Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't need to bring a DVD-A any of those places

I get it though. Isimple is nice, but most of these people are spending $400/500 on their setup and then $200 on an Isimple . Guess my priorities are just different. I see an opportunity to have 600+ songs at a given time for free, actually the price of DVD-A's, but they're super cheap.

I agree if you're using a big Ipod, but what are the odds that you're listening to the same 600 songs MOST of the time. I'd say pretty good. Playlists are the same thing as groups on a DVD-A. You can have, I think, 6 of them per DVD-A. Boo yah!

Me

rich20730

Definitely a matter of personal preference. I picked up my iSimple for $100 from Amazon which was a small fraction of what I spent on other audio gear for my car. To me, having most of my music collection available at all times is important. You never know when you'll want to hear some obscure song from high school that you haven't listened to for years. Plus, the reason we spend all this time and money on our car stereos is so we can listen to music. Right? Might as well have it with you.

Before iPods were around I used to burn Mp3 cd's for my car and it was great compared to 12-16 songs on a regular cd, but any time I downloaded a new album or song I'd have to burn another CD. I ended up having tons of burned CD's and I could never remember what was on each one.

600 songs is good and it's true that a lot of the time I'm listening to the same few albums, but just as often I'm putting on a smart playlist with a few thousand songs and hitting shuffle. My own radio station - Boo Yah!

As to the difference between the sound quality of Cd's vs. iPod I think I understated my point on that one. It's possible that the DAC could cause a slight difference in sound quality, but I'm pretty skeptical it would really be noticeable, especially in a moving vehicle. As for mp3 vs. WAV, with today's encoding technology very few people can tell the difference between Lossless and mp3's, even encoded at a fairly low bitrate (LAME V2) and it's pretty much impossible for even someone with "golden ears" to tell the difference at higher bitrates.

Most likely, the reason we are able to distinguish between iPod and CD is because they aren't level matched. Even a tiny db increase can result in a perceived improvement in sound quality.

I definitely don't mean to start an argument or derail this thread, but I just find this stuff really interesting. A really good forum for this stuff is http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/

All of the discussion there is from an objective/scientific perspective.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Db increase can also lead to distortion, especially if the source is the Ipod with some generations. Not every Ipod is the same, though their OS/DAC is already low. There's a 320, compressed file and a WAV file on one of the Autosound discs & its EASILY discernible which is the WAV file. As an audiophile, every little bit counts lol. Today's encoding might be better, but recordings can still sound like complete shit. With the rate of the TL's cd players going out, I would pick up one before I paid $300+ to fix it just so it could happen again.

Anyways, that wasn't the point I was making. The point is that this guy has a budget of like $400 lol

rich20730

Point taken about the budget thing. Although it still comes down to personal preference. If my budget was $400, the iSimple would still be the first thing I'd buy.

Yes, if the recording sucks then it really doesn't matter how much you try to polish that turd. It may even sound worse on a good setup. Bad recordings/poor mastering are much more common these days than they were before. Google the loudness wars if you haven't already. Interesting stuff.

About the 320kbps vs. wav, if you are interested and have the time you can do a true double-blind, level-matched ABX test using the foobar software. You can find the download links and instructions on the hydrogenaudio forums. I don't have time to find the download links etc. right now because I'm watching my 10-month old by myself tonight, but I'll try to find it when I get a chance. I think you'll be surprised by the results. Doing a properly set up double blind ABX test is the only sound way to do it otherwise you have the Placebo effect etc...

I hate cars

I've done the test, I can even hear the differences on my cheap computer speakers. On a Dynaudio system it's even more noticeable. Old recordings still sound good. The ones from the '60s and '70s with recording flaws sound good. What sounds terrible is today's music that's overly compressed. There are some CDs that pissed me off when I purchased them the compressions was so bad. On the stock system I didn't mind FM and XM and bad CDs. Now even if I like the music I have a hard time playing them they sound so bad.

That's one thing I've noticed is when the system is setup properly I can go from rap to rock to country and not have to change a setting. When I get some garbage recording I'll try and adjust, usually turning the treble way down but it's pointless, it just never sounds good.

I've been ordering SACD disks. I can't take advantage of them on the stock player but it plays them. That's my next upgrade, hoping someone smarter than me can take my old CD player that stopped working and swap out whatever needs to be swapped out to make it work. Either that or install another CD player hidden out of sight. The source material becomes so important the more revealing your system becomes. I heard a totally uncompressed live recording. I don't know a whole lot about this stuff but it was Jon W in the Magic Bus. It was just one or two songs on a whole DVD and he had the system to take advantage of the recording. To say it was amazing is an understatement. That's when I got hooked on good source material.

Anyone who has ever played a true 5.1 disk in the TL like the one it came with from the factory knows that good source material can make a stock system sound great and bad source material can make a great system sound terrible.

jda123

The iSimple is about CD quality only, but it does have a slight noise floor. The difference in a lossless iPod song and a CD was dramatic on my old Kenwood HU that had real iPod integration (not USB).

My iPhone goes with me everywhere and I have 2 iPods - 80GB that has everything and a 2GB shuffle that will carry enough music and have enough battery for me to run for 12 hours. They are amazing machine IMO.

In any case, if any of us really cared about this, we would abandon the ELS Head Unit. While good (and very good for a stock HU), it is nowhere near what a high quality double DIN can offer. I might have one in my future.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, I'd like my next car to be able to fit a nice double din. Do they make any double dins that are like the Pio 80prs...basically double dins that can do 3-way active, autoEQ, EQ, etc??

If it wasn't so difficult to do, I'd LOVE to remove the stock nav. screen and put a double din in that place. The factory nav screen is just not up to today's standards. Isn't there like no way to put a double din there b/c there is a ton of stuff behind the nav screen or something?

truemetalfan84

Well, it's finally DONE! It took us a few hours longer than expected, but then again I knew I wouldn't have been much help. I'll try and remember to get the pics from my phone for the install and final result

MUCH THANKS to you all!!!






Next up is taking out the factory sub and Second Skin-ing the trunk and rear deck. This forum is TOOOOOOPS!

rich20730

Nice! Definitely post some pics!

Gizmo 04

In for pics

truemetalfan84

Yay! I helped with something important!

Bass knob wire, remote turn on wire, and 2g power wire snuck through the backseats into the trunk, not all that difficult.

Don't mind the mess on this one, was going to clean my trunk out before I took it to my buddies shop but we've had a pretty dense storm front move in...5 inches of rain and counting!

Right before we spent a couple hours trying to shove the power wire through the fire wall.


I will be taking more pics of the location we used to shove the wire through the firewall as soon as it stops raining. Oh yeah and also pics of the box and all that jazz

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Not sure on that grounding location. Hopefully it works out for ya though

truemetalfan84

@Trunk we sanded it down real good and I'm not getting any strang noises yet. Idk if any will be picked up once I start cranking the gains on the amp. Final product pics will be uploaded today (weather pending!)