SWMBO has managed to break her ankle, which has put paid to our upcoming trip to New Zealand [1]. Anyway, as she isn't driving her car for the forseeable, I have been tootling about in it, and have discovered a nice little list of thing which need sorting out [2].
One of the things which needs sorting is the headunit - the one which is in at the minute is frankly senile. I've thought about getting an Ipod compatible one, but my experience of them to date is that the interface isn't great so instead I am thinking of putting a (preferably cheapy) SD card reading HU in. Does anyone have any personal experience/recommendations? Budget isn't particularly defined, but it's going in a s**te old peugeot, so nothing silly. Something which manages file access in a reasonably sane and easy-to-use-whilst-driving manner is a major bonus.
TIA
[1] Arse. [2] Front brake discs, rear shocks, front drop-link, shift exhaust to stop it rubbing on transmission tunnel round left-handers...
Interesting...The unit to be replaced is a clarion - I wonder if the steering column stalk from that would be compatible? probably not, but ta for the suggestion!
See if you local lidl has any of the Silvercrest bluetooth ones left in. Sub =A3100, sounds a bit cheap (not as good as the factory radios in the=20 Octavia, and the two Toyotas I had), but does aux in, usb, SD, CD/CDRW=20 MP3 and WMA/AM/FM/RDS, and it is ISO cable and has a sub out. They also=20 did a non Bluetooth for even cheaper but no idea of the sound on them.=20 The bluetooth works really well and comes through the speakers louder=20 and clearer than FM does.
The model I have is a KH 2375. Looks like it is a special model for LIDL=20 as I can't find much info anywhere. Comes in Silver and black, I luckily=20 got a black one and it blends in quite nicely.
--=20 Carl Robson Get cashback on your purchases Topcashback
Why not get one that has a decent AUX-in which you can drive from whatever player you prefer? IME most MP3 H/Us are very restrictive in the formats they accept so you may end up re-encoding a lot of your music.
My iPod video with a Sendstation Pocketdock sounds seriously good via AUX-in, both in the cars and on the home HiFi.
thing about maplin head units is they always feel and look real cheap and most over hang the dash by half a foot! ok maybe exagerating a bit... i'd like a head unit with a rear USB port cos i'd run an extension cable into the glove box and use my memory stick, think sony or alpine made one like that not sure but think it was about 200 notes.
personally i don't like paying more than 100 squid for my radios after some pikey bastard nicked one out of my BM a few years back :(
You all need less pikey cars ;-) I have the Renault item in my glovebox. Ok, it's actually an option and allegedly it's... well it's quite an expensive option for what it does... Basically, it plugs into the CD changer socket on the the back of the stereo, then feeds into the glovebox. It's a small box with an iPod plug, a 3.5mm Aux in jack and a simple USB port. Then if you plug a USB pen in, it can see old the folders, you can browse folders, then tracks at will. If you plug an iPod in the functionality suffers and it sees it identically to a CD changer, each CD been one of your playlists. I'm not sure if it's something I've done wrong or if it's a bit if Apple been helpful, but I can just play the first 6 playlists on my iPod (just a normal classic 80gb - but it also works with iPhone[*]) just like 6 CDs in a changer, skipping between CDs and then tracks. Finally, it has the Aux in - basically it works like volume adjustable headphones heh - and as on any car with a simple Aux in port, you set the music playing on the MP3 player and then you have to control tracks on the player directly, the only thing you have any control over is the volume.
Or if you don't wanna pay for the extra iPod bit, the upgrade MP3 stereo (standard in the R27 or £125 - and actually, it might be necessary if you want the Tunepoint - any of the stereos which can have a changer can have them) plays anything you like, again browsing by folder then track - also picks up the track name from file names or any messed up combination of tags heh. I have the names turned off 99% of the time anyway though.
[*] Anyone want to buy an iPhone? It's in really good nick, few small scratches on the back - but TADTS :-) Works perfectly, is on 1.1.4 jailbroken and works on any network, except 3. If you want it on 2.0 you can do that and Jailbreak it now as well. I've been using it for a few weeks cos I thought they looked cool - but it really isn't me, far too involved heh! I've gone back to my nice, simple little Nokia 6300. Or if anyone wants to swap it for something like a Nokia 8600 Luna/6220/6500 Classic, I'd be up for that :-)
How much do you want for the iPhone Dan? My missus wants one, but doesn't want to pay the huge price on 02. I've got an unlocked N95 8GB BNIB that she doesn't like, so that's going on the bay later. She's on 02. Wants to give her Samsung to her mum when we go on holiday in a couple of weeks.
Well, it's an 8gb 2G one, I paid £220 for it, and it was 1 month old then, so it's about 2 months old now heh :-) It's fully boxed with all the bits of course, the earphones have never been used - they're the same ones that come with the iPod and are a bit shitty. It even has the iPhone hard sided bag that came with them from the shop :-) (which is obviously not really worth anything heh, but would make a nice way of handing it over)
They appear to still go for 200-240 on eBay so, if you're still interested, make me an offer less than that, and save me the time/hassle of using eBay hehe :-) Or before that actually, drop me an email to my posting name, but without the B, at danontherun dot com - and I'll furnish you with some pics, which I'll take in a sec to show the little scratching on the back, it's minimal, but in the interests of honesty! And the front/screen is totally unmarked :-)
Doki, if you're reading this, I totally forgot to mail you about that headunit - so have just done so now!
says the guy with a renault, sorry but the renault could have the best stereo in the world and i'd still have to think long and hard. i used to have an adapter i got for my old ipod which treated it like a cd changer, cost 100quid and that was err 3-4 years ago? but you could skip through albums ect and was quite good in the way it worked plus you could download updates for it which stored as tracks on the ipod but was actually data to update the gadget thingy.
sadly sold it on ebay ages ago and forget who made it, think it was german but all i can remember decided to sell it as i kept forgeting my ipod as i didn't like leaving it in the car!
now i just burn MP3's to cheapo CDR's and change them when i can be arsed.
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