Sorry Schnitz, I just re-read your post (got side-tracked on your link), please ignore my last post.

 

if the headunit says "lexus PREMIUM audio" its a pioneer system
if it says nakamichi, it's a nakamichi system.

 

I don't know why you couldn't find seller "factoryradios" on eBay. He's currently got 373 radios on eBay with most of them having an added aux input. I just now grabbed the attached graphic from eBay for one of many Lexus radios he is currently has for sale.

If I was going to add an aux-in, I'd send my radio to factoryradios -- he's in Rancho Cucamonga CA. Reviewers of his aux-in mod have said it produces CD quality sound. Spending $60 + shipping sounds better to me than hacking/soldering a CD cable but each to his own.

I've gotten real good lately at burning converted MP3's onto CD's -- can't believe I didn't do it sooner since it is so easy and sounds so good. I'm no longer very interested in adding an aux-in. I'll tough it out with this car and make sure my next car has aux-in, iPod-in or Bluetooth A2DP. I have several 6-CD cartridges that I load up and rotate in the in-dash CD changer when I want to vary the music I listen to. I'm not a typical music listener anyway ... been analyzing an album from the French Moroccan film score composer Armand Amar for the past few weeks so I can perform the music. Here's a piece from the excellent 2006 film La faute à Fidel!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWH3HzuzHI4

 

Kansas, PD,
Thanks for the clarification on the HU mfg.

Kansas,
I was able to find your ebay seller by doing an item number search, still could not locate by searching seller name !? I wiil check it out, I am intrigued as to their mod process, after reading 34 pages of PD's thread.

 

Kansas, I have never really given much thought to copying an already down-graded-CD-quality MP4 file back onto a CD, but I guess it is an option in the interim. How many files can you typically get onto a CD?

I am currently awaiting communication from your ebay seller, however, I am a bit nervous about sending my perfectly good HU to a stranger w/o a clue as to his mod proceedures, I have serious trust issues!

 

I was actually stunned at the the quality and clarity of very low bass notes when I copied/converted MP3 to a CD. My Nakamichi does a remarkable job on low bass notes on commercial CD's but I expected very little from burned CD -- I was amazed. Hoffdaddy, have you tried burning/converting MP3's to CD audio format?

I have no idea how many tracks one can cram onto a burned CD. I've burned more tracks onto a CD than I've ever seen on a commercial CD. I'm doing some experimenting right now to see how many 3 to 5 minute music tracks I can cram on to one CD -- I'll report back.

Factoryradios is not "my eBay seller". I'd have "trust issues" too. The guy has a high eBay rating but eBay ratings are sort of "fixed". I use eBay a lot and have never been burned except for buying one product where a seller didn't disclose that some software was not truly compatible with Windows XP and had to run in compatibility mode.

 

Hoffdaddy, I did some experimenting and found that the number of music tracks I can burn on to a CD varies a lot -- probably depends on the track length. The most I got on one CD in my test was 25 tracks and the least was 16 tracks. I created one freakin' big playlist and let Windows Media Player figure out how many tracks from the playlist to burn on to each CD.

 

I burned a cd just moments ago and was able to get around 30 songs on one 80 minute cd. The bit rate of the MP3 will determine the quality. I cannot hear any difference between factory CDs and the ones I burn. 6 CDs times around thirty songs equal 180 tunes... quite a lot. I just ordered an extra cartridge for $22 so I will have more than enough songs to play with.

My Land Cruiser has a stereo that plays MP3s and has a thumb drive connection that is real easy to use. Depending on the size of the thumb drive I have thousands of songs available.

 

Kansas, I have NOT attempted to burn MP3 MP4 back to CD, do you need special CD's, I have some old unused CD-RWs (4X 700mb) laying around, curious to hear about your track burn results!

 

I tried to use older CD and results were bad... Go with the new ones.. The ones I used were 52x 700. Worked great and burns very quick. They are dirt cheap anywhere you look. I got 50 for around 15cents appease.

 

Rugster, Thanks for the advice, did you record at the minimum fixed MP3 bitrate to get your 30 tracks. I already have 90% of my dig audio in the MP4 format.

Is your Cruiser new (came with the thumb drive (USB) connection)?, I have a 100 series (99) and I am going to add an aux to it as well.

 

When sound is recorded, it is represented electronicly as waves. In order to store this sound on your computer, these waves must be converted to a digital format. This is done by 'sampling' the waves many times per second. The data from this wave sampling is stored in your computer as a MP3 file. You can store the file as a wave file also but most convert the wave files found on CDs to MP3/4 files. By having your music in digital form (mp3 for example) you have a file roughly 1/10 the size of a wave file.

When recording for playing in your car audio you are recording the tracks in wave form. The bit rate refers to MP3 recording quality which is in digital form.


The radio in my 98 LC is a JVC unit that I installed.

 

Rugster, thanks for the dig audio lesson, back to my question, what sampling bitrate did you choose when copying mp3's back to your cd, ie 128bps fixed (minimum) or higher??

 

Mine were 128.

 

following the advice of this forum, I used a 4PDT relay and spliced (soldered) into the CD changer harness under the passenger seat. I installed a push button switch and ran a 1/8" stereo cable to the lower center console. I push the button to switch between CD changer and 1/8" input.
The color coding for the wiring on specific models can be found in the Audio section of the ClubLexus forums. Nakamichi is different than the pioneer, I think you have to splice behind the changer itself, rather than under the seat.
It works perfect, and I can leave whatever CD's I have in the changer.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...2#ht_823wt_941

I'll post pix of the solder job soon.