Car stereo interface

[Grouch]

Is there a car stereo that can be completely controlled with the Droid?

I've been reading the stereo ads, they don't say much.

What is it that A2DP enables you to do? Is it the way to go?

 

[sitlet]

Are you talking about controlling the stereo with an interface on the droid using bluetooth? Not possible.

 

[Grouch]

Yeh the car stereo industry is holding tight to their 90s displays.

All we need now is an amp and a Droid.

How is the sound quality over BT?

Can you just leave the cell holstered or in your pocket, so when start the radio, it will just keep playing from where it left off last time, through the BT?

 

[mikedamageinc]

Alpine is doing the most right now I think. With my bluetooth headunit I can listen to Pandora and skip songs and play/pause with my steering wheel controls and if bluetooth is enabled, it will connect when I turn on my car and start playing thru the stereo.

Also Alpine has a stereo out that is made for iphone/pandora so it has more interface ability but I havent looked into it too much.

 

[Grouch]

So... correct me if I'm wrong... For optimal sound and media flexibility (play flac, better decoding*), you need the Droid. But. You wont see the song playing, and cannot control what will play from the stereo. So you do have to mount the phone, and then partly control things from the phone, and partly from the stereo.

*The alpine and some others have nice 24-bit dac, but going with just those is quite limiting, since, for example, my Alpine x100 makes it as difficult as possible to switch folders and has a tiny display IMO. I'm hoping to find something made by a real person (an app) to be the best, not something that is the result of corporate filtering.

I've read a lot of complaints about the BT having low sound quality. Is it the bandwidth? Is there a fix?

 

[sitlet]

For optimal sound and media flexibility (play flac, better decoding*), you need the Droid.

Huh? ANY android device will play music, not just a Droid. And to get the best quality sound, use a 3.5mm headphone cable to your stereo. Using bluetooth or an fm adapter will lose quality.

I've read a lot of complaints about the BT having low sound quality. Is it the bandwidth?

Yep, bluetooth wasn't meant to transfer live sound, its just a feature that is beingn supported.

 

[4 Droid Home]

The name I chose was 4 Droid home which is really not true anymore, it's now more like three Droid and one Samsung Facinate. Here is what happned.

About five months ago I put the most wicked stereo system in my wife's Jeep Grand Cherokee. The stereo has hands free talking bluetooth, navigation, I pod connection, Sirus Radio and even a back-up camera.

My wife who owns a company with her parents is in a situation where she has to drive 300 miles out of town and back once a week and the hands free device is always the safest way to go in my opinion.

Her old phone a Samsung Flipshot paired nicely to the Kenwood but was not a smart phone and I wanted her to have Facebook to talk with me and our freinds so I waited eagerly knowing sooner or later she would drop that phone and bye bye birdie.

My dreams where answered and off to Verizon to get her a DROID X like everyone else in the home has, however she liked the Samsung Facinate better, but we all have Droid Xs, we got the Droid X and we took it home and that phone would not pair up to the Kenwood. In fact none of the Droid Xs in the house would pair up. Changed every setting, did everything imaginable but it would not work. I would think a Droid X would pair to anything but no it would not.

I got on the Kenwood site to see what phones are compatible with the most advanced stereo I just bought five months ago and the phones listed where like three years old. Nothing new, I mean it said it would pair up to the first IPhone and nothing after. COME ON KENWOOD!!!

Back to Verizon to get a new phone, something has to work and the manager (never had such good treatment at verizon before, usually poor treatment, BUT WOW not this time, he was going to make it happen) he took all him employee's phones out to the parking lot and we tried pairing up phone, after phone, after phone and the last one, a Samsung Facinate, Paired right up. See what happenes when you dont listen to your wife?????

She has had it a few days now, been talking on it hands free, loves it. Oh by the way, the Navigation system with the Kenwood which is done by Garmin has no updates AT ALL and seems to have been left behind. I plan to get on the phone with Kenwood this week and complain about a navigation system with very old maps and no updates on the maps even for purchase, nothing. Kenwood, I am very disipointed in you and Motorola, I have looked into the bluetooth thing with your Droid X which I love, I am not impressed by what many in the forums say about the Bluetooth on your phone, being substandard.

I would think it would be the android operating system to have caused the problem, but both the Droid X and Samsung facinate have the android operating system, must be the phone.

4 Droid Home

 

[takeshi]

Is there a car stereo that can be completely controlled with the Droid?

I've been reading the stereo ads, they don't say much.

What is it that A2DP enables you to do? Is it the way to go?

A2DP enables stereo audio with Bluetooth. For control, you need to look into AVRCP, IIRC.

How is the sound quality over BT?

Depends on who you ask. Sound quality is a highly subjective topic. I mean, there are people that are happy with the poor audio quality of their FM transmitters. There are those that insist on high quality hardwired audio connections. It's impossible to tell where you fall in this spectrum based solely on your posts. BT isn't as good as wired but whether that makes any difference is up to you to determine.

Huh? ANY android device will play music, not just a Droid. And to get the best quality sound, use a 3.5mm headphone cable to your stereo. Using bluetooth or an fm adapter will lose quality.

If only playing music files on the SD card then USB also provides higher quality.

Yep, bluetooth wasn't meant to transfer live sound, its just a feature that is beingn supported.

A2DP certainly is designed for what it does.

 

[mikedamageinc]

Sound quality is a subjective issue. I have a pretty decent system in my car, high quality compared to average users, low-mid in the audiophile world. I also have the paid subscription to Pandora and the settings are to "high" on the phone and on the user profile. I have my ipod hooked up to the usb port and of course that is the best quality but my phone can come pretty close. Some songs are better than others for some reason but a two hour drive each day I get used to it then switching over to ipod sounds better. Having the skip and pause functions make it all worth while. I also listen to radio.com (AOL) because I like there stations too but quality is definitely less, and free, but doesnt work with controls.

If you are considering buying new equipment then I would wait. In the next year I think we will see more integration with stereos and phones. Look at when ipods got popular, very few head units worked at first, and then even with crappy interface modules, now full control.

 

[Grouch]

Thanks everyone. I'm going with direct connect. Now for which phone...