gearbox

iTrader: (95)

I bought this thing for $10 hoping it will let me hook up an mp3 player (any kind with stereo headphone jack will work) to my alpine cd player with AI NET cd changer interface in the back. the cable plugged in fine, altho a bit too secure as i had to use a screwdriver to pry it out. well i hooked up my sandisk sansa mp3 player which sounds absolutely beautiful with its own earbud headset. plug it in, set my alpine to AUX ON, and changed mode to aux to hear the mp3 player. no sound? hmm lets turn the volume up. maxed out the alpine volume at 35 and i heard some faint music coming from somewhere. so i turned up my mp3 player's volume almost to full in order to actually hear the music, and it sounded terrible! worse than xm radio like a 50 kbps music file. it had the proper stereo and everything, but the quality was like i was wearing a towel around my head. very disappointed so i took everything out and threw away the cable. if anyone's interested in doing this, its a really bad idea. its just not a good way to stream music. it actually sounded even worse than fm modulation. poo

DieMaster

iTrader: (5)

shoulda gone with ipod. better aftermarket support.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

oh well. i cant stand apple. dont make me get into it or there will be a full page essay lol. i would rather just use my alpine with mp3 cds than buy an ipod.

infinitypro12

Hey I read your post and I have roughly the same setup, yours is probably newer. My head unit is I believe the 9803 model and I about an ai-net to 3.5 mm (this one to be exact http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product). I on the other hand have an IPOD, but that shouldn't make any difference. It sounds like your plug is messed up on the part your bought because you know that yiou MP3 works and I can affirm that the ai-net will work for that application.

IPOD or not, as I said, it should work. Mine works fine and I use it everyday and it sounds like you got stiffed on a cable. You should dig the cable out of the trash and see if you have a friend with another style MP3 player to double check. Sorry to hear about your wasted money man.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

i did try a second mp3 player i had that i also know works, still the same problem of terrible quality and barely any volume. i have a hard time believing its a bad cable, i mean its just wiring and when i opened up the plug, everything seemed well connected. and i should have known this already before buying anything. its kinda like using a sound card to power unamplified speakers. even at full volume it still sounds like crap. the input is just not a high enough voltage. maybe ipods go much louder and that would fix the volume problem, but i still think an actual cd in the unit will sound better.

infinitypro12

Very interesting! I wonder if your Ai-net in the actualy head unit is working. As you said, cables are easy but the headunit can be a different story. I have ran an IPHONE (not mine), an HTC Magic (my phone), and sansa player through mine and all are pretty equal so I don't think it is your player. My three guesses are either head unit, missed wiring in the harness, or bad cable, and I would test in reverse order.

Have you tried your player on anyone elses radio with a 3.5mm? I would try another cable if you have the extra cash and if that doesn't work save up for the fancy new ones that can make bluetooth calls and crap.