I thought that the Music Link was discontinued for the RL. It appears that it is now available again (according to the Owner Link website). Does anyone know if this is the case and if so if it has been updated?

 

Do a search. There was discussion of the update earlier this year which appeared to be mainly software. It may also have been in the RDX board. Too lazy to look for it. You will have to do it yourself...and it will be in the audio sub forum, not this one...in fact I am waiting for bob to move this thread there...

My recollection is that it was a marginal improvement.

You may wish to spend the installation money and hardware money on an aftermarket unit, in no particular order,

Dice, Blitz, USA Spec, Neo Car Audio...I am sure there are others. I got the Neo on an occassional sale. It appears to be a rebranded USA Spec. To me, it works flawlessly. I don't exactly know how the musiclink is supposed to work, but when the dealer and hondacuraworld recommended something other than the musiclink, I did not need to be told again. Now this was all in about 1Q 2007, before the "new" version was released.

 

There's a long thread on it somewhere. I still have the device, mostly because I didn't want anyone tearing apart my dash again.

Bottom line-
The bad:
Ergonomics suck--installation is in the glove compartment and you can't run the iPod from its own controls while plugged in.

No iPod info on the navi screen (the only device that does this is the Dice, and you lose XM for that functionality, therefore non-starter for me)

The good:
Sound quality is excellent.

I don't use the Music Link software on my iPod, and just run it in shuffle mode.

 

I, too, just run in shuffle mode. I was skeptical at first of loading the software and after reading the responses from users I was glad I held off.

 

Same here. My preference is shuffling all songs versus shuffling albums. Thought I have yet to take the car on a long trip, so I can't comment on that just yet.

 

According to my dealer, there's supposedly an entirely new Music Link solution that's due to be released any time now. Don't know what that's going to mean, but maybe they'll make it not suck anymore.

 

There appears to be some differences now. On the Music Link website, under the "Purchasing FAQ" it now says this:

This is very different -- it used to just say "EXTENSION" and have no info. If it's now providing play mode info and elapsed time, then that's a big change.

We'll see.

 

AFAIK this is the same old software (1.5) and the same description of features so nothing new on the Acura Music Link site to me,

Andy