MBTC

I recently got an iPod Touch, one of the only MP3 players I could find that supported Bluetooth Audio.

Paired it up tonight, and could not be more thrilled. My customer satisfaction with this car just went even more through the roof thanks to this feature

I would have thought wireless audio quality would be not-so-great, but on some of the MP3s I am hearing instruments I've never heard before. Sounds as good as CDs to me. You would never know these are compressed MP3s.

I have the standard (not Mark Levinson) stereo without nav.

I have not yet tried the USB port and navigating via the car stereo yet, but will report back once I have done so. In my case, I think the BT-A is going to be more useful to me, because even though I have to use the iPod Touch itself to do the navigation, you see so much more detail about songs, and its easy enough to keep the tiny iPod Touch within easy reach. Also this way I don't have to deal with a cable running to the console.

This setup will definately save some wear and tear on my CD-changer

lilbluu

iTrader: (2)

I wonder if 2006 support BT audio.

MBTC

I'm not sure, BT phone came standard equipment on 2009 and later (I think), and before that BT was an option, so my guess would be that if the BT phone option was on the car then BT-A might be too?

This is not a feature I even knew I had until after I got the car home for a couple of days, experimented around and read parts of the manual. I first noticed it by hitting the mode button, and noticing a mode called "BT-A", and wondering what it was. That's what lead me to looking for MP3 players that supported it, and the iPod Touch seemed like the best choice (plus you can game on it and run other iPhone apps).

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

Nope.

The system needs to support A2DP, which older models don't.

Badger58

Anyone ever done this with a BlackBerry? I've paired it for phone, which works great, but not tried to pump music out of it.

MBTC

Earlier I mentioned I would report back after trying USB. It worked fine, without incident, just plug it into USB and a new mode "iPOD" appears on the stereo along with BT-A, CD, FM, SAT etc.

For some reason I thought it would start playing the same album I was playing through BT-A which I had specifically navigated to using the iPod. It didn't, it started at one of the other albums I had loaded into the MP3 player, which makes sense because it is intended to let you navigate using the stereo or steering wheel controls, which is independent of anything else going on with the iPod.

However, I was short on time so I only spent 2 minutes to verify the USB worked, I did not really try to wrap my brain around the navigation. I got the impression the best approach to use it like this is to set up playlists, which I have not done yet with the iPod, it's just a bunch of albums I dumped onto it. Once you did that I guess you could just navigate to the playlists, and if you've got a ton of music it might behoove you to only have 2 or 3 playlists at a time to keep the navigation simple.

I really need to read the manual and more importantly play around with it to find the right strategy for navigating. Given the shortened titles that show up on the one-line stereo display, I might be more inclined to just use the Bluetooth, which I can see more and navigate a bit more clearly on the iPod display.

Another alternative to the USB iPod port of course is just burn MP3s as data discs and use the 6-disc changer. Given the small display for titles it might be easier to manage 6 discs.

A lot of that might depend on if I buy any music on iTunes (which would make a very compelling case for using either the iPod BT-Audio or the USB port). For years I've been buying all my MP3s, properly tagged, over one of those cheapo russian sites for pennies on the dollar. But it's possible they might not have something I want and I end up having to pay full price on iTunes, so its great to have all these options, plus satellite radio. I've never had it so good.

HeartmyIS

iTrader: (18)

I love this feature also. The first thing I actually asked the dealer before buying the car. I usually just play music straight from a USB stick =) and I believe bluetooth and the USB port is only 10' +

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

iTunes stuff can be had DRM free so you can certainly still convert it to mp3 and burn data CDs... the big limitation there is 6*700mb is only 4.2 gigs of music...versus, well, considerably more for most of the recent ipods.

MBTC

You mean you can just put a thumbdrive in there and it will work?

MBTC

Interesting, I didn't know that. I always thought iTunes was the king of DRM.

The thing with the CD changer is I am likely to have a few regular audio CDs in there. Also I would essentially need to burn a 700mb "playlist" for one CD. It's a good approach for some uses, I just liked the idea of quickly copying a few tunes to the iPod and playing via Bluetooth... only because navigating large amounts of music is so good on the iPod compared to other methods (CDs or using the USB port). I know that might not be the case for those with the Nav screen.

Kurtz

iTrader: (1)

Well, mp3 cds support folders, so you can organize em that way...


Anyway, Apple killed DRM on itunes store over a year ago-

http://www.macworld.com/article/1379...tunestore.html

MBTC

(Talking to myself)

Can anyone confirm?

LyleBeach

iTrader: (1)

You should be able to change tracks with the steering wheel controls?? I know that when I play Pandora via Bluetooth, I can skip tracks with the steering wheel. (I have 2010 Non ML, with Nav)

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...010-isx50.html

MBTC

I tried it today and it didn't skip tracks, I thought maybe it was a one-way signal. It's possible the iPod was locked, I will try it again tomorrow.

I was pleased to find that it paused the track I was listening to when I cut the car power off to go in the grocery store (very nice), but I thought that was just the iPod detecting loss of signal and pausing rather than actually receiving signal from the car.

Thanks for the USB stick thread link too.

bichoo

So cool! I wish I had this on my 09! Just missed by a year!