A couple of days ago the Toyota dealer installed a new updated version of the iPod2Car control box, which is now white. The manufacturer of the iPod2Car connector made a few changes and so far it is working very well. The volume level of the iPod is now equal to the radio and CD player of the car. The steering wheel controls of my Prius advance the songs on the iPod and of course control the volume. The sound is great and the iPod gets charged while it is hooked up. The included cable is quite long and I can hand the iPod to a passenger in the back of my car to select the next song. Nice job!
I suggest to have the car stereo turned off before you connect the iPod. That seems to ensure that it connects properly. However, it wasn’t cheap and I don’t know how much money I saved over the Alpine solution as I had to pay the Toyota dealer 80 bucks twice for labor and for the specific Toyota cable, which I think ran another $30. That’s in addition to the connector itself, which costs a couple of hundred and brings the total to almost $400. On the other hand, you might be able to save almost half of that if you don’t need a Toyota cable and if you are able to install the connector yourself. Me, I am not a mechanically savyy person. Right now I am just thrilled that it is all working great and that I can listen to the iPod shuffle around 5,000 songs, mostly ripped as AAC files at 224kbps, which sounds quite good.
One other thing: I love iTunes’ Smart Playlists and use them all of the time. For example many Flamenco songs have the name of the form in the title, like Solea or Buleria. I create Smart Playlists that collect all of the songs that contain the word “buleria” in the title for example. Or you might collect all of the songs with the word “winter” in the title and see what you can find…
The ipod seems like a perfect upgrade for you and the Prius, and a fun toy too!:)
Ottmar, you seem to be quite an iPod advovate. With you being quite knowledgeable about recording and producing, does it bother you at all that you have to squash the resolution out of music to put them in your iPod? I understand that the convenience is great, it sure beats having to change CD’s every so often. If you know that you are recording your music at a specific resolution to get a high quality recording does it bother you to get the resolution out to be able to hear it in your Ipod. I know that most people would probably not be able to tell the difference. I just would like to know what you think.