i hope to post a couple more ideas like this in the near future. lets open up some discussion. this system is a little off the beaten path. the idea of this suggestion is to include the factory radio into a system that can play modern media, be affordable (starting around $400-$500 total), and have a custom flavor be applied to some of its application. the blaupunkt Me-2 and ME-3 models are a "portable CD rom" looking devices that can be mounted in the trunk, glovebox, under seat, or maybe even in some consoles. the major difference between the model 2 and 3 is that the 3 has the addition of a television tuner. here are the features that make this install of particular interest to a classic car owner. plays DVD, CD, CDV, and mp3 files burned on CDs. wireless remote that controls all functions including volume and built in 13 band EQ and accessing the aux input (your factory radio). a 25 foot extension "eye" for the remote that lets you mount the player anywhere in most vehicles and still control the it. there is even a video input that could be used for a rear-view camera application. THIS SYSTEM I AM ABOUT TO EXPLAIN WILL NOT WORK WITH MOST FACTORY SPEAKERS BECAUSE THEY MAY BE GROUNDED TO THE CAR BODY!! here are some ideas .... if you take the speaker wires from your factory radio(just the front OR the rear) and wire them into the "speaker level to pre-amp adapter" available from most electronics stores. then you take that preamp signal, using RCA patchcords and run the radio's sound into the audio inputs on the blaupunkt. doing this will allow you to listen to the factory radio for it's (low quality) AM/FM sound. now you RCA audio signal coming OUT of the blaupunkt will run to an amplifier. i am not gonna suggest an amp at this time due to the variety of directions available from this point. but i may cover this aspect in closer detail if there is some interest in this thread. here is where the system gets a little fun/tricky/cool. you take the blaupunkt's VIDEO OUT cord and hook it to a TV or small monitor of some sort. this screen will enable you to see the "folders" of music and the song file names when you are playing mp3 files. of course this screen will also let you see whatever movie might be playing ( uuuum ..check you local laws about being able to veiw this screen while the car is moving ... this is an area i will choose to ignore for now). here are some general monitor mounting ideas for old cars ... maybe have it flip up out of your console ... or motor down from under the dash... if your dash has a major overhang, maybe the monitor could flip down ... OR ..you could have your tv monitor motor up from the original 4x10 hole in the dash ... or (you get the idea). i have kicked this system around in my head for a couple of years. i repeatedly emailed blaupunkt, crutchfield and at least three sellers on ebay requesting pictures of the mp3 folders on the tv screen when playing mp3 discs. none of them responded. i didnt want to put too much thought into this system only to find out that the menu and text would be too small for the driver to read in moving a car. lucky for me, my best friend just bought an ME-2 this week so we hooked it up in his house tonight. the view of folders is almost full screen and were not too hard to read even on a small 5 inch color tv he had laying around. a nearby 6 or 7 inch screen would be excellent for this system. attached is a vague layout of the system.
I have been looking at a system called NEO-35. It is a actual computer hard drive in a case with RCA and a FM modulator. It also comes with the USB dock for home to transfer the music into it. One of the cool features of it is the new voice software that will tell you the file and folder names so you don't have to look at the screen! The prices start at around $350 without a hard drive or $450 and up with depending on the size of the hard drive. I have thought about putting a docking bay in each of my vehicles and just moving the hard drive between them. I would think that a video out could be added and movies or whatever stored on the hard drive and played. Mike
i own a couple of NeoCarJukeboxes each with a 160 gig HD(i replaced the original 20 gig HDs). the FM modulator is the poorest quality device i have ever seen and is not worth using. i added the voice chip to one of them for a while but found it was MUCH quicker to browse with the remote than sit through its slowness.... and sometimes it would play the wrong folder or song. after yanking the voice chip i connected it to a premier deh-p670 and now use it like a cd changer. it works pretty good that way although sometimes it looks like the song titles are in german(?). turning the radio off and on again usally straightens it up. the pioneer/premier adapter cord was 100 bux. hooking it straight into a car amplifier works really well. it can even turn the amp on with its remote trigger wire. talk about a simple system. easy to wire and with the 160 gig drive, it can hold almost 25,000 tunes recorded at 320kbps cbr. but you have no tuner which i dont care about anyway. (thats why i didnt bring up this system to start this thread) the home/usb box works good too. its nice having the NEO hooked up to my home stereo when i dont want to mess with changing CDs..i also bought the extra bay that mounts inside my PC. it lets me transfer tunes much faster than the USB hook-up. with the USB bay you can also use the NEO as a regular portable HD. more later if needed.
NOPE ... the car bay is made specifically to play mp3 and m3u files. only has right and left audio out. putting the car bays in all of your cars would work fine. but if you were to use the voice chip in the NEO you cant also use it hooked as a "changer" device on an alpine, pioneer, kenwood of jvc radio. you have to choose one or the other. if you had an aux in on any of you car radios, it wouldnt be too hard to use the portable USB box to move from car to car. i think the portable box runs on 12 vdc. it has its own R/L audio outputs. ... and you can even shoot at it with the wireless (IR) remote.
