Be Excellent To Each Other

I've just got my new car and finally it has an aux socket to connect to Ipod.

Now my question is this - what gives best sound quality - a lead which connects to the ipod headphone socket or to the base of the ipod (classic) or does it not make a difference?

Merci

I'd be shocked if you could notice any difference.

Yeah I reckon it's the same except that the one from the base will be at line level but the other will be dependent on the iPod's volume setting.

Cheers gents,
That's just the answer i was hoping for.

Aye. When I plug my iPhone into the dock connected to my hifi at home, the volume control on the phone does nothing. It just means markh will need to control the volume from the head unit.

Of course, one that plugs into the headphone socket will be £2. One that plugs into the base will be £17.

Typically, i have every type of lead apart from the one i require at home. Alanis Morrisette would call that ironic, I would term it a 'pisser'.

So this thread is full of good advice, that you just can't take?

"The cable plugs in there and your mp3 player plugs in there!"
"It's not all like that, honestly, tee hee!"

£2?
/search
72p is more like it.

99p on Ebay inc postage, and not from Hong Kong amazingly. How the ruddy hell can anyone accept paypal and still make any sort of profit/be remotely worthwhile? I guess they hope that peoplr accidentally take the 2.99 postal insurance.

I'll sell you some gold plated cables for £2000.
Bargain.

Word of advice on cheap leads. Yes we all know that Maplins will sell you a lead for 30 quid that claims to have dancing girls etc contained within which are a waste of money, but on the flip side cheap leads are also a waste of money.

A former idiot "know all" colleague installed a load of audio encoders with cheap leads. Encoders that all of you will have listened to the output of at some stage.

Problem was the leads were shit. The connectors were so thin that they couldn't withstand being replugged more than a couple of times. Cable quality was shit as well. In fact they were just nasty. And there they were sitting in mission critical live equipment.

I replaced them when I could with better leads from Studio Spares. Five times the price (99p a lead v a fiver) but these leads were properly built and had good quality connectors and decent screening. When I did the next project (which required 40 encoders so the radio anoraks here can guess what project it was) I put my leads on all the encoders.

Some people might argue that I wasted money but I argue a good lead will last a lifetime. A cheap lead will last about three repluggings!

I agree with the chinster. My theory on leads (and tools, too) is to work out what you need, find the cheapest price and then buy the next one "up".
I had a box of wires when I used to DJ (I was quite proud of my ability to plug anything into anything else), and it was rare any broke.
But don't bother about oxygen free, or gold plating. 72p is a fair price for a lead like that, IMO.

The Skytronic leads I got for (the organisation with the fountain that Roy Castle tapped danced around with hundreds of kids - Ed) were gold plated oxygen free, but that was a non consideration. What I was looking for was the best build quality for the best price. When I set up myself, I also purchased leads from the same manufacturer. I loved the quality of the connectors and the substantial nature of the cable. Critically the connectors were not the cheap moulded type, but could unscrew revealing quality solder joints. I was impressed enough to buy in the region of 80 cables all in.

I figured that considering it wasn't unusual for me to have to order hundreds of quids worth of pre-made XLR cables, spending a few quid extra on decent leads to go into the nasty domestic soundcards in the encoders was perfectly fine when you considered that thousands of people were listening to each of them. I was questioned any my response was that there was a broadcast chain costing hundreds of thousands of pounds that was eventually reaching a cable costing no more than 99p that I wouldn't use on a domestic hi-fi. I got my way (I usually did).

I wonder where you stole that from. Or who. And you've misquoted anyway.

Cheap Leads are made of cheese,
who am I to disagree?
I've travelled Maplins and CPC,
Everybody's looking for lead free.

If you're buying lead leads you're doing it very, very wrong.

Max Power in about 1996. And I probably have, that was 13 years ago.

You could have used "oxygen free".

Too many syllables, but thanks.

The version I prefer -- which I am sure I have quoted to you -- is "buy the cheapest tool that is clearly better than the one you (think you) need (right now)."

'Everyone's looking for oxy-free'?

Doesn't fit the rhyming pattern, but thanks.

"something"

That's not changing it from the original lyric, but thanks.

"Everyone wants oxygen-free?"

Cheap leads make Chinny sneeze?

Olly-olly, oxy-free!

'Chinny is so gay for stu-ey'

On the iPod top vs. iPod bottom tip: I think bottom only offers sonic advantages if your car has a good DAC. USB connection = digital ting. Cars don't tend to have good DACs (as far as I'm aware), so headphone-out should be fine.

On the cheap cable tip: I got a 2m optical cable the other week, for £1.50. It has snapped. I can't even use the Toslink-minijack adapter, as it's stuck to the snapped-off bit. Meanwhile, more expensive Cambridge Audio optical cable is going strong. I've had it for a decade.

There is no digital audio out on the iPod dock connector. Devices can emulate a USB device and hack into the iPod's filesystem (this is how the 360 did it) but that's not supported by Apple and breaks with new stuff (which is why the 360 can't talk to anything newer than a 5G iPod).

Devices that plug into the bottom are using the line level analogue audio output. In theory this is higher quality than the headphone jack, as the iPhone's (weedy) internal amplifier is bypassed. In practice, I've never been bothered by distortion by using the headphone jack as a ghetto line out. YMMV.

Oh wow, thanks for the info.


I second this. I had my iPhone playing lossless files, via a crummy cable, into my Cyrus and it sounded weirdly good. Not as good as my MacBook playing said files via an optical lead into my DAC, and thence into my Cyrus. But you know, get what you pay for an' that.

In fact, said iPhone was louder and clearer, via the same cable, into the same amp, than my friend's portable CD player.

Your friend is Old Skool, yawww!

I actually put my stereo into the attic a few weeks ago reasoning that I have no need for CDs any more. This saddened me as I still buy them

That, and his iPod died during a particularly drenching Wakefield rainstorm.

What about the Alpine units that claim to be using a fully Apple-authorised digital output? Or is that just for the database?

Hmm, interesting. Link me do. Do they only work on older iPods?

This kind of thing perhaps.

Terrible flash, probably in there somewhere though. They claim they use a full digital interface through the docking connector, developed with Apple, to run at much higher speeds at least for stuff like reading the database. I don't know if that means digital audio or not.

Edit: Though hang on, the XDA-001 is the old unit, there've been a few since then. Hang on.
Edit: No, fuck it, they've turned their website(s) all to Flash shit from when I last looked.

Iiiiiinteresting.

I did some reading. I cannot find a definitive citation, but I'm sure I know how this works. Just like iPod's 5Gs and earlier when plugged into a 360, the head unit is bypassing most of the iPod's software; it's reaching into the guts, grabbing the library metadata, and reading the files directly, much like iPod recovery software does. It then passes those files to it's own internal codec stack (which is why they claim digital playback... accurate, but confusing if you think in terms of digital audio output).

What's surprising is that all this is Apple-sanctioned. Apple took steps to stop this stuff happening in modern iPods, which is why you can't plug them into 360s any more. I note that the cable the head unit plugs into the Dock connector is magic in some way, it seems standard Apple USB cables don't work. It's possible the cable has some DRM handshake in it that prods the iPod into letting the head unit interrogate parts of it that are normally hidden (although not well hidden, or the third-party recovery software I linked to above wouldn't work).

It's certainly known to work on the iPhone/Touch - or was, at least; I believe the original XDA-001 could be problematic, but the newer versions improved it. If it still works with 3.x firmware, I've no idea; presumably if it didn't your reading would've turned that up. They do display the "designed for iPod" logo, which I doubt they would if Apple had issues, and being Alpine they'll certainly find it hard to hide (especially with them tooting their trumpet about it).

I've spent the last year or two more worried about the big metal lump in the front of the car than the little box that makes more musical noises though.