to a CD changer. The Pioneer requires a separate +12V and ground connection. A little bit more of a pain to install especially if the area behind your HU is already crowded.

McLoffs

I have the 9857 in a non-Audi and am really happy with it. If it looked right in the Audi I'd get one for it, too.

ek mike

2nd. 9857 with the high-speed cable is the ish