Go easy on me as i havent even got my TL yet. but im looking at a 05 without nav. I must have my iPod hard wired into the factory system. I read about the dice unit but is that just for the nav display? i would like to have the song name up on the factory display but that may not be possible without the nav screen. what are my options here ?

any help is appreciated. thx

 

i cant really help you on the hardwired part, i am still using the tape adapter, but i did just remember another way to control an ipod. i dont have nav either so i just purchased myself a tomtom 920, and it has a cord which will allow you to connect your ipod to it and use the touchscreen or the remote to control the ipod. not sure how well it works but it is an idea. if you bought the ipod adapter from acura for the sound, and had an aftermarket navigation for the control it may work out. but wait, both the tomtom cord and the acura ipod cord use the same connection point so that wouldnt work. you would still have to use the heaphone jack to get the music to the stereo. ok, i didnt help at all. but it got me thinking.

 

just to clear up by "hardwired" i mean there is a wire running from the radio to the iPod. i dont want to use a fm transmitter. I will be connecting my ipod using its headphone jack. in my current car i have a 3.5 mm to rca jack running into the aux inputs on my alpine head unit

 

there is no 3.5mm jack in the 2005 TL. thats why they sold a cord that was hardwired to the head unit and i think it runs out of the glove box. and that cord connects to the bottom of the ipod, not the 3.5mm jack. i didnt feel like spending $250, or whatever it was going for, so i am just using a spare cassette adapter from an old cd player of mine.

btw, fm transmitters suck in this car. i have tried a few, some very $$, and none of them work.

 

There are a million threads on this but here is what you do. Buy the USASpec ipod adaptor, works with both nav and non, and for $110. Install is a piece of cake and it is CD quality sound. It charges the ipod and the steering wheel controls work with the ipod. Obviously it plugs into the bottom of the ipod not the 3.5mm jack on top.

 

The DICE iPod interface works great with either NAVI or non-NAVI cars. The NAVI provides multiple lines of TEXT including ARTIST-ALBUM and TRACK NAME. With the non-NAVI it still provides all that info bit displays one line of TEXT at a time. You can still easily scroll through the TEXT info that you'd like. Which iPod do your have?

 

1st gen nano. maybe a new one soon. how much is the dice? and i noticed there were several diff models. which one should i get?

 

where do i buy?

 

Check these out:
https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172151
https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172385
That should be helpful.
Good luck with finding the right TL.

 

In one of those threads I linked above ttribe bought his from www.enfig.com for $109.99

Just a thought but getting the TL first might be a good idea. You might find a TL with it already installed. Just a thought.

 

By the way if you buy the USASpec unit you want to buy the PA11-HON2y - its the 2Y that is important.

 

well the text would be nice. so i guess the dice. what model? does my xm work with it?

 

I don't think that the text from the ipod still works if you still want your xm to work. I am not a dice specialist though. I am sure that Nick@Dice will be along soon - the guy knows his stuff.

 

i might have to pick one of these up. that price is fairly reasonable. and hearing my ipod through the cassette deck is really starting to get to me.

 

I did get mine for $110. Hooked it up last night and it really does sound good. Much better than any other kind of solution (i.e. tape or FM). Direct hook-in is the way to go!

 

This^^^ answered my question that I asked you in the other thread. How was it to install? Easy as I said? Glad to hear to like it. Where did you end up installing it/ putting the ipod?

 

Ha! Sorry about not responding to your post in the other thread...hadn't been in there yet today. So, I did install the unit last night; and, let me say, thank heavens for this forum! I had the car in the garage, my laptop sitting on floor of the passenger-side front, with AcuraZine pulled up to get instructions on how to tear apart my interior!

Regarding the installation, the actual hook-up of the unit was a piece of cake, of course (just plug-n-play). The challenge for me was the disassembly of so much of the interior to get access to the back of the head unit. That part took me a couple of hours...mostly because of my own paranoia and fear of breaking anything. However, once I got all the panels out the way, the main difficulty was just unplugging the satellite from the head-unit and then getting everything plugged back in back there - tight space. Fortunately, I'm not a large human.

I went ahead and put the unit itself under the driver's seat (looking for suggestions on mounting...right now it's just loosely zip-tied to a part underneath); I then ran the cord for the iPod up through the bottom of the arm-rest storage are (cut a small hole in the removable panel), and up to the top compartment through the notch made for a cell phone power cord (which I also use, and the two share the space just fine).

Because I have an iPod Touch, I like being able to have the device out where I can see it, so I have enough slack in the iPod cord to set my Touch on top of the sliding cover over the cup holder (there's a second "notch" in the housing on the top arm-rest compartment which facilitates this). When I don't want it out in the open, it tucks away nicely in the arm-rest storage. This way though, when I'm driving, I can just look down and easily change playlists.

The sound is excellent and I LOVE that I can use the steering wheel controls for the majority of the more frequent control needs (skipping tracks, volume, etc.).

So as to not hijack the OP's thread too much more, I'll try to take a few pictures later this week and start a new thread to solicit comments and suggestions for mounting the unit to the floor of the car.

Thanks again for your advice. It was a big help!