Hi,
I am currently looking into buying an acura. I am debating between the TSX and the TL. Personally I like the look in the TL but I admire the comfort in the TSX such as the Bluetooth handsfree system and it is DVD sound system. Does anyone have any ideas if the Bluetooth hands free system will be made available into the upcoming releases of the TSX?

Thanx

 

Don't hold your breath about Bluetooth - it is a dying format in the PC market because of its limited bandwidth.

As for DVD Audio, I have yet to hear such a system. I have seen a few DVD Audio titles in some stores although they are no where near as plentiful as their CD counterpart. The format has yet to be fully accepted I assume.

Thats my

 

I still prefer SACD over DVD-A but who knows what will come out on top. 12 months ago I was convinced that SACD would win because of the number of big names and labels supporting it. Today I think DVD-A has the edge because of the name. General consumer is going to thing DVD is better than something with "CD" in it's title.

As for Bluetooth, it's too early to speculate for the 2006 model but I can't see it happening. There needs to be some toys that are only available on the TL to make it different.

 

Get the TSX. There are aftermarket bluetooth car kits that you can install yourself. As far as the DVD audio, well you can really tell the difference between the two. TSX, cheaper than TL better handling, smaller in comparison. Much more fun to drive. My

 

I agree with you I tried both the TSX and the TL and I must admit that the TSX is much more fun to drive, and is especially much more dynamic. I am still looking into adding a bluetooth car kits, would happen to know any places where I can get this installed??

 

I think bluetooth will be around for a while. Apple now has BT 2.0 in their laptops and with its backward compatability it will do what USB 2.0 did for USB.

That being said, I too would look for an aftermarket kit (Nokia or Sony make a good product).

 

Never base a long term purchase (car) on the availability of short life time electronics. If you like the car just buy it and if you really want to you can add most of the features of higher end cars with aftermarket stuff.

 

I'm trying to add parrot CK3000 to my TSX. I'm trying to install them myself. Otherwise the installation cost would be $200. Its been 2 weeks since I first start the installation and counting. The reason it takes that long is because I'm waiting for wire harness parts to come in. I don't want to cut the factory wires and void the warranty. The bluwtooth device it self cost me $120 shipped. Wire harnesses cost me around $70 (special order). The headache and the waiting for finished installation priceless. Once i'm finished, I will post them here.

 

I'd love to see the result. I am in the process of designing a setup with a Nokia CW-7, just checking out my options.

 

Motorola has a new handsfree BT kit coming out with a nice controller button with LEDs. Check it out on their website.

 

I have aftermarket bluetooth. I have one of the older Nokia bluetooth carsets. I think there might be new ones out that are better and even more advanced.

I'm very happy with mine though. I just leave my phone in my pocket when I get it my car. Once I turn the ignition on the phone connects directly to my TSX. I have the mute wire hooked up to my aftermarket deck so it mutes whenever I get a call. I also can voice dial too.

You can also mute teh OEM deck too, but it's more complicated. Let me know if you guys want info for this.

The only thing I don't like about my bluetooth kit is there is no external display, so you don't know who's calling unless you look at the phone. I got around this though, by assigning different ringtones for my friends. The Parrot model that Foolioness bought does have external display though, so you can get one of those too.

If you want pics of the kit, just click on my sig.

Hope this helps guys.

 

I also considered the TL and TSX. And I really do value the extra technology that the TL provides. I happen to have a DVD-Audio collection, and am a big believer in Bluetooth technology in the car saving lives.

However, after shopping for over a year, I ended up with the TSX, not the TL.

Why?

- TSX has a Euro-taughtness that feels solid, balanced, and proportionally sporty

- TL felt too much like a family sedan when driving it normally

- TL 6MT had too much scary torque steer-related issues

- TL doesn't have fold-down seats

- TSX has larger trunk and fold-down seats

- TSX is priced in the mid-20s

- DVD-Audios cannot be copied, so I could either listen to my DVD-Audios in the car or in the home, unless I buy my DVD-Audio discs twice, and that ain't happening.

- The TL's audio system sounds weird with anything but DVD-Audios. I think the radio sounds better on the TSX than the TL.

- Built-in BT is great, but you're limited to the limitations of the built-in unit. For instance, it does not sync with your phone's phonebook. Whereas, you can buy a 3rd party bluetooth car kit that will sync.

--> BT is not dead. Many techies think it is for various reasons, but the reality is BT in the car and for wireless headsets are a growing market.

Don't get me wrong, the TL is really a great car. I love the interior design (more than TSX), but the exterior doesn't seem as sophisticated as the TSX (even though it looks more aggressive).

If you go with the TSX, and want bluetooth, check out this:

http://www.motorola.com/automotive/solution_blnc.html

Looks like it has all the features of the TL HandsFreeLink plus more.

Jon

 

Excuse me but....WHAT PLANET ARE U FROM?

 

There was an article a couple of months ago saying exactly that - BT is on its way out in the PC arena.

 

There are a lot of articles filled with punditry... some political, some technoligcal.

BT, like many technologies, stumbles, gains momentum, stumbles again, etc. What does "failing" mean, though? I mean, if the expectations were that BT was going to replace WiFi, then yes, I'd say it has failed miserably. If the expectations were that BT was a technology to make cell phone calls in the car safer, then I'd say it's succeeded, and it's on an upswing.

Companies like Motorola wouldn't be releasing entire series of 3rd party BT car kits if the technology was dying or dead. Is Moto coming out with a PC kit? Nope. But who cares at this point? If BT remains a standard for cell phone PAN technology, then that's fine by me. I just hope/wish they get more compliant with their implementations, so that sync'ing a phone book and voice dialing via BT works across all manufactuers, etc.

Jon

 

The point is that BT in its current form could be the next USB 1.1. Technology with great promise that's going to be left behind in a couple of years by a newer/better version which might not be backward compatible. It's not like a CD player where you know the format will be around for the length of the typical length of car ownership (even though those are changing all the time too).
While the technology gets more compliant it would be nice if the US cell phone providers would also provide unlocked phones - WFT is with these locked phones? There's no such thing here in Europe.

 

What I don't understand is why people get so caught up in the "technology" instead of the technology's implications and functionality.

Let's say that bluetooth (BT) becomes the next USB 1.1. How does that affect my current BT phone and BT car kit from functioning in my car? It doesn't. It would only affect my personal ecosystem if I wanted to upgrade my phone or car kit, and there were no more similar advanced technologies available.

Most of my PCs have USB 1.1 ports. Does that make them useless? Not at all. Most devices will plug into a 2.0 or 1.1 USB port and work either way. So, again, why should I get hung up on where USB is going? My investments still function and comingle in my personal ecosystem.

If there is a BT 2.0 in the future, you can bet it will be backward compatible with the current spec, just with limited feature support. Are people here suggesting that because technology is guaranteed to advance in the near future that we hold off from investing in it? If so, then you haven't been exposed to the technology world long enough. This is always going to happen, as most technologies have a shelf-life of 3-5 years.

Also, the CD is not a technology -- it's a format. Formats tend to last longer than technologies or protocols. So you really can't compare BT with the CD. I would compare BT to WiFi. I have an old 802.11b Wifi WAP in my house. It's an old technology protocol, but it still functions in my house, and even if I upgrade to new components, it will still work, no matter what I upgrade. I expect this would be a similar upgrade path to BT.

The last example I'll share is the Minidisc. This format was told it was dead on arrival about 25 times in the last decade. Yet, it's still around, and selling strong. Beware and be wary of "pundits" that know everything. If they were right so much more than they were wrong, then they'd be running the companies that they're analyzing.

Jon

 

Well, in an article in one of the newest editions of "e-week", they said the biggest problem in bluetooth was companies adhering to the bluetooth spec in general. What they envisioned was that if you had a bluetooth keyboard, you would be able to hook it up to a pc with bluetooth, a pda with bluetooth, etc. However as companies developed these products, they put their own software spin on bluetooth making the devices incompatible with the other.

In terms of the bluetooth in the tsx, it has done its purpose. It's not like you are going to hook a keyboard to your car or a digital camera, you just want to hook-up with your phone which should be fine most of the time (there have been occurences that some phones are incompatible with bluetooth car kits, but that's another story).

As for the future of bluetooth, it's definetely here to stay, but will hopefully become more refined and interoperable with other platforms. Recently, some researchers have improved bluetooth by making it less energy intensive which may reinvigorate the bluetooth market.

 

Apple's new Powerbook has Bluetooth 2.0. But, I don't think this means Bluetooth 1.0 is obsolete. USB 1.1 is still very useful today. There will always be newer and better technology, but as long as they maintain backward compatibility, this feature will be useful. Besides for what one wants to do in the car, the bandwidth of Bluetooth 1.0 is adequate. It's not like we're streaming high definition video or copying large chunks of data.

BTW, CD players are becoming obsolete. Many people are hooking up their digital music players to their stock systems. Once I do this to my car, I will likely never use the CD player. Once you have your whole music collection available with a bunch of easily configureable playlists, having to swap CDs manually or being confined to having only 6 CDs in the changer will feel as obsolete as putting a needle on a record.

 

I'm not sure about the PC world, but in the cell phone and portable electronic world I think bluetooth is gonna be around for awhile. I see more people nowadays walking around with bluetooth wireless headsets than ever before. I've also noticed that more people around me are looking for phones with bluetooth. It's funny because a lot of them don't even know what it is or what it's used for, but they will make sure they buy a phone that has it.

I also heard at the last CES, there were a bunch of aftermarket car stereos with bluetooth integrated into them. Sounds like the car stereo world is starting to try to integrate car stereo display/functions with cell phones.

I hope it does stay around and keeps improving. I'm very happy with my bluetooth wireless carset and can't wait to see what other cool gadgets come out

 

Unfortunately, quite a few journalists aren't as honest and forthcoming as they should be. What they really mean is that Bluetooth supports quite a few different "Profiles", or modes of operation. For instance, a cell phone may support the "Handsfree" profile, the "Headset" profile, and the "serial interface" profile. Where the incompatibility factors in is if you have a device that doesn't have the same profiles implemented as the device you are trying to pair it with. Then you have an incompatability. This occurence is rare.

Saying BT is on its way out as a format in the PC arena is a bit odd, considering Infrared has been on every laptop since the first one - BT is clearly a solid replacement for that aging interface.

Admittedly Bluetooth's saving grace has been Cellphones and Handsfree kits/Headsets. However, as more and more people have the desire to share simple, small data packets between devices they own (like calendar and contact information, connection to the internet via a Cell phone's GPRS link), Bluetooth will skyrocket as a technology. Imagine your 2009 Acura TL having the ability to tether to your cellphone for voice calls and high speed internet data via EDGE or EV-DO (cellphone) technologies? That way, you can look up a restaurant, browse its menu, and make reservations from the drivers's seat.

 

And there's the rub - they'd be building in technology that changes every 2-3 years in car that will last at least 20. Unless car makers start taking some sort of modular approach to built in technology stuff - you're better off getting nothing in the car and going the aftermarket route.

Ideally you'd have a mic and joy stick/knob for input (touch screens are more troublesome for long term) and the screen (even HUD) and car speakers as the output. All of the stuff behind the scenes would be plug in modules in the trunk (or wherever) that could be updated every 2-3-4 years. There was already talk of the big Japanese makers getting together on a format to send data around in a car.

 

I'm kinda in the same boat as a couple of people in this thread.. Now I'm rethinking my position after reading some posts..

I was initially looking at an '04 TL so I could get the bluetooth feature (plus the V6, etc.) or an '05 TSX with some "luxury" items like navigation..

Now I'm thinking a TSX with no navigation to save $2000 and just spend that on some aftermarket parts, whatever that may be (wheels, ehaust, stereo, bluetooth kit, etc.)

Any recommendations from you guys? I've been somewhat disenchanted w/ aftermarket stereos once car makers started making theirs "funky" shapes and sizes.. Are there good stereos that fit a TSX (both aestethically and functionally)?

- glacius -

 

Glacius,

How important is NAVI to you? If you decide not to get NAVI, you also won't get any voice activated features of your car. With NAVI, you also get voice-activated (VA) stereo, AC, and other controls. Plus, with NAVI, you get the 8" screen. Once you skip NAVI, you're looking at an entirely different type of center stack.

That said, even if you get NAVI (or not), I would recommend keeping your head unit in place and replace the parts around it (amp, speaks, etc.). With '05 TSXs, it's still not yet feasible to use the AUX out for other devices, but it will come soon enough.

If you're a gadget guy, then I'd say get the NAVI. It's slick, it makes your entire car voice-activated, and it makes the interior look like a luxury sedan. No two ways about it.

 

Oh, that brings up a good point.. I was hoping to plug my iRiver into the stereo using some aftermarket "changer control" plug.. It sounds to me like you're saying that can't be done yet, but someone may be working on the hardware.. Hoepfully that comes soon.. I guess I'll just survive on my old CDs for now..

I do like the voice activation concept, I guess I need to see it in action a little more before I make any decisions..

Is the NAVI a touch screen? I don't remember from my test drive, there were so many fun things to soak in..

- g

 

Yeah, the NAVI is touch screen, and one of the best available. The AUX port right now *can* work, but if you use it now, you have to give up your XM radio! My understanding is that folks in the A/V Off Topic forum are looking into ways of using the AUX for L/R audio outputs while keeping the XM intact.

Jon

 

Why listen to the radio when I can listen to my mp3s? :p

Anyway, good to hear somebody's looking into it!

- glacius -

 

Can you tell us a little bit more about this custom cable you ordered? Where did you get it from? Also, does it just go inline with the car stereo so it uses the car speakers for the audio? How about radio mute?