Mike5215

Rather than constantly posting about audio issues, I've created a blog at http://w221audio.wordpress.com/

The link is also in my sig.

Tito TW

Nice Stuff!

anton28

Love it!

NYC_CLS

Nice write up!!

mnje350

Mike,

Now that Radio Shack is no longer in the picture as easy source for the cables and power adapters needed in your application, I was wondering the following:

I have a '11 W221 with the 30 pin I pod connection and the 3.5mm aux cable in the glove box. If I left the Ipod plugged into the 30 pin interface and connected the EQ inbetween the Ipod and the Aux In as you have defined, will the ipod continue to charge via the cable? I would simply select Aux Input for the audio source to Command. I don't know if that kills the power to the Ipod or not. If not, that would free up the 12 v power source in the glove box to provide power to the EQ. I have read nothing but horror stories about the multi-output 12 v adapters available on the internet. The last thing I want to do is start a fire in my glove box because all this stuff is poorly manufactured in China with no quality control. I figured I would cut the cord on one of my old 12 v power adapters from a no longer used GPS or radio or something. Generally, those 12 v power plugs and cords are fairly well made and they are shieled with a built in filters. Thoughts?

Garticus

I plan to Dynamat my front doors soon

Mike5215

Hmmm. Never heard of a fire related to a 12v multi port adapter. They're not dealing with a lot of voltage or amperage. A short can cause a fire I guess but they're usually fused, and the 12v receptacle in the car is fused. I've been using them in one form or another for decades. I've dissected a few and they're all pretty simple. Maybe the cord itself is shielded but honestly I never paid much attention.

I'm guessing the ones in Radio Shack came from Asia as well. Amazon sells everything in the write up and I posted a link to a pre-made shopping list with part #'s.

You can always use a fuse tap and pull power for the EQ right from the fuse panel on the right end of the dashboard if you'd prefer.

If the Ipod is connected to the car's Media Interface, it will override the aux in jack, and aux in will be grayed out. If you don't want to use the power supply in the glovebox and don't mind the exposed cable, run a charging/sync cable to a USB charger in the center console in front of the cupholders or on the back of the center console back to your Ipod.

With this mod the Ipod needs to be mounted in the cabin somewhere so you can access it to change tracks, etc. You should be able to hide your power cable fairly easily.

mnje350

Thanks for the additional tips Mike,

I am sure that the stuff from RS is also Asian built and I as well have never had any trouble with things that I have bought there. I guess the differrence is that I can see what I am buying at RS and that simply is not available anymore. I have evverything but the power adapters and am anxious to make the install.

Mike5215

Get 'er done! Did your Radio Shack close up? Mine's still open while the bankruptcy/Sprint buy out happens.

mnje350

Can't find one that is still open. But. . . we did have quite a few within a short distance from each other. I'm gonna miss that place. They had all of the stuff you need for this sorta project.

Tried to buy the Y RCA to Mini adapter from Amazon and got an Mid April ship date. Crazy. Fortunately after digging around in my odd collection of cables etc. I found that I had a couple of these from other applications.

mnje350

I"m thinking that this install will work equally well in both the E and the S. they both have the same HK audio with the logic 7 with the same limitation.

Mike5215

Yeah, I couldn't test it in an E but if the E suffers from the same shortfalls the EQ will help a great deal. For me the EQ mod was an experiment to see how good the stock speakers were with the factory EQ defeated. That lead me to determine that most of the speakers were decent, the factory amp was clean and had sufficient power, and the main issues were the 4" front door speakers.

The upside of the speaker replacement is that all sources improve, which is nice because there are a lot of sources to play with in the car. I just loaded a bunch of lossless jazz and classical tracks to the music register (hard drive) and they sound terrific.