CLK_Ivan

Just bought my wife an Ipod and would love to find an easy way to connect it to the car stereo. In her car it was easy as there are phono jacks in the back to connect an XBOX/PS2 etc.

Anyone know if the CD changer has phono jacks I could piggyback another input?

Any ideas?

scorchie

Do you have COMAND? If so, there is an aux input in the glove box.

If you don't have COMAND, get COMAND with the aux input, and then there will be an aux input in the glove box.

Plug the iPod into the aux input.

In both my G500 and my CLK55, I run the aux input actually under the center console, and plug the iPod in there so it can sit in a cup holder. I am currently changing the way it work on the CLK55 and the C43 so that the input will be in a cubbyhole where the iPod will sit. I was also sharing the aux input with the video systems on the G500 (and planned on C43), but with the addition of the TV tuner, the video now has its own inputs, and the iPod gets free use of the aux input.

-s-

Brad D.

I connected my Rio yesterday to the COMAND input in the glove box and it kicks much ***, although I want an IPOD.

whiteyford

check and see if there's a tape adapter for it. Who knows that might work and it would only cost about 10 bucks. Since mp3's sound quality is poor anyways it should work fine. If there isn't a tape adapter specifically for it you can use one for a Disc man and change the jack to fit the i pod

Josh K

I'm not sure what kind of encoder you use, but I encode all of my CD's at 192kbps or use AAC MP4 format which is pretty indistinguishable from CD quality. While the quality can be poor if you're downloading music and don't download at least 192kbps, I would assume that most people with extensive music collections such as myself encode at higher bit rates, or higher quality formats. :0)

CLK_Ivan

Since I don't have Command it sounds like I'm SOL.

I did see a few custom jobs over in the c class forum where they hardwired in an aux input to the deck itself and placed the input in the cubby beneath the stereo.

Too much work for me....

whiteyford

"I encode all of my CD's at 192kbps or use AAC MP4 format which is pretty indistinguishable from CD quality"

The fact that you download at 192 kbps is irrelevant when it comes down to mp3 technology. Music frequencies range from 20 kHz to 20000 kHz. Mp3 are compressed to allow the files to remain small enough. To do this a large portion of the frequencies that are used in the original recording are removed to make the mp3 work in its format. 192kbps will help the overall sound of the mp3, but it is still a compressed file with limited frequencies.

Josh K

While compression does tend to cause some loss in quality, the bitrate you encode at is quite relevant to the sound of the mp3, as well as the frequency range present in the file.

Just as a JPEG can look crappy with low quality encoding (loss of detail, poor color representation), and indistinguishable from the original file with high quality encoding (the tradeoff being file size), the same is true with mp3's.

As I'm sure you know (you sound pretty knowledgeable on the subject as well) the bitrate determines how much information will be lost in compression. Whille a 128kbps file will be pretty accurate up to about 16KHz and will essentially lose all frequency response above 18-19KHz (noticeably lesser quality) a 192kbps mp3 or comparable mp4 will have accurate response up to about 19KHz and its frequency response will fall off at about 21KHz which is essentially inaudible to the human ear.

Considering that most cassette decks have a frequency response between 30 and 15,000 Hz, using a cassette adaptor would produce sound that was audibly of less quality than an mp3 encoded at low quality, such as 128kbps, especially when you factor in distortion that is present in cassette tapes that DNR attemps to fix by filtering out yet more high spectrum frequencies.

Although sounds can range from anywhere between 5 and 50,000 Hz, as you know we can only really hear sounds between 20 and 20,000 Hz (Assuming we have impeccable hearing). Furthermore, not all songs contain sounds at either or both of the frequency thresholds. If a compression algorithm is accurate to within 1,000Hz or so of my hearing threshold I don't consider that to be poor quality audio. Quite the contrary, actually. ;0)

While I agree with you that there is no form of music compression that is "lose-less" the only point I was trying to make is that compression need not be of poor quality, and that the encoding bitrate makes all the difference. ;0)

scorchie

Actually, this is a bit over-simplistic... even too simplistic.

Raising or lowering bit-rates causes losses NOT ONLY in frequency response, but primarily in dynamic range. Since much modern music has a fairly flat dynamic range, more compression can be gained there and will lose less frequency response. The MP3 algorithms analyze the music and compress whatever will cause the least amount of audible loss.

"Frequency response" is just a specification given that the reproduction is flat within a certain range over a certain set of frequencies. Although a specification for a cassette deck may report a "frequency response" of 30-15KHz +-3dB, the deck is likely to still reproduce frequencies up to or beyond 20KHz, just at lower amplitude.

Finally, there CERTAINLY IS "loss-less" audio compression. My early early early version of SoundTools (pre-ProTools) by Digidesign has a 2:1 and 4:1 lossless compression. The choice of compression was offered because the CPUs of the time (50MHz Motorola) expended significant cycles performing the compression.

Just clarifying some points as I undertand them.

-s-

Josh K

Wow, Scorchie steppin' up as a true audiophile! ;0) I wasn't trying to oversimplify it, I was simply trying to put it in a way that would be easy for knowledgeable people such as whiteyford and yourself to understand, while not leaving out everyone else without as detailed a knowledge. You are absolutely right in your post, however.

On the subject of Digidesign, I'm a singer/songwriter so I use a lot of audio software and I absolutely HATE their company. It's the industry standard, however, so until they finally make their Digi 002 compatible with their own ProTools 6 software they've pretty much assed me out. I can't understand why it takes them so long to make their own stuff compatible with eachother. Oh well, that's off topic, but I felt like I had to rant LOL

whiteyford

Bottom line is that all of our points are valid. Mp3's are not a bad choice but they will never truly be CD quality. But thats allright because where else can you play 130 songs on one CD. When I'm cruising around I always use mp3's but when I want to really listen to my system I play a real CD.

Another posssibility is a Fm mod. You would be able to get an aux input that way, just the same as hooking up a CD player through the fm on your radio. Of coure you would only get fm quality but it would be better then nothing.

err0neous

http://www.cyclesoft.com/Audiophile.html

whiteyford

A typical response from someone who doesn't have a clue. Either that or they don't have the ear or the money to buy decent audio equipment. They enjoy there nice electrohome stereo" What's wrong with the way it sounds it's loud and clear" If I hear THAT ONE MORE TIME I MAY SNAP!!! To each his own just remember that. I don't care what stereo people listen to but the same respect should be returned. I am an Audiophile and I do crank Led Zep.

err0neous

Calm down, I was just poking a little fun. I do care how my music sounds, and I do have nice home stereo equipment. I just thought that link was funny and somewhat pertinent.

911Jose

IVAN, and other with NON COMAND CLK's take a look at my pretty-clean installation. I took pictures and wrote up a little tutorial for you all earlier today.

http://home.paradigmx.net/jose/other/clkiriver/

I'm not an audiophile or anything, but I do enjoy high quality music and sound. As far as MP3s go, I dont notice any difference from a CD and I have a broad range of music genres I enjoy. I have high quality Klipsch speakers at home and I’ve played CDs and MP3’s WMA’s on it and I really do not notice any difference. I do encode most of my music at 192KBPS. Also on the MP3 player in my car, most of the music is in WMA and I'm able to fit about 280 songs on one CD.

LowRydeR

I have a 6 disc CD/MP3 changer and the sound quality is very good when I play MP3s, the bass hits hard.

-Bruce