My 4-year old Sony head unit that came with the car finally decided to die on me, specifically the radio. Not that I listen to radio much (though my mother does when she drives my car) but it was the way I got my iPod to play in the car's sound system.
Since it would be a travesty to deny Mom her Gold 90.5FM and since I was sick of buying FM transmitter after FM transmitter in search of better sound, I decided to do it right once and for all.
I have tried the Griffin iTrip , the Belkin Tunecast II, the Xtreme Mac Airplay and they all kinda worked, but the sound never satisfied, and driving into the city with all the competing radio stations meant a lot of interference.
I also wanted to keep my 10-disc changer, which was working fine, so the new setup had to allow me to switch between the changer and the iPod.
At first, the car audio guy recommended a S$469 Sony CDX-F7710S head unit, which had Aux-in Lite as well as the Unilink connector (their proprietary control bus technology) to hook up the disc changer.
But as they were about to hook up the new head unit, they read the manual and realised that you could either use the Unilink connector for a disc-changer or the Aux-in Lite for another external device, but not both at the same time. Installing one would deactivate the other.
Damn you, Sony!
In the end, we chose a cheaper Sony CDX-R3410S head unit (which also had the 7710's ability to play MP3 or ATRAC discs) and hooked it up to a Sony XA-300 Auxiliary Input Adapter. This small box can support up to 4 audio sources, and can be controlled by the head unit. With this S$180 device, you can hook up the disc-changer, plus two other devices via the 2 Stereo RCA Aux inputs, and even a laptop via the USB 16-bit Stereo input. All of which can be accessed via the head-unit.
The car audio guys ran a Rockford RCA cable from the Aux 1 of the XA-300 and used an RCA-to-stereo-minijack adaptor so that I could plug that into the iPod's headphone jack.
I still have to view and select the songs via the iPod, but I don't do that often, so it is ok. I have it mounted in front of me with a Dicota Keeper suction-cup car holder (love it!) so viewing the iPod screen is easy.
The sound is clean and good, but I had to push the volume of the iPod to max. The next thing I will probably get is an adaptor that lets me connect the cable to the iPod's line-out circuitry, for better sound (like a PocketDock, a Belkin Auto Kit, or a Monster iCharger).
My front speakers were also blown, so they put in a pair of 2-way JBLs.
I am quite pleased with the setup, though I would have gone for other brands like Alpine, who have their own iPod adaptor, if I didn't have to hang on to the Sony disc-changer.
Never mind, later got money can try the Harmon Kardon Drive+Play (review here).
Or if really got money, get an iPod-ready BMW.
Yeah right.