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Going headless is even easier.

I've often thought of going "headless" for my car audio stuff. About 99.99 percent of all the media I listen to comes from my phone. This new amp will make that easier now. This would be super cool if you still had an original head unit in the dash for looks.

http://www.parts-express.com/re-audio-bt-9004-4-channel-bluetooth-480-watt-car-amplifier--268-8212

The only part of "audiophile sound" that works "wirelessly" is the part where sound waves travel to your ears. If you want to do something like this, get a decent amp and a wired 3.5mm to RCA adapter with an inline noise filter. Much cooler than the stock HU would be a period non-amplified deck (think Blaupunkt) hooked up to decent period amps (think Nakamichi) wired to decent period drivers (think A/D/S). You can get an adapter to run input from your device of choice through a CD changer port, but at the end of the day, you'll be playing media from your phone on this system, so you'll hit the point of diminishing returns on quality gear pretty low in the price spectrum. Whatever feeds your media to the amplification source needs to share a common ground with the amp and connect via hard wire if you want it to sound decent; otherwise see above re: cable with noise filter, etc. Spend as little as possible to minimize regret.

~Sam
 
I don't think I mentioned "audiophile" anywhere.

In fact I don't think I would use my phone for anything high quality. Its for high quantity. And ad-free-ness. Radio sucks, and never plays music I like. Carrying cd's sucks. And mp3's on a thumb drive sucks because you have to rip/download and move it on/off the stick, yadda yadda.

Streaming music and podcasts or youtube or netflix on the phone is awesome.
 
I've been looking into this for some time now, and I've currently decided against Bluetooth.

The big problem is that currently, Bluetooth audio is still dependent on too many other factors (mounting location/device compatibility/Bluetooth version, etc). The little bit of info I could find on this amp, I couldn't even find what version of Bluetooth it's running. It seems to have trouble handshaking too. There's still a lot of accessory devices running on v3, which I'm pretty sure has a pretty limited audio quality (like bad youtube vid). Plus, there's another issue. You're gonna burn through battery transmitting Bluetooth, so you're gonna need to charge, so your device (phone, tablet, whatever) is gonna need to be plugged in.

With that in mind, USB OTG is the way I'll likely go.

USB DAC, using USB on the go, which is supported by most modern phones/tablet. http://hifimediy.com/DACs/android-dac
Hook that and the phone/tablet up to a usb otg compatible splitter- plug one end into a USB charger, another into the DAC and the final into the phone.
Then hook the DAC into a headphone to RCA adapter and plug THAT into an amp.

BAM- You now have near-audiophile quality signal for around 50 bucks USD using any amplifier.
Need it to be even better? Use this DAC instead. http://hifimediy.com/DACs/9018-dac Around a hundo for 384kHz/32bit max sampling/112.5dB @ 1kohm THD.

However, this is all on paper. I'm damned sure it'd work though. I've wanted to play with it for a while now- maybe I'll pull the trigger and order some bits to swap into Naomi's car. If it blows chunks I'd still end up with a little DAC to use with a phone/PC.


M.
 
I use USB, I create playlists on PC from my music, simple clik to transfer to USB stick then plug in. I still am amazed I can carry 500 songs on a device about 14 mm square. If you have the data plan to allow streaming , go fer it
 
I use USB, I create playlists on PC from my music, simple clik to transfer to USB stick then plug in. I still am amazed I can carry 500 songs on a device about 14 mm square. If you have the data plan to allow streaming , go fer it

You still need a head unit for this to work though. Plus I have unlimited data. :-P
 
BT audio quality is quite poor. I wonder about the Musiccast system though, it that's able to implement reasonable audio over BT then maybe it's possible.
I would love a high quality android head unit which would be free of the various limitations all the small thinking audio MFR's put on systems. No one makes one though.
 
BT audio quality is quite poor. I wonder about the Musiccast system though, it that's able to implement reasonable audio over BT then maybe it's possible.
I would love a high quality android head unit which would be free of the various limitations all the small thinking audio MFR's put on systems. No one makes one though.

I've been looking for a while as well, for my Volvos/Benz... But single din.

this one always keeps coming up
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pumpkin-Cap...avigation-Multimedia-navigation/dp/B00VLLN44G

71zWHHIs-yL._SL1001_.jpg


81b6TVySQkL._SL1500_.jpg


But they are all cheap, all brands that no one has ever heard of...



Anyway, when seeing all the garbage on the market, I figure just dropping the coin and going with:

Toronto_440_02.jpg

http://www.blaupunkt.com/en/nc/products/car-multimedia/car-radio/products/single/11973/
2x usb, bt, jack, sd
Hard to find a dealer here and I don't really want to buy this on eBay
 
I know that bluetooth isn't great quality, but I've got a couple of BT devices at home. Some are better (way better) than others. I think the deal would be to find a BT receiver that sounds decent and hide it in the car somewhere.

And by Headless, I mean NO head unit at all! No radio in the dash period. I just get in the car and my phone pairs up and I start playing music. All controls are on the phone.



I've heard mixed reviews about the iphone being able to use regular audio dongles. Some folks think that you'll be forced to buy Beats sh1t.


Also, I'm not looking for a studio-quality audio playback in my car. The rig isn't audiophool, nor is the car's interior completely soundproofed. I use BT already and think it's fine for passive listening. Which is what I'll be doing.


When I want to really listen to music, I have 100's of thousands of dollars worth of PA equipment to listen to. I'm covered on that front! hahaha
 
I have a friend who has a classic car, he has an 8 track player in dash that doesn't work, just for show, he plays music on his i phone through a receiver in the glove box, same concept I guess, his sounds ok, for a 1969 Beetle....Be kinda cool not to have a headunit, more room for gauges
 
In my 122, I'm planning to run just a sandisk MP3 player into a 5 channel amp. Worst case I'll need a line driver to boost the audio from the player. Totally hidden except for two cables (charging and audio) which will tuck between the seats or up under the dash. But I only listen to MP3s and don't even have a smartphone. In theory it should work fine for anything with a headphone jack.
 
In the process of doing this one my 122. I gutted the factory am radio and put a mini 4 channel amp inside. Tacked the old preset buttons to the bracket and cut everything off flush inside. I cut off the posts for the volume/tuning knobs and modified them to fit 2 RCA level controllers. The left is for overall volume and the right is bass level for a second small amp I hid behind the dash to run 2 small subs. Still looks factory and is also functional for volume.




I have a separate bluetooth adapter that feeds this that I got from crutchfield.
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-026LaCzqwVh/p_822BTREC/Milennia-MIL-BTREC.html
I have one in my daily jeep, works great and quality is just fine for everyday listening
 
In the process of doing this one my 122. I gutted the factory am radio and put a mini 4 channel amp inside. Tacked the old preset buttons to the bracket and cut everything off flush inside. I cut off the posts for the volume/tuning knobs and modified them to fit 2 RCA level controllers. The left is for overall volume and the right is bass level for a second small amp I hid behind the dash to run 2 small subs. Still looks factory and is also functional for volume.

This is so rad!
 
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