Ive read that their are limitations to what the Alpine interface can handle, but I dont really understand how the limitation works. Help, TIA.

 

theres not really a limitation.. but its a little slow.. if you have a lot of albums, artists etc, it takes a while to scroll through the list. the best thing to do is to make playlists, it makes driving a whole lot easier :-)

I have the alpine 9855, with the Ipod Interface.

 

from what i understand from everything i've read, the HU memory is set up to handle the max number of folders/files from a mp3 CD, about 255 max or something. it can't handle a file list of the size the ipod generates. have more than X number of titles that it has to buffer to scroll through (be it playlist titles, album titles, song titles, etc) and it starts labeling everything after the Xth title as file001, file002, etc (or somthing like that) . so unless you go to the effort (which some people have) of making sure there are no more than X choices in any layer of the filing system, you will come to a point where it isn't able to display the file name.

and on top of that its just slow

my personal dislike of it (and no, i do not have the interface, just an ipod) is that it doesn't allow you to continue listening from where you just left off when you disconnect it. i like it w/ my line-out/cig adapter where i turn off the car, it pauses automatically. I disconnect it, plug in my headphones and it pics up from where i left off. disconnect from the alpine and it forgets what you were listening to.

 

Thanks for the feedback dood.s

I kinda hate playlists I was just going to load 59gb of mp3s and set her on shuffle-o. So I'm guessing that would be slow then?

or mabye I could just make album level playlists and randomize those?

how slow compared to an mp3 cd? or a cd changer (both of which I have many of)

 

The "slow" part is if you want to search for something. If you set it on shuffle and just drive, it's fine. You'll think you're listening to a MP3 CD.

In shuffle mode you can advance to the next song (skip) but that's about it. If left in the car it does remember where it left off next time you start the car. Unless you've let the car sit for more than a day, in which case it displays "no cartridge" or something like that and won't let you use the iPod. You have to unplug it and plug it back in again to get it to work.

If you use artist search, once you find an artist you are committed to them for life. It puts the iPod into "repeat artist forever" mode and you have to press a half-dozen buttons to choose a different artist.

And there's no such thing as "next album" or "next artist". But that's an Apple hang-up. Microsoft wants to control how we use computers, Apple wants to dictate how we listen to music.

 

I agree w/ what everyone has said above ... slow. I've also had an issue w/ mine that i've not heard mentioned before. On about 4 occasions, either while connected or immediately thereafter, my ipod has frozen. The standard reset stuff does nothing. The only remedy i've found is to let the battery completely drain and then recharge.

I've not heard of anyone else reporting this, but my ipod works flawlessly otherwise, so i have to believe it has to do w/ the Alpine interface.

Still having said that, it's only happened a few times and i like having access to that much music, so i guess it's worth it.

 

I'm not very happy with mine, but I think it is still useful. Searches are basically impossible unless you are sitting at a stoplight. The scroll rate thru items is far slower than with an MP3 CD, I understand this is a limitation of the serial interface transmitting the song data. The interface and use of buttons is also very clunky and counterintuitive. There's no way I know of to shuffle playlists, when you are in playlist mode you cannot enable mix. Mix Folder and Mix Disc are completely backwards in function, and is it just me or do they randomly alternate between meaning different things? I also wish that in addition to the artist and title searches they would include a genre search.

Lastly I also have a similar freeze glitch from time to time. It may or may not be related to the fact that the iPod is pretty random as to whether it will sleep when the car or HU is powered off, or whether it will continue playing until it completely drains its battery. I haven't figured this out either.

Of course you can get around all this stuff by just setting shuffle mode on the ipod itself and plugging it in, at which point it will play whatever your Ipod was playing before. But if your iPod is hidden away, this is hard to do.

I still like having it though, because you can hide the iPod and still see what song is playing, and because it sounds exactly 1 million times better than the iTrip or a cassette adapter. I just wish Apple would design a whole damned headunit.

Peter

 

modifry: you the man. I got yer dci: awesome product, although, you owe me an ir led tell me if you want to construct a dci for audi, theyve needed one for a while, and Id invest it.

others:

if mine freezes like that I will be mighty salty. mine is to never be seen by passengers. but I do agree that all I really want is to know what song is what. I still havent figured out how to use that gd white strip on the alpin HU to dial in my eq.

 

so Ive hooked it up and I'm gonna have to figure out the search, but for now I just disconnect the ipod, find what I want and plug it back in. not quite what I had in mind.

 

Hmm... I could have sworn mine allow that. I'll be listening to a song in the gym and then go back to my car, plug it in and it starts off where I left off.

I might be wrong though... I'll pay closer attention when I leave to go home today.