After suffering from a 10 disc autochanger that skipped incessantly I decided to embrace the "digital revolution" and rip my entire CD colection (1500 CDs) so I could easily access them in the car.

But what DAP player? Well, I didn't want to go the FM route, but instead wanted a line-in solution which allowed the head unit to display ID tags and have control of the player.

After an abortive attempt with the Kenwood Music Keg I chose the ONLY DAP player I could find which had available for it such a connection option - the iPod. I chose the iPod Video 30Gb and bought the Kenwood IP500 connector.

I'm extremely pleased with the results:

Pro's
- sound quality is better than expected, nearly on a par with my CD autochanger but without the skips!
- ID3 tags show on the display
- it is indeed controllable from the head unit
- the iPod charges while plugged in

Con's
- my head unit doesn't allow navigation via ID tags, only via playlist (it treats a playlist like it did a CD) hence navigation through hundreds of playlists can be a bind!
- head unit only displays the playlist name and the track name - no artist or album name. Hence I name the playlists "Artist / Album"

Before anyone says "you should have got a Sony / Creative / iRiver / blah blah" I must stress the iPod was the ONLY player what I could find with this sort of connectivity option to my head unit. Also I don't give a toss about what the DAP looks like, or the screen etc - I'm basically using is as a hard drive.

Anyway, that's my experience so far. My only other comment is that the ICE industry in general seem to be extremely slow catching onto the potential here. It was not an easy task to find what I needed. Hopefully someday they'll release something you can simply slot the iPod straight into the head unit was if is were a cassette!

I have an iPod in my car but have an Alpine headunit and adaptor.

This allows searching by playlist, artist, album, filename etc etc. I tend to make playlists anyways because I don't want to be driving along trying to decide what to listen to

I would love to see that.

I haven't had too much luck hooking my iPod up to my car stereo. I use the line in connection on my stereo and the iPod's dock line-out. So far the quality playing from my iPod is almost equal to playing a mp3 CD directly from my deck. However, the mp3 CD still retains the quality. For some reason, I find that bass is the main issue with my setup. Then again, I have a Sony deck and they were pushing the ATRAC3 and ATRAC3+ formats and the mp3 format (as a last resort) with the sale of my deck (ie they were advertised features).

But still, nice to know that someone has had luck.

Hi. Yes, I wish mine did that. The Kenwood head unit I have is a few years old, 2002 or 2003ish I think. Newer units I'm sure offer this. To be honest I was just pleased it "sorta" worked!

I use an Alpine 9835 and my wife has a 9833 and use a KCA420i to connect our 60GB ipods (one for each car). We use EAC and LAME 3.96.1 APX (with Wavgain). No major issues so far.

However Ipod does not allow nested playlists and we have 300 Artists, 650 Albums and 8000+ songs to navigate!

The Alpine takes complete control over the ipod and wont let you use the Ipod's flaywheel to faster navigate.

It is a pain. One cumbersome workaround is to pre-cue the Artist on the Ipod and then connect the Ipod to the HU. This is fine if we want to listen to one artist but if we want to skip from one artist to another the Alpine's controls are too slow to work. I am told that later generation Alpines (9856, 9857) are afster (but they dont have Time Alignment).

Dont get me wrong. Most car HUs have simialr issues. Alpine is not alone.

I guess only later generation HUs will be more fully compatible to the ipod. By then we will have 200GB 7th Generation ipods and will be using FLAC or WavPack encoded music instead! :-) such is life for us earlier adopters. :-)

I'm stuck using a FM Modulator until I can afford the $190 kit for my factory cd player

I chose the Kensington Charger/FM Transmitter...works well for a wireless modulator, but the extended s's are starting to annoy me....makes everyone sound like they have a lisp.

FM modulator here as well, the one from iRiver specifically. The wife and I each own a Rio Karma at the moment and have gotten spoiled by being able to have our entire music collection with us wherever we go. FM doesn't work all that great as there is a lot of interference generated by the car itself, and power lines of course. I've been considering moving to a couple of 60GB iPod Video's instead because it is so well supported with accessories, but mainly because were out of space on our Karma's and I don't want to go any lower on the Vorbis bitrate, nor start picking and choosing what songs go and which stays behind. Ideally I would like to get a head unit for the car specifically made to work with the iPod directly, but have no clue as to which one I should pick. Hence my interest in this thread and why I'm posting. Is there one that is considered the absolute best right now, or are they currently all hacks pretty much? From the sounds of it, head units have a ways to go yet. I've always been interested by the Neuros DAP as an alternative, and have been waiting to see what they release. Their past one, which they no longer make but still sell, has an FM transmitter built in which I've read performs quite well, plus it has the open source angle, but I would prefer a direct connection between DAP and HU if possible, not only for better sound but so the DAP can charge too. Of course, if it wasn't for Rockbox, I don't think I would be considering an iPod at all so there is that too to consider. I have a feeling that waiting may be the only good option right now.

You can always try to mod a line-in into your stereo, I've seen some people do it. How, I don't know personally.

One of the reasons I got my i-Pod Mini was for use in my truck. Right now, I'm just using a cassette adaptor (which I think works better than an FM transmitter) and Belkin's pre-amp thingy, but I want to get an Alpine CDA-9856 (and the data cable). Even with using the wonky cassette adaptor, the sound quality is very acceptable.

Eventually, I'd like to upgrade to a Nano for everywhere-else usage, and keep the Mini solely for the truck.


Speaking of Belkin, have you seen this?