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This is a Sony X-Plod series CDX MP40 about 9 years old, it has served me good all those years ,and I intend to use it for many more.
My purpose is to use the aux input to connect my mp3 player and gain some space from old cd's, and of course use this for as long as it is still working instead of buing a new one.
My purpose is to use the aux input to connect my mp3 player and gain some space from old cd's, and of course use this for as long as it is still working instead of buing a new one.
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At first I removed the device from the dashboard to check if there was an easy way to do this!
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Thank you!!!
One possible way to get the RCAs working is to open the car stereo and rewire those inputs to the volume control (or other adequate point in the audio circuit, tru a switch that would select the RCA´s over the internal CD player. I'm tired of having to carry several different DC-R's in order to avoid having to carry valuable original CD's that only hold about an hour of music! (even my inexpensive Nokia 5530 Expressmusic cel phone with a 8GB micro SD holds enough music at 320KBPS MP3 to go with me in long trips.
Now, I just gotta figure out how to do this with my Dodge Caravan with factory cd player.
One thought though on the hanging wire in the ashtray, you could drill and mount a jack somewhere or remove the ashtray all together and make a mp3 shelf with jack.
Anyway very cool, never thought about tapping the cd jack. great job!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Car-MP3-Player-Wireless-FM-Transmitter-USB-SD-MMC-Slot-Yellow-/280759711217?pt=Other_MP3_Player_Accessories&hash=item415e9535f1
I find very disturbing a manufacturer such as Sony gave us a pair of RCA inputs, and then DISABLED them as "AUX" by calling them "BUS AUDIO IN", and then tried to steal more money from us by selling their adapter at more than 100 dollars!
The fact that there are two or three aftermarket Unilink adapters, all of them of low construction/cheap parts quality at prices between 15 to 40 dollars show that there are many Sony units that the unsuspecting owners want to use with auxiliary inputs. Shame on Sony for not allowing users to directly connect to their aux inputs. It is a consecuence of the greed of present day business practices and too many people trying to design things using software for very simple tasks, Auxiliary inputs were ever present in Car Stereos before this stupid trend of Unilink. I'm happy the last generation reversed this trend and now includes AUX and even USB inputs (which is also stupid, since Firewire was the way to go, NOT USB, which is NOT the best way to handle Audio (or Video, for that matter).
While you are partly right in pointing out that USB is cheaper and more ubiquitous, (say pennies vs a couple of dollars a FW port in a consumer device, which are fabricated in tens of thousands of units), then USB is ever present only because it costs pennies, but resulting audio is NOT the best, and cannot be. Please read about "dropped frames" in video, or "jitter" in audio to begin understanding why USB was the wrong way to go. USB is mediocre not because of transfer rate, but the way it works.
Firewire, on the other side, is a Peer-to-Peer link. Videographers and High Quality Audio experts all agree FW was the way to go. Unfortunately, USB costs LESS than a FW port (by a fraction of a dollar), so that ever greedy industry managers push towards USB for everything. I'll give you an example: in really high quality audio home equipment, the DAC (Digital-to-Analog converter) determines much of the quality of sound. Well, really good present day DAC's that use USB tend to cost ABOVE 1,400 US dollars...Fhewww!
Why? Because those DAC's NEED TO De-Clock, filter and Re-Clock the time base signal to keep "jitter" to the minimum. And there are USB implementations that limit audio quality to 16 bit/48 kHz. A really good digital Audio signal would be considered ABOVE that level, say 24 bit/96 kHz, or even higher (24/176 or 24/192 kHz). Talking about video; Have you heard about "dropped frames"? Really good video cameras use Firewire, not USB!
Please stop disseminating the myth that USB is "better", and that difference between the two is ONLY about "bandwidth", there is MORE to that, a lot more! Amclaussen.
Besides, we ALL know that the only REAL way to listen to music is with live musicians and real instruments...everything else is just a sad attempt to relive the experience....good luck fitting a band in the average vehicle though.
Firewire is dead. Tens of thousands of different portable devices support USB, dozens (if that) support Firewire. The market has spoken. Move on.
Just reason why High Definition TV, or 3D TV took SOOO MANY years to just start to become available again, when the principles needed to achieve them were ready DOZENS of years ago... (Remember "View-Master 3D color slides discs? or that Japan had Hi definition analog TV MANY years before the USA?) It is clear to me that industry has a vested interest in KEEPING things as mediocre as possible for the public at large, being that technically it is quite easy to have HDTV and 3D TV, nothing magical about it, but industry asks itself: "Why give people more than the absolute minimum necessary?... Let's give them breadcrumbs and circus to keep them happy...!"
And by saying "move-on", you are really becoming STUCK on a false concept! USB vs FW is the same kind of struggle, and by perpetuating myths some unsuspecting consumers help keeping those myths alive, for industry economic benefit. More knowledge helps, but needs straightforward study.
The only thing that will kill FireWire is LightPeak, which, BTW, was designed specifically to be FireWire's successor.
What IS dead in the water is USB 3.0.
In short it's a solution that works for all parties involved; both the vendors and the customers. How is this a bad thing?
Or are you hung up on FW for fanboi reasons?
It is a solution that works for all parties involved, because the parties are forced to operate within the confines of the technology specs. Companies don't put out devices and formats that support in-car 7.1 surround because there are no players, and there won't be, because USB can't cut it.
Nor am I "hung up on FW." It has its place, just as USB and now LightPeak.
I am not the person with the hang ups. Perhaps this is an ABA issue?
One thing is that the majority of the fabricators and vendors prefer the cheaper USB to save some pennies instead of offering both interfaces in Laptops, or only the ubiquitous USB in portable devices, but it is only because of cost and the ever present trend of pushing mediocre solutions onto the unsuspecting consumer. (it seems their CEO's think: "Why give the people more, if most of them won't notice, lets keep it mediocre and cheap...)
For those who care to understand why USB is NOT the best in Hi quality audio (or video), check on the concept of Jitter in the signal. It is not only a matter of bandwidth, but the way the information stream is handled, the timing.
My comments are not intended to criticize people or the Instructable, but to promote a better understanding, Remember when the first CD players were highly touted and proclaimed as "perfect"?, only to be declared "irritating" and brittle sounding a few years latter. We now can easily compare the sound of those first players against the reallly better sound of newer CD designs; but it took knowledge and patience to be able to discern the differences.
It is sad that consumer electronics could be better designed, but industry in general, has a disgusting inclination to keep producing less than it could, so that the consumer ends having to "up-grade" endlessly. This process of up-grading is not bad in itself, because in this way people become gradually educated and can become appreciative consumers, but this is too costly and lenghty, and produce an enormous quantity of (still working) discarded products, that only go to landfills. And I agree with wkearney99 in one aspect: FW could be dead soon if people continue to believe that USB is "better" (which isn't true, but even some Apple products lately lack the FW port (Apple developed Firewire, BTW)...
Best wishes to all.
Yes, everything could always be "better" but there's the eternal rule: Good, fast or cheap... pick two. There are many costs to consider, hardware interfaces, software, end-user ease of use, and licensing. All of them come with 'pick two' scenarios. FW and so-called "superior" formats lose by failing to recognize this simple equation.
The playback situation in an automobile is not one that requires or even benefits from an excessive amount of 'precision'. It's background entertainment behind the primary task of driving. Not endlessly obsessing about whether the music or consumer audio industry is "out to get your money". Yes, they are, but then so is everything else.
If you really want to get an eye-opener on vendor evils, look no further than Apple. You can't even use ANY kind of interface beyond the audio line out to play any of the media. Not without paying through the nose for highly proprietary methods and hardware interfaces. Sony's UniLink might have it's issues but that's nothing compared to Apple's evils. It's no wonder nobody pays mind to Firewire.