How to accomplish my vision for audio? No deck, small amp with aux input?

[vagus]

I was thinking the other day, why bother with a deck at all? I don't even own a CD anymore. The media car audio decks still have more features than i need.

It seems to me there should be a simple small amp I can tuck in the dash or in the radio din with a cover plate that will power the speakers and has a simple aux 1/8 headphone style jack that I can plug an ipod/iphone with iheart radio or my playlist.

Anyone ever see such a thing?

[Asbradley21]

I did this pretty much, except I used a pretty sizable amp w/ sub. It performed well enough.
The issues I came into were ground loop feedback and lack of equalization.

[eLKuRLy]

I did this a long-long time ago. When Ipods were new, my deck took a sh**. For a while, I cruised with only the ipod but I had and EQ(pre-amp) with 2 amps. sounded great.
Sound will depend on your amp: loudness, sound quality.

[AndrewBird]

You are going to want to run an EQ like this:

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_9002_Boss-EQ1208.html

This will bring the output voltage from your MP3 player up to levels that the the amp can use properly and several RCA outputs for whatever amps you end up running. It will also give you a volume knob, which is quite handy.

[Asbradley21]

You are going to want to run an EQ like this:

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_9002_Boss-EQ1208.html

This will bring the output voltage from your MP3 player up to levels that the the amp can use properly and several RCA outputs for whatever amps you end up running. It will also give you a volume knob, which is quite handy.

Hot damn, that's exactly what I needed.

[dwvw]

This works good from what I have heard.

http://www.kicker.com/pxi502

[Tremelune]

I considered this as well. A universal iPod dock with a remote would get you a long way down the road with everything hidden in the glovebox if desired. You could get an outboard DAC for the iPod to produce a crystal clear signal to an amp. If it was USB, it's likely compatible with all kinds of digital audio players.

For an amp, you can use an Alpine KTP-445U. It's about as small/simple as it gets.

You'll lose the ability to fade and/or control the levels of individual amps/channels (like the sub), but only while you're driving. Also note that you won't save any money vs buying the cheapest Alpine and sticking it in the glovebox. That said, I think a lot of setups are going to go in this direction as head units continue to get uglier and complicated. Errybody just wanna plug in they iPod and go for a drive.

Let us know how it works out. I have yet to see a writeup with a completed solution discussing what they've "lost" in losing the head unit.

[nofattys]

I did this in my G8. Depending on the level of sound quality you want, your budget can range from 300 bucks to 1000. I went with the high end. My set up was as follows

Cowon S9 32gb PMP - I only listen to flac files, and Cowon is widely regarding as having the best DACs on the market when it comes to PMPs, 200 bucks used. I ran this directly to the aux input on a

JBL MS8 - great piece of equipment, gets you about 85 percent of the way to a perfect tune in under 3 minutes. Has a built in 8 channel amp which puts out a clean 20wpc, and can be run hybrid which means you can run the internal amp on some channels as well as an external amp 400 bucks

Audison 5.1k 5 channel class a/b/d amp. 60wpc class a for the tweets, 180wpc class a/b for mids, 700 watts at 2ohms class d for subs. 500 bucks

I used fairly high end speakers, Zapco CK16.1 Competition 6.5in components in the front, CK15.1 Competition 4.5in components in the rear doors run off the internal MS8 amp, and an H Audio 3.5in speaker in the center. Sub duty was handled by Arc Audio Arc8's. Car sounded beautiful

[Skunkworks]

This works good from what I have heard.
http://www.kicker.com/pxi502

I have installed 4 of these in Boats. They are Bitchin...

[rocco16v]

here is a thread that i found on vortex a while ago.

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...ighlight=audio

i did it in my old mk1 and worked really well.

[StereoInstaller1]

This works well too, and is a proper line drive as well: http://www.jlaudio.com/cl-rlc-car-au...xpansion-98117

[BAlbertiX]

This works well too, and is a proper line drive as well: http://www.jlaudio.com/cl-rlc-car-au...xpansion-98117

Working on an install right now with this JL line driver and a simple 4 channel 50Wx4 kenwood. I should have it done in a week. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

[BAlbertiX]

So,

The 4-channel amp with just an RCA line in from my iphone worked well and no static. Definitely loud enough for sunday driving.

Adding the JVC line driver significantly increased the line in volume and helped save battery on my phone running at half volume. HOWever, using the power and ground from the amp to run the line driver created static and alternator whine. A new ground should solve this. And second, the lack of bass and treble control leaves we questioning why I didn't spend that $60 on a 1/2 DIN equalizer with a built in pre-amp. If you like knobs, I'd recommend going with an equalizer w/ driver; however, a $2.99 app :up: from Audioforge Labs Inc also did the job.