Gizmodo: car stereo

Alpine's iXA-W404 Touchscreen iPhone Compatible Car Receiver Hands On

Christopher Mascari — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:06:46 EST

Alpine's iXA-W404 with its 4.3-inch QVGA touchscreen and iPhone compatibility is fully capable of navigating all your iPhone's music, movies, tv shows, and more by the touch of your finger.

The Alpine headunit I tested was plugged into a iPod nano instead of an iPhone but an Alpine representative assured me it has the same functionality when connected to an iPhone.

Alpine's has had iPod compatibility for a few years and the iXA-W404's menu navigation for the iPod and iPhone is nothing new. There has always been touchscreen navigation based off your iPods media folders and this works the same with the iXA-W404's 4.3-inch touchscreen.

The only notable feature is Alpine's attempt at mimicking Apple's Coverflow. The album cover browser is like a very basic Coverflow and only allow you to select full albums rather than specific tracks within an album like the real Coverflow.

Yea, this imitation Coverflow is a cool idea but using it on a small 4.3-inch screen is stupid because there is not enough screen real-estate to browse through a ton of albums, especially when trying to drive a car. This issue made me question why Alpine chose a 4.3-inch touchscreen form factor over their popular 7-inch touchscreen media loving IVA-W505 unit which would have made finger navigation of music by album cover a valuable feature.

Kicker Warhorse 10,000-Watt Car Stereo Amp Ensures Complete Neighbor Alienation

Charlie White — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:27:24 EST

If you're looking for the biggest, baddest-ass mofo car stereo amplifier you can get, you might want to consider this 10,000-watt Warhorse from Kicker. The WX 10000.1 weighs a hefty 67 pounds, and that 10kW power stream is enough to slam-dunk you and your subwoofers with its highly refined power. You're not going to be able to install this in just any car, though, because it requires eight 12-volt batteries to get the thing going, and you'll also need two 200-amp alternators.

Sheesh. It'll not only break the windows in your car, but maybe every window within 50 feet of where were you're driving as well as the sanity of all those within earshot. Not only will you be first required to drop serious bucks on a car audio system worthy of such power, one of these amps will cost you a buck a watt—$10,000 total. Look at the monster specs of this beast:

Kicker WX10000.1 Mono Channel Amplifier Specifications:
Mono-Channel Model (at 14.4V)
Power (watts), Signal-Modulated 2 Ohm mono: 10,000 x 1
Dimensions: 3.75″ x 17.75″ x 35″
Frequency Response (Hz): 20-200, +0/-1dB
Input Sensitivity: 170mV-5V
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 95dB, a-weighted, re: rated power
Low-Pass Crossover: 24dB/octave, variable 50-200Hz
High-Pass, Subsonic Crossover: 24dB/octave, variable 20-60Hz
KICKEQ Bass Boost: Variable to +18dB, centered at 40Hz
Warhouse Control Module: Available separately
Weight: 67 lbs.

[Kicker, via Audio Junkies]

Toyota Releases $300 iPod Integration Kit For All Current-Model Cars

Jason Chen — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:30:15 EDT

It's fantastic news for Toyota and Lexus owners, as the car company has just released an iPod adapter kit to directly link the player with your car's audio system. The kit fits into all current Toyotas and Lexuses and connects inside the glove box so you can control the iPod with your head unit (or steering wheel controls). The whole thing costs $300 (more than most iPods), and finally brings Toyota in line with GM, Ford, BMW, Mercedes and Audi in offering iPod integration. Toyota: happily being #1 by letting everyone else innovate beforehand. [Gizmag - Additional car expertise by Ray]

Update: Apparently this is a Toyota UK thing. Sorry for the confusion!

Digital Power Station: DSP Turns Crappy Speakers Into Honkin' Muthas

Charlie White — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 10:36:42 EST

Jon Bon Jovi's cousin, audio engineer Tony Bongiovi has figured out a novel way to make cheap-ass speakers sound a whole lot better. His device, an unusually sophisticated equalizer he calls the Digital Power Station, originally filled a refrigerator-sized unit with its analog components.

Now he's shrunk all that down to a single digital signal processor (DSP) and stuffed it into a JVC KD-S100 car stereo, where the technology makes its debut today.

How can this possibly work?

The chip can be specifically tuned with more than 120 points of adjustment for the car in which it resides, teasing studio-quality sound out of small, cheap speakers in a noisy environment. Said Bongiovi, "It's so precise that the hatchback Ford Focus has a different tuning from the regular one."

The chip's algorithms can also be run in software, and the technique works on inexpensive home theater speakers, too. But he said there are no plans to develop the technology beyond the car stereo market. Yet. – Charlie White

New chip provides high-end sound even for low-end speakers [Gulf in the Media]

Scosche BlueLife Connects iPod via Bluetooth

Charlie White — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:58:21 EST

If you're not satisfied with that FM-quality hookup between your iPod and your car stereo, the Scosche BlueLife system can make that happen with Bluetooth. BlueLife includes an iPod transmitter and a Bluetooth receiver, and the company suggests that you buy multiple receivers so that you can wirelessly connect that iPod to your car stereo and your sound system at home, too.

The only catch is you'll need to dig down and hook up the Bluetooth receiver to your car stereo s wiring. But the reward is digital streaming audio with what the company calls CD-quality sound. Now available for $200.

Scosche s BlueLife: The FM Transmitter Killer [BlueTomorrow.com]

DLO Ships TransDock Micro iPod Charger/Car Adapter

Charlie White — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:42:19 EST

Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO) is now shipping TransDock Micro, an iPod charger and adapter that uses FM to link your iPod to your car radio. Nothing new there, but the TransDock can also charge up other USB devices such as the Motorola RAZR, offers four preset stations, and works with all the iPods including the shuffle.

Plug the unit into your car's cigarette lighter, and you can connect another device such as a portable DVD player or PSP into its auxiliary input, letting you play that audio through the car stereo, too. Not bad for $70.

Product page [Digital Lifestyle Outfitters]

Live From CES: Parrot Rhythm 'N' Blue

gizmodo.com — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 14:35:33 EST

Stopped by Parrot's booth today and couldn't find any birds flying around. I did however spot Parrot's new car stereo head unit called Rhythm 'N' Blue. It's a CD/MP3/FM head unit with Bluetooth integrated for using with your phone. Just pair up your Bluetooth-enabled cellphone and the RNB takes care of all the fun stuff. You can browse through your phone book on the head unit, dial calls from it, or hit the "phone" music button to stream music from your phone to your car stereo, ID3 tags included. There's also an additional remote included so that someone in the backseat can make phone calls. You can also use the microphone included to voicedial people on your phone. Everything worked properly when it paired up with my Sony-Ericsson W800i and music streamed perfectly. Totally awesome. It's available now and is great for someone who's always on the phone in the car.

JVC HX Series Mobile Speakers

tgrumet — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 12:04:53 EST

We know we've been a little remiss on good car stuff, but we're getting there. Promise. JVC, for instance, announced a new line of six HX Series coaxial mobile audio speakers at CES, all featuring neodymium and strontium magnets, a metal sputtering olefin woofer cone and 3-Way Installation. The line-up includes two 6 x 9-inch models, one 6 x 8-inch model, two 6 -inch models, and one 5 -inch model—with maximum power handling ranges from 220 to 500 watts. Pricing starts at $50 to $130.
Also look for 2 new V4-Series speaker systems, made specially to fit Ford, Mazda, GM and VW vehicles. The CS-V6834 goes for $70 and CS-V4624 retails for $50.