NO CD PLAYER???? wow... such a nice unit without a CD player/MP3 player. NO BLUETOOTH? I'll pass.

zeeede wrote:Exactly what I want, but according to Crutchfield, it doesn't fit my vehicle.

I drive a 2004 Ford Ranger - the factory radio is double DIN - why would they say this wouldn't fit?

you sure you have a ddin? and not a din.5?

darcotter wrote:Uhhh.. Radio tuner sold sep.?!
Something this big should have CD, radio, mp3 storage and make me toast in the morning...

and coffee!

jeffiekins wrote:Sorry, but there are THREE things different about using tape in a home:

1. Your home (unless above a subway or in Kali-forn-ya) doesn't vibrate everything loose like a car does.
   
   
2. The inside of your home never gets over 90 degrees. The extreme heat of a car in the sun softens the tape and adhesive and after a few years causes the "stickage" to go to zero.
   
   
3. The "wire nuts" are actually doing the holding and insulating. If you do it right, you really do not need tape at all. It's just "insurance," and even some professional electricians don't use it.
   

Sorry: swing and a miss.

I won't "agree to disagree" that 2 + 2 = 5. This is not just a matter of opinion. I acknowledge your perfect right to have an opinion that is wrong, but that's not the same thing.

I also acknowledge your right to choose to create problems "down the road" for whoever owns the car in several years. But my opinion is that you should at least know the facts before making that choice.

Nothing personal, but facts are facts.

One of the great problems in this country, in general, is that most Americans seem not to be clear about the difference between facts and opinions. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

ROFLMAO! You say that I am not entitled to my own 'facts,' yet that is what you are trying to do here...

-FACT: A car does vibrate more than a home does, but the rest of your statement is not factual... #1, vibrations of a car will not always loosen wires that are twisted together and then properly wrapped in tape provided the person performing the work does a good job and #2, a house doesn't vibrate but a ceiling fan does often vibrate, shimmy, spin and cause plenty of possibilty for the twisted and taped wires to come lose if not twisted properly.

-FACT: A house rarely, if ever, goes above 90 degrees whereas a car often does in summer or warm climates. You are INCORRECT in stating that heat causes the tape to lose it's stickiness... and I am inclined to say that cold is actually worse on adhesive than heat is. Also, shaded areas can be up to and over 20 degrees cooler than adjacent areas exposed to the sun. I have a hard time believing that inside the dashboard gets as hot as your seats and steering wheel get.

-FACT: The wire nuts actually do the holding and insulating. It's your OPINION that twisting two wires together by hand and then insulating them with tape can never achieve the same "shelf life" of both holding the wires together and insulating the connection from others. Case in point, the cars that I have wired by twisting and taping are still perfectly fine and show no signs of degrading or coming apart. (I just looked at my wife's install last night and it is still together as it was the night I did it 3 years ago.)

It appears that you also swung and missed.

Yes, it is my opinion that when I twist and tape wires together that I feel the job I do will hold up over the life of the installation or the vehicle. 6 installs, 6 working car stereos and 0 problems reported with my method. I realize that this is not the "ideal" method, however my way is clearly a viable option and one that can hold up as proven by my installs. I am not trying to convert your opinion that it's 'ghetto' or cannot last every bit as long as other methods, just saying that it can work if you do it right.

Jeus wrote:it supports many mp3/wma players. I would guess that by support it just treats the unit as a mass storage device and searches for audio files.

I have two Zunes and the only way they are recognized as Mass Storage Devices is by hacking your Windows Registry (and even then, it's shady at best).

I am going to say it does NOT support Zune unless they found some way of incorporating a similar "hack" for the software on the head unit. Zune players require special drivers to load and the Zune software to sync and/or data transfer.

cdheer wrote:Don't be delusional.

They're popular amongst the party DJ set for scratching and whatnot, but in no universe are they making anything remotely resembling a "comeback" amongst general music listeners.

I would agree. But there is a difference between a "music listener" and a "music lover". Anyone that thinks an MP3 is good quality music is a "music listener".

vancefsmith wrote:Can it play music generated from apps like Pandora?

No, but if you have an iPhone/Droid/Blackberry app installed, simply buy a 1/8" stereo cable that will hook into the AUX port and you could run the app on your phone and use the AUX port as your output instead of your phone's speaker.

dwood721 wrote:Wonder why Apple hasn't made their own system for in cars

Isn't it obvious? It's because the hazard lights and the turn signals use Flash.

brucedoesbms wrote:Wow! This looks like it will last... on a motorcycle, no less:

You're right! Lookin' good!

pi3832 wrote:All of you people bitching about the lack of a CD player are just being hit in the face with the future. I mean, why are none of you complaining about the lack of a cassette deck? Or an 8-track?

CDs are a (rapidly) dying format. They are too large, too easy to damage, and don't hold enough data. How many songs can you fit onto an $8, 2 Gb USB flash drive? How many USB flash drives can you fit into something the size of 20-CD wallet?

Forget CDs: the next war is going to be over music compression formats. None of the decks I've looked at support anything other than MP3, AAC and WMA on USB drives.

Stop asking, "Where's the CD player?" Start asking, "What'd'ya mean it won't play FLAC files?"

And all of those compression formats really, really sound bad!

tonyflo04 wrote:No. I think the only Alpine deck that supports Pandora is iDA-X305S

I wouldn't expect it to display the track data, but if it supports AUX-in via the 30-pin iPod connector, I would expect it to play any audio the iPod/iPhone can crap out. Maybe even video.

If worse comes to worse, you can always buy the Apple A/V cable and connect that to the AV Extention Cable (included). That will enable you to shoot audio and video from your iPod or iPhone to the device.

g1djh10 wrote:Does it support Zune?

Who has a Zune? fakon... Get an iPod dude! Everything under the sun is made for them! & I'm sure if it worked with a Zune it would say so...

Gatzby wrote:You're welcome. Also, be careful, you almost spilled your drink.

see, I knew u were watching me. I did while driving, trying to put the lid on. sneaky woot.

turf12 wrote:before you buy, make sure that this head unit is compatible with your car.

http://signature.crutchfield.com/app/car/carselector.aspx?vb=Y&ss=Y&sl=Y&lp=%2fApp%2fProduct%2fItem%2fDefault.aspx%3fi%3d500IXAW404%26tp%3d27783&

Thank you for your post, I was so close to buying this. but it doesnt fit in my Honda.

You can buy cheaper accessories at:

http://woot.audiovideoproduct.com/accessories.html

bsmith1 wrote:You're right! Lookin' good!

That is freakin' awesome. But how will the 220V wires hold up in direct sunlight without any electrical tape?

worldofjohnboy wrote:That logic defies the normal properties of electrical tape... When the tape gets warm/hot, the tape actually gets stickier and "gooier." On the other hand, when you cool the tape, not only does it stiffen the tape, but the adhesive becomes less sticky.

Of the six vehicles that I have installed on:

-3 of the vehicles were done over 4 years ago... those decks are still in the vehicles and with original job I did and have not suffered any of the effects that anyone speaks of.

-4 of the vehicles are in the state of NY, which can top out at 100 degrees in the summer and cool down to -15 degrees in the winter.

-2 of the vehicles are in the state of Florida... 'nuff said in regards to weather.

this is supposed to be about the woot. it has nothing to do with your installation skills. if you agree with johnboy then awesome. if not dont do it his way. this stereo series is amazing. its only drawback IMO is the lack of cd drive but honestly i havent listened to a cd in a long long time. I am lucky to have a tape deck and hate the cord running around my console along with the power cable plugged into the cig lighter. this uses on screen controls to control and charge the Iphone/ipod. Alpines engine is by far the best at this as i can attest to after owning a plethora of different head units over the years. To woot or not that is the question. Who cares if johnboy did it right...

fit410s wrote:haha it fits my 2009 honda fit, but im more then happy with the fits radio.

why add something that will make thieves more likely to break in?

Dude, don't kid yourself, you'd have to pay the thieves to break into a Honda Fit

dwood721 wrote:
Wonder why Apple hasn't made their own system for in cars

clubjuggle wrote:Isn't it obvious? It's because the hazard lights and the turn signals use Flash.

"rimshot"

mtnsports wrote:That is freakin' awesome. But how will the 220V wires hold up in direct sunlight without any electrical tape?

THAT is where the duct tape comes in -- you just wrap afew yards around the entire apparatus, thus unifying the whole shebang!...

[note: nice photo edit, Smitty!]

It's a bit of a gamble, but I went for it plus the pre-paid install card side deal.

My 07 Yaris' stereo is conking out, so it would be amazing if this works out. I pretty much ONLY listen to my ipod or FM radio, so for me...this should work out well.

I just hope that there are no add-on costs with the pre-paid install card.

Fingers crossed!

I have a Pioneer (single din iPod compatible bluetooth included) head unit, and ya know what, having a CD in there is nice, I don't listen to it that often, but I have a couple of cd's in my glove box for those days I leave my iPod at home or at work and just run a quick errand. Also I always reset my equalizer and amp based on the same CD since my iPod's content varies so much.

Yes, flash drives are the wave of the future, but until a majority of stereos accept them I feel as though it's going to be "new technology" and painfully struggle (in car stereos) for a few more years.

Plus, most of my friends don't own a flash drive, or care enough to load one up and carry it.

As for this one, well, not horrible for 2 bills, and it is a "media station", not a cd player.

reggaemyelitis wrote:I think THIS would do it.

I'm having trouble deciding on speakers to go with this. Can we get more shots of these? Specifically the demonstrator on the right.

swechsler wrote:OK, now you're just being nasty. Why? I'm not disputing that CDs are on their way out, but most of us still have a lot of them.

And I never disputed that there are still lots of CDs floating around out there. My point was that anyone acting shocked and appalled that a head unit would come without a CD player is out of touch. It's completely reasonable to produce a car stereo without a CD player, because there are lots of people without a single CD. (And those are the people more likely to be dropping $200 on a touch-screen car stereo.)

Anyway, I think our biggest disagreement lies somewhere in the regions of the cassette deck analogy. Not that it matters. Sometimes I just lose my temper--especially when I feel that I'm being "misunderstood."

Though, I did land a nice one with the Aiwa comment, didn't I? I guessed there was a stereophilic element to your attachment to CDs, and similarly to your objections to a mid-fi car deck not having a CD player.

Heck, maybe that's what made the cassette deck analogy stick in your craw. Moving from cassettes to CDs was a huge leap forward in car-audio fidelity. Even normal people could tell the difference. On some level, I suspect you feel that a move away from CDs and to iPods and the like is really a step backward.

I definitely worry that it may be a move to lower fidelity. Look back at my complaint about these "digital media receivers" only supporting a very limited number of compression formats. Hopefully the memristor revolution will get here sooner rather than later, and car stereo makers won't be restricted by what compression algorithms chip-makers have been favoring in their micro-code.

And, I'm over-arguing the whole CD thing because I just gave up on CDs within the last month. The receiver in my car went wonky, and I started looking at replacements, and I realized that CDs had died while I wasn't looking, and I couldn't ignore it anymore. So, at the moment I'm kind of over-zealous about explaining my personal "insight" to other people.

swechsler wrote:And FYI, I have never owned an all-in-one system, let alone an Aiwa (although it certainly beats Soundesign). I've gone through a lot of audio equipment since the mid 1980s, so I don't remember everything I had back then, but I do know I had a Technics SL-Q2 turntable with ADC XLM mk III cartridge, and a Sony TCK-555 cassette deck (still have that somewhere, haven't hooked it up in years) which replaced a Harman/Kardon HK2000.

I too had a Harmon/Kardon tape deck (a TD4200, IIRC) in the '80s, though I never replaced it--it became obsolete too fast. Still, you've got to love a piece of audio equipment that comes with the chart of the frequency-response QC testing done on that specific unit.

It was just last year that I finally let go of the NAD 4240PE receiver I got back in the '80s. I loved telling people it was rated at "only" 40 watts and then rolling the volume up to "can faintly hear the neighbors banging on walls." Just think--I used to be an even bigger jerk!

(But someone must like me: I've gone from 0 to 2 "quality posts" with my rantings about this day's Woot.)

IrishLass622 wrote:"rimshot"

That is great!!!!

pi3832 wrote:All of you people bitching about the lack of a CD player are just being hit in the face with the future. I mean, why are none of you complaining about the lack of a cassette deck? Or an 8-track?

CDs are a (rapidly) dying format. They are too large, too easy to damage, and don't hold enough data. How many songs can you fit onto an $8, 2 Gb USB flash drive? How many USB flash drives can you fit into something the size of 20-CD wallet?

Forget CDs: the next war is going to be over music compression formats. None of the decks I've looked at support anything other than MP3, AAC and WMA on USB drives.

Stop asking, "Where's the CD player?" Start asking, "What'd'ya mean it won't play FLAC files?"

I would love to see you buy USB flash drive that comes with Pink Floyd album from the store. How much time do you spend trying to rip those sony root kit CD's and transfer them to your $8 USB drive. In other words, buying a CD, buying an USB flash drive and the time you spend ripping the music to it is just silly, when you can just get that CD and play it. Oh, if you get your music online for free then you are better off with this unit (and ofcourse you do that).
I also have a question for you: What the FLACK is FLAC? Get over the fact that MP3 is the most popular compressed music format. FLAC is like HDDVD which never made it. Why don't you buy two or three of these units and install them on all your cars and bikes?

benjaminalawson wrote:
Yes, flash drives are the wave of the future, but until a majority of stereos accept them I feel as though it's going to be "new technology" and painfully struggle (in car stereos) for a few more years.

Actually, the struggle is over. The majority of after-market in-dash receivers support USB storage devices, and at least the MP3 and WMA format. E.g., of the 148 stereos that Crutchfield says will fit my 2003 'Rolla, only 32 don't have a USB port.

OEM car stereos won't accept the new USB reality for another 5-10 years, but that's nothing new. or significant.

I have the single DIN version of this in two of my cars. Not having to dork with CDs is great- rip everything to a thumb drive, plug it in and go. I use an ipod, and it charges it nicely as I drive. My wife just has a 4 gig USB drive with her mp3's on it and uses that.
Great unit, no moving parts to break, sound quality is decent enough for a car. I use it more for Sirius than anything else and it does it very well. Bluetooth (optional add-on) doesn't support some of the phonebook etc features on some LG phones though.
I'm VERY tempted to get this one just because the double DIN would look better in my wife's car than the single DIN version... tempted... tempted... damnit.

adyb1975 wrote:I also have a question for you: What the FLACK is FLAC?

Free Lossless Audio Codec

adyb1975 wrote:I would love to see you buy USB flash drive that comes with Pink Floyd album from the store. How much time do you spend trying to rip those sony root kit CD's and transfer them to your $8 USB drive. In other words, buying a CD, buying an USB flash drive and the time you spend ripping the music to it is just silly, when you can just get that CD and play it. Oh, if you get your music online for free then you are better off with this unit (and ofcourse you do that).
I also have a question for you: What the FLACK is FLAC? Get over the fact that MP3 is the most popular compressed music format. FLAC is like HDDVD which never made it. Why don't you buy two or three of these units and install them on all your cars and bikes?

FLAC is Free Lossless Audio Codec which is, basically the format an audio CD is encoded to when you rip it to a media player... hope that clears things up a little...

[Edit: I should say some media players]

adyb1975 wrote:I would love to see you buy USB flash drive that comes with Pink Floyd album from the store. How much time do you spend trying to rip those sony root kit CD's and transfer them to your $8 USB drive. In other words, buying a CD, buying an USB flash drive and the time you spend ripping the music to it is just silly, when you can just get that CD and play it. Oh, if you get your music online for free then you are better off with this unit (and ofcourse you do that).
I also have a question for you: What the FLACK is FLAC? Get over the fact that MP3 is the most popular compressed music format. FLAC is like HDDVD which never made it. Why don't you buy two or three of these units and install them on all your cars and bikes?

To Mr Angry Face,

Flac is not competition to MP3 at all. Its an alternate format for people who don't want to lose anything in compression. Like .png or .jpg.

Example
Some of us burned our entire libraries in 128 kbs 6 or 7 years ago and then immediately regretted it as storage on MP3 players and computers got better (and then we wanted 320 or some other bitrate). With flac you dont compromise. Good for some things, not for others.

And also, i dont see how ripping music is silly. I like to have more than 12 songs available with me when im walking around with my MP3 player. If I took your approach I would have a portable CD player with terrible battery life and a whole booklet of CDs.

somewootguy wrote:I'm having trouble deciding on speakers to go with this. Can we get more shots of these? Specifically the demonstrator on the right.

I think this may outdo the previous speaker system posting:



The advantages here is that there is no enclosure to muffle the music...

i know with my alpine-idax100 you can change the display light to be red or blue, do you have the same options on this deck?

adyb1975 wrote:NO CD PLAYER???? wow... such a nice unit without a CD player/MP3 player. NO BLUETOOTH? I'll pass.

who uses CDs anymore?

brucedoesbms wrote:I think this may outdo the previous speaker system posting:

http://murderati.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5af653ef011169065864970c-320wi

The advantages here is that there is no enclosure to muffle the music...

Actually, for bass that's a disadvantage, as you loose all the cabin gain.

Apparently instead of happy hours, there are going to be mini woot-offs starting tomorrow called "Thirsty Thursdays". Interesting...

ExtremeHobo wrote:Flac is not competition to MP3 at all. Its an alternate format for people who don't want to lose anything in compression. Like .png or .jpg.

Actually, there is a potential for "competition" in how the formats are patented and licensed. The MP3 format is a legally messy tangle of patent and licensing claims. FLAC is licensed under BSD and GPL--meaning it is both open sourced, and free.

(Similarly, the GIF standard has had a rocky history with patent issues, whereas PING(.png) was specifically made to avoid GIFs issues. "PING Is Not GIF".)

Despite Apple having standardized on AAC, they don't own it (but there are some licensing fees associated with the format). Microsoft doesn't mess around, and it very much owns WMA.

in this thread, people try and act like different audio types produce significantly different sound. I'll stick with VBR, thanks.

jeffiekins wrote:
One of the great problems in this country, in general, is that most Americans seem not to be clear about the difference between facts and opinions. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Oh, the Opinion Argument . . . it simply wears me down. People have been 'educated' (specifically in grade-school) to believe that opinions are somehow equal, so well as is their right to have one; I strongly disagree with both sentiments. I would say that the only 'right' one has to an opinion falls into the free-speech category: people have a right to not be jailed or fined for what they say and believe in a civilized manner. Anyway, this mis-education is never going to stop because as soon as we accept opinions to not be equal then many current popular notions would become discredited, and many infamous discredited notions would become plausible. It's the same reason children are not educated on fallacious arguments, it would provide a vessel for contradiction of too many agendas. Yes, they tell you facts and opinions are not the same thing and they tell you everyone is permitted to have an opinion--on the condition that their facts and opinions are the sole ones you are exposed to.

worldofjohnboy wrote:Yes, it is my opinion that when I twist and tape wires together that I feel the job I do will hold up over the life of the installation or the vehicle. 6 installs, 6 working car stereos and 0 problems reported with my method.

What if you had sprinkled magic-powder from ground snake-scales on each of the connections; would that mean that the success of your six installations ought be attributed to it?