PsychDoc

For those of you who own the car and who haven't tried it yet, I'd strongly recommend you get a mini plug to mini plug cord (available for about $5 from any Radio Shack, etc.) and plug it in the mini plug jack inside the armrest compartment. Plug in the other to the headphone jack on you Ipod, press Aux. on the center stack audio control in your car and presto, you have access to as many as 15,000 songs (or however many you've put into your Ipod). Be sure to put the Ipod's volume at about 90% and from there, just use the volume of the car's audio system.

Sound quality is essentially perfect and it makes the 'flexibility' of the six CD changer look like a kindergartener's plaything.

This feature may be second only to the Bluetooth and nav in its "cool quotient."

I've only had this car for three days and I'm loving it more each day.

psp

Also...

1. Try using Apple Lossless encoding. Gives you a few less hours of music on your iPod but sounds better on better recordings. I record classical on Lossless and rock on 128k.

2. Use a portable dock or the connection on the $50.00 radio adapter. It sounds better to me than the headphone jack.

I can't wait to get one of those doohickeys to connect the iPod so I can control it with the Nav system.

cleblanc

Are you talking about the SoundLinQ? I looked into that too when i first got my ES350. What is very disappointing for me though and I don't think buying the SoundLinQ will help is that the text details screen showing the artist name, song name, album name, genre is not available while the car is in motion. How stupid and lame is that? I can understand disabling some features that require programming such as navigation and bluetooth, but glancing at a song name? Do they really think people just sit in the car to listen to music without going anywhere?

PsychDoc

By "radio adapter" do you mean one of those little FM transmitters that essentially beams the Ipod info to the car through an unused FM radio channel?

If so, I would think that the direct connection afforded by the miniplug to miniplug approach would render far better results than going in through an unused FM frequency.

What is a "portable dock and how would this "connect" with the car's audio system?

cleblanc

You are probably right that that is what he meant. The SoundLinQ is a very expensive option.
I have a Monster car charger that allows the cable to connect into that instead of the headphone jack. So you are using the dock connector which does give better results than the headphone jack.
Although I liked using my Ipod, I made some MP3 CDs to use instead. I love that they are automatically started and paused when the car is turned on or calls are made or received with the bluetooth, as opposed to starting and pausing my Ipod manually.

Psychdoc - I love your car with the UL package. I also have the Royal Ruby. It is a GREAT color.

psp

No, not an FM transmitter. It is a device that plugs into the base connector of the iPod 5th gen and turns the iPod into a into an FM radio. It has an extra headphone jack on it. It will also play your recorded music through that adapter jack. The headphone jack output from the adapter has better sound than the regular headphone output IMHO. The FM modulators you are describing where they transmit the iPod sound to the car radio are no good at all. Besides the aux jack is right there.

A portable dock also plugs into the butt end of the iPod and gives line out jacks (bypassing the volume control in the iPod) a more direct path from the i-Pod. Some have a line out stereo mini, some have RCA outs.