I've been contemplating putting my MP3 head unit into my '97 Cobra for quite a while now. It's Mach 460 equipped. I know that I'll have to replace
*everything* to make it sound better, but for now, I just want the features of the MP3 player.
I was under the impression that there was some magic box that I'd have to buy/make to make this happen. Indeed, when I went to the stereo shop, they did pull out a $50 magic box. I paid for it and was on my way out the door when I realized that there were no pre-amp inputs.
When I asked the guy, he said to hook the speaker outputs of the new unit up to the magic box. My head unit doesn't have any speaker outputs though. He thinks for a moment, and then says that there's something that may work.
He called Metra to make sure, but there exists a very cheap (I paid $16 after tax) cable that allows you to use an aftermarket stereo with your Mach
460. I wasn't aware of this, and it seemed like all of the stories I found here were that it wasn't possible or that it was expensive. You do need both front + rear outputs (or a splitter), but it worked like a charm - just like a normal stereo swap used to.
It doesn't get any louder or sound any better, but I have my 1800+ songs at my disposal, and it looks good sitting in the dash. Total install time was about 15 minutes.
JS