Welcome to my iPod page. When I purchased my iPod, I did so intending to displace the 301 CD Changer in my home theater system as well as the factory CD changer in my BMW. My wife got hold of my iPod and then I was on the hook to get her one too, thus complicating my plans (but that's okay). I'm a former auto mechanic turned engineer who still has his tools and likes to tinker now and then ("geek" for short). This page is the result.
These are the requirements I set for this project:
- Must be hard wired (no FM modulators and no cassette adapters)
- Must mount and dismount easily
- No cigarette lighter adapters or unsightly wires hanging around
- Must charge the iPod while connected
- Must have a single connector
- Must use the line out (should not go through the volume/headphone circuit)
- Must have a clean and as close to factory look as possible
- Two different iPods (40gb and 15gb) must be mountable in all three of our cars
The iPods displaced a Pioneer Elite CD changer and the OEM CD changer in my BMW, which is made by Alpine. Needless to say, these were quality units. The price I got on eBay for the changers paid for my iPod and the mounting hardware that I purchased so this worked out well for me in that respect. My wife and I did some initial sound quality comparisons between various pieces of music ripped to the iPod and the original CD in both of the changers. I'm an audiophile and my wife is not but she does appreciate improvements that she can hear. I rip most of my CDs to MP3 at a bit rate of 192. I do, however, have a significant number of audiophile quality jazz and classical recordings (plus various other rock CDs that were digitally remastered etc.). I rip these CDs at 320. Anyway, the sound quality difference between original CD and the same track on the iPod is indeed noticeable to me (not so much to my wife) but not enough to worry about. If the sound quality of the CD was rated as a "10" then the iPod would be a solid "9." Hard core esoteric audio types with turntables and tube amps costing as much as a used car might rate the sound quality at about a "7" or so. This is more than adequate, especially when you consider that every single CD that we own between us is contained on the 40GB iPod and can go anywhere we go. Anytime I have a desire to do critical listening, I can just grab the original CD and pop it into my $2,400 DVD player (Pioneer Elite DV-09) which is connected to a very high end home theater system. I haven't needed to do this yet as the sound quality is adequate for my golden ears.
What I ended up doing was creating my own custom cable using over the counter parts. The mounting brackets I used were also over the counter.
What is interesting about the three cars I have to work with is that a different wiring method is used in each case. I think this probably covers all options that others will run into as well so at the very least they would serve as good references. They are:
- The Subaru Forester has an aftermarket Alpine stereo with auxiliary inputs. My custom cable can be plugged directly into the head unit via RCA jacks.
- The BMW 330i has a factory CD option. There are companies that offer interfaces that you can plug your factory harness into and turn the CD changer circuit into an auxiliary input.
- The most complicated will be the Mazda Miata. In this case, the head unit is a CD player with a cassette deck below it. The cassette deck will be removed and then I will wire in the iPod in place of the cassette deck. I will also have to wire in a switch that will be used to tell the CD/Head unit that I want to use the iPod (this normally just happens automatically when you pop a cassette in).
I opted not to use a line level amplifier as I felt that the signal from the iPod was adequate. This may not be true for older or future iPods and it may depend on what you're plugging it into. I actually did go through the motions of purchasing and then temporarily connecting an AudioControl OVERDRIVE in the BMW. Though it did bring up the signal level, I could only increase it slightly before it would drive either the CD changer interface or the head unit (not sure which) into distortion. It was overkill. When connected and properly adjusted, I was able to attain full head unit volume for the iPod at about 3/4 of a turn of the volume knob. Without the OVERDRIVE connected, it takes one full turn. Not enough to worry about in my opinion. Since the Subaru has an Alpine head unit, I called Alpine to find out what the maximum line level voltage the head unit would take. They said no more than .8 volts for that particular head unit so the OVERDRIVE was definitely out of the question there. You will not likely need a line level amplifier but if you do, the AudioControl is an excellent choice. By the way, this is also the same function that the tiny circuit board inside of the Belkin adapter performs (just not nearly as well).
Here is what my iPod looks like connected to my home theater system. It is connected via an Audioquest G-Snake cable (That's a Lexicon MC-1 preamp/processor in the picture).
My brother who works at an Apple store gave me this shirt. Apparently it is only available to Apple employees. I guess this page qualifies me for a shirt. :-)
This page was last updated on October 24, 2004 01:00 AM
