the alpine TUA has been replaced with this:

http://www.xmradio.com/xm_direct/index.jsp


this is a tiny "universal tuner box" that works with all head units, just add the "smart cable" that goes with your particular brand of headunit.

unfortunately the alpine cable that goes with it is not yet out but should be any time now.... the kenwood, sony, and pioneer adapters are out already. dual makes a headunit with the "smart cable" built in, so you only need to add the xm direct box.

 

LOL, they have been saying this nearly EVERY WEEK since January.

"Available soon..."
"Should have it out next week sometime..."
"Definitely by next month...."
"End of the quarter..."

The last word I heard was in September from the one, single, solitary OEM making the adapter:

"Hey, we only have one guy working on this. Give him a break, it's not like this is his highest priority..."

This is a major failure by Alpine, and I figure it's due to their stubbornness in keeping Ai-Net a secret/tightly restricting licensing. It may end up being a decent interface, but hell, if it's never used, who cares?

Meanwhile, Alpine, Crutchfield, Circuit City and every single reseller of Alpine headunits advertises that they are XM ready and can control XM receivers.

Since they can't really do that, it stinks like false advertising to me.

I mean, they KNOW they can't, and they SAY they can. Go figure.

(Of course the exception WAS the Alpine TUA posted above--but of course that was discontinued months ago.)

Alpine + XM = huge HUGE flop

Alpine + XM Specifications and Advertising = false advertising, complete misrepresentation

/rant

I say this as an otherwise happy Alpine owner--just PO'd that it was one of my criteria for buying it, and at how lame they are at being truthful about the situation.

 

yep I use to have 2 xm subscriptions until i sold my sony headunit w/sony xm receiver and replaced it with an alpine. I saw the XMDirect announced at CES last Jan and have been waiting for it to be released. Think of all the other people who have alpine headunits and who will not pay stupid ebay prices for the TUA, that's a lot of loss revenue for XM. I've been without a second xm unit for exactly one year now. Now that the ipod adapter has been released, i may not even add xm back into the car.