Is there a Non-Ricey Reciever that has ipod connectivity?

As the title says, i was about to bid on the Nakamichi CD-400 until i read it doesn't play MP3's or have iPod integration. My next choice was the alpine ida series but it's a bit too..er...loud for me i think. Is there a simple, quality head unit that plays cd's (actually, not even a requirement) and has good ipod integration?

It's amazing how all the aftermarket headunits all look like "Tokyo by night" now. I'm also looking for a unit with ipod integration for my daughter's VW Golf Cabriolet (project rebuild at this point...don't ask). Let me know what you find.

I think the answer is no. IMHO, there's only one aftermarket brand that makes a factory-looking unit, and that's Nak. And they can't help you. I finally surrendered to Alpine, and take some comfort in a clean install, a bearable illumination colour, and the ability to turn the graphics off altogether. I actually think it doesn't look too bad, and the iPod integration is phenomenal. Good luck. If you find something, don't tell me. It's too late.

Phil, if you can do without the ipod integration, nak is the way to go. they have a model that plays mp3 cd's. if you really absolutly need ipod integration, i think the ida-x001 is as non-ricey as it'll get (at least the illumination is all the same god-damned color instead of red for some and blue for others).

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I just use my Becker with the adapter cord from them. I just don't use my CD-changer, because everything is on my Ipod anyway.

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I loved that idea, but the sound just isn't the same. MP3s are already a compromise versus CD. Add the additional compromises of a headphone jack and line-level input to the head unit, and I think the music really suffers. That's just me. YMMV and all that.

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What about one of the Pioneer AVIC units. Get the Ipod, CD and DVD, with a Nav bonus ...

too big, too expensive, too complicated. if i get nav, i'll get something portable that i can take from car to car

I use a line level output into the Becker Aux input and the sound is really good. I was initially using a headphone input into the Becker Aux input and the sound wasn't nearly as good. I am interested in a factory looking aftermarket unit with iPod integration as well as Bluetooth. I am also using the phone input on the Becker Aux input with a Motorola Bluetooth car kit which works pretty well. I have attached a picture of the Bluetooth unit. I put the cord for the iPod coming out right below the center of the Bluetooth adapter. Kris

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I'd say Alpine then.

I just bought the Alpine CDA9883 a couple weeks ago for mine. I paid about $180 from Best Buy. I also bought an Alpine amp (still waiting to install both). I did a lot of research prior to buying. For the price and the amount of features, it's pretty hard to beat. There are some good posts both here and on 6-speed that helped me with my decision.

I bought the line out cables to my factory Becker unit. All I would have to buy is the ipod adaptor cable to connect the ipod via docking jack to the stereo. Haven't had the desire though, since I use my iPod every day on the train, and by the time the weekend comes, I am sick of all 500 songs I have on the iPod! The radio is a breath of fresh air to me!

D-E, I'm facing the same problem even with the exterior styling of the units. If you are serious about IPOD or even memory stick integration then I suggest you consider the Kenwood Excelon double din (e.g. 7019/8019). At least with the unit turned off it blends in with the rest of the dash and when it's on you can put a custom wallpaper there . The IPOD interface with the touchscreen is very fast and intuitive so that it's easier to minimize distractions and just drive. The other thing is that it has 5V preop outputs which makes for a cleaner signal with better signal to noise numbers. This is what I've decided to do after pulling the stock Bose system: Double Din Kenwood Excelon (prob 8019 and refurb) Audison vrx 2.250 2 channel amp for the fronts (used) Audison lrx 4.300 4 channel amp in 3 channel mode for the rears and sub (used) Focal 21v2 8 inch sub for passenger footwell enclosure (used) 3 way speakers for dash and door (Focal or Hertz) Coax speakers for rear fill (Focal or Hertz) I've been slowly accumulating stuff either on Craigslist or eBay and have had decent luck in keeping the costs manageable. I have also heard that there are quality issues with the new Nakamichi stuff which is a shame because that's what I've lusted after for the longest time. I'd almost be willing to take a chance if only they could get out of the '90s with their IPOD integration... Good Luck! Tonger

dude why do you need something that plays MP3 CD's and IPOD connector? Pick one!!! Get a Stock HU and hook up a IPOD to it...

Omar I was in the same position, I ended up as you know changing out the entire system...Damm most system.I too wanted Ipod music and video integration and blue tooth. I went with the Kenwood double din 8019. Its has all that and more! the idod music video integration is flawless and the blue tooth is even better. it is not cheap but in the long run you might find it was worth it. The NAV in this unit is made by garmin and you can update maps via the SD slot. I love this unit and it works very well.

paul, can you set custom POI's and proximity warnings for them?

Try the Alpine IDA-x100. Its brand new and not in Best Buy stores yet but in my opinion much nicer then the first gen unit the X001. Full color screen and full USB support. You can also get a "power pack" for these sometime this month that bumps the output to 45 RMS watts and reduces the need for an amplifier. Check out this link, although you can find them on Ebay for about $300 shipped. http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Produ...0&i=500IDAX100

whats the diff between USB support and normal ipod connectivity? that alpine looks less ricey...i'll look em up on ebizzle.

the USB allows for album artwork to show up on the unit as opposed to the K-422i cable which does pretty much everything but the video functions of the ipod or iphone.

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Yup! over 6 million POI. This thing is great. A great feature on this unit is you can actually change the back ground picture as well.You can upload via a USB port.The better weather is just around the corner and the weekly meets should start up at the weather spot ,you can check it out while you there. This also allows the album artwork to show.

This probably wouldnt look so great in a 996. My car have very large 80's ***** so the large central **** of this unit seems to somewhat go with the rest of the look. You can also change the back lighting to red (amber would be nice) which looks better then the blue pictured. I love that for $120 MSRP you can add this as of yet unreleased power pack to up the wattage which them makes the need for a 4 channel amp debatable. There is also the Imprint processor which works with this head unit that is also to this date unavailable (this month probably) which is a type of audio processor that makes corrections in the audio soundstage for individual interiors and speaker placement. I havent heard it in action but from what ive read with the previous generation it makes a pretty big improvement. Check it out on Alpine.com If i were you and had the ability to mount a double DIN head unit (which i cannot) I would go for one of the Alpine touch screens. There is a NEW IVA-505 (I think its IVA, previous gen was 205) with a full 7" screen which will also accept the above mentioned power pack and imprint technology and full usb ipod integration. Thats the way i would go for your car. Keep in mind all this stuff was showcased at CES and is supposed to be available in March. I have the IDA-x100 already in my car so it is available if you look hard for it, but the other stuff may not be out for another month. And Alpine is apparently notorious for falling behind on expected release dates. (So ive heard)

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The head units with USB capability can read the music directly off of a memory stick and can import background art to the head unit as well. This way you can just leave a memory stick with your mp3 files in the car permanently since they're inexpensive storage. The music and artwork pop up on the head unit so that the Ipod/memory stick can reside permanently out of sight in the glovebox or cubby. The thing that you have to watch out for is that the access times can vary depending on how much music is on there. How you select the music is as important as the ipod vs usb/memory stick decision. FWIW I tried a version of the Alpine IDA-x100 and I thought that it took a long time to get to the artist/album/song that I wanted. It's my opinion the Alpine takes too much attention away from driving which is why I prefer the direct access double din touchscreen. I would suggest that you demo the stuff pretty extensively with your ipod and usb memory stick and see what suits you before deciding on a unit. Good luck, Tonger

what kind of access times are we talking about? with an ipod you have to have these pre-made lists anyhow so once it loads the list it should be good no? i have the 4th gen ipod i think so nothing fancy and i don't really want to move up from it. hell, i was looking for a minidisk player at one point because i used 2 love MD's. they were tiny and durable, unlike CD's.

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That's how it works in our Mini. You can control the iPod from the steering wheel, but only in terms of choosing from among five playlists and skipping around within them. For me, it was a question of wanting to control 100% of the iPod functions and the whole library from the head unit. I wanted to be able to search and choose music in the car just the way I do with the iPod, without having the iPod lying around in the cabin at the end of some umbilical cord. The Alpine gives you that, and by 'access time' they mean the time it takes for the iPod to respond to signals from the head unit... with the Alpine, it's almost instant, as if you were controlling the iPod itself. With some other connectivity solutions like this, there's a lag. The only negative thing I can say about the Alpine I have is that, if you have a huge library, it take some serious dial twiddling to scroll through even the artist list. Round and round and round...

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according to iTunes..i have 8 days worth of music...i think that qualifies as a lot

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I agree - the access time is generally longer for MP3's off the thumbdrive than for the Ipod. I tried the Kenwood 7019 which had instantaneous Ipod access which was not restricted to a playlist so you could select each individual song. I have not tried it with a memory stick but I'd ideally rather park a $30 memory stick in the glovebox rather than an Ipod that costs 10x as much. My experience with the Alpine controller was the same, lots of dial turning and display watching - which is why I like the touchscreen more b/c it just takes less time and attention. Tonger

you can't just set it to play everytrhing on the drive? and then keep hitting next, next next, as you want to change songs? also, if you make playlists, once you reach the end of the playlist, does it start the next list automatically?

Like on the Ipod you can play by artist, album, or playlist as well as the entire contents of the hard drive. I just like to be able to cue up a particular artist/album when I want to. I don't know about it auto-starting the next playlist when the previous one runs out. I personally don't use playlists much because for me the songs tend to get stale. My suggestion would be to take your Ipod and thumbdrive full of MP3's to the shop and demo some stuff. You'll get to actually lay hands on it and it'll be fun. Tonger

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that's what she said.

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To the first question, yes. To the second question, no. The playlist repeats. There might be some kind of preference you can change to not make it do that, but this seems to be the default. I agree with Tonger's comment on touch screen speed. I just didn't want to do that kind of surgery. The Alpine is really extraordinarily cheap for what it can do. And Kromer now has the software and equipment to to the MultEQ thing, which I'm having done shortly (involves microphoning the interior to create custom EQ settings for your particular car). All for a few hun. At a certain point, it got easier to ignore the difference in the look of the faceplate.

bruce...is kromer good with installs? i'll bring them all the speakers, amp and deck and just let them put it all in.

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The craftsmanship of my install was absolutely first rate. Tidy, tight, well trimmed. Even the screws that hold the speaker grilles on were unmarked. I had one of my wife's cars done there a couple of years back, same experience. The only advice I'd offer is that they did not know how to properly disable the alarm sensor for the head unit. Many guys leave this as is, since you just get a chirp and the rest of the system works fine. But, in my case, I got an alarm fault out of it, which set the alarm off without cause the night after, over and over. It didn't get resolved until I took it into my mechanic to properly terminate the lead and clear the code. But, being a good Porsche citizen, I sent them a picture and a how-to for future reference. Good luck with it!

It's funny how you guys want it to look totally factory when the 996 factory interior sucks ****. I was able to finally tinker around with my Alpine HU and the all-red is totally acceptable to at least make it more uniform with that tired amber. You'd be remiss to not go with these headunits for the iPod integration just because you want the stock look which I'm assuming your interior is pretty spartan like the 98% of the interiors I see here. Thx to BruceP for the motivation to mess with the headunit.

yep..pretty sparse..i even put he gt3 console delete thing to get rid of that lower center console thingy. i'm going thru a minimalist phase right now.

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have i ever seen a pic of your car, de? like did u ever post in a thread of mine?

nopers...i don't really have any good pics of my interior....i'll make a thread with new pics when the car gets out of the shop later on this month.

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It's because we want it to CONSISTENTLY suck ****. For the **** retentives among us, it would just be too weird to have this little island of contemporary design in the middle of a sea of "Oh, you want a dashboard? Sigh. Okay...". Glad your enjoying your setup.

LOL! oddly enough, though i don't care for the interior material of the 996 unless you do it up with leather, carbon, painted.... i like the design of it more so than wannabe 993 interior of the 997.

when r u wrappin ur dash ben? black alcantara would be pretty sik....very ferrari challenge-esque

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the c4s cars come with full leather standard... and the headliner on my car is alcantara... where i'd want the f-car esque suede leather look interior is that ugly carpet on the bottom parts of the doors but again that's just more money to dump when i've already spent $18Gs cash upgrading this car already in a year. i'm done.... well i do want techart side and rear skirts but that's like another $4Gs.... yea then i'll stop....... hmmmm ..... good thing i ain't married.

u guys don't get snow and rain in the pac north? the lower door carpets can get some splashback and other random stuff on them thru the course of daily driving. might not be worth it to have it rewrapped.

i don't take it out in the rain/snow or try not to