Alright, so I haven't seen anyone do this to their car, but I'm basically considering removing my headunit , cutting the input wires from the CD changer, and splicing on a jack for an mp3 player. Of course I would tape off the remaining CD changer wire and stash it someplace safe so that if I chose to I could reverse the whole procedure. I assume the CD payer would still attempt to read CDs while receiving the actual input from the mp3 player. Am I just asking for trouble this way or will it work out alright? I really don't care that I wont have access to the cd changer anymore as the changer skips over the slightest bumps or uneven roads (but oddly doesn't skip when I can't avoid a big bumps like potholes).

Now I could just buy a tape-deck plug in for my mp3 player, but I used to have one of those, and the sound quality was absolute garbage. Maybe it was just the tape-deck in my old car, but I don't want to buy another one if the results will be the same.

What do you think?

 

it is not as easy as just cut and splice, there is alot more work then u think u need to use relays and resistors and some soldering. there is a post in the audio section

 

I did that with my mp3 player, the head unit will just say error. I did it without the relays, I just spliced into the CR L/R +/- and it still works and comes in pretty good.

 

leave the cd changer in place and cut the audio out put wires from it. there is a huge write up on how to do it here on clublex

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=269156

 

Thanks for the heads up guys, that is one hell of an article. Good stuff.

 

In action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urOFqTN8Nhw

You mean like that? .

***CREDIT FOR DESIGN*** goes to Puredrifter, actual build me, modded his design too.

 

wait it in the video yours looks like it doesn't have a switch and it only has the plug in. is that right, if so where did you get the parts that's exactly what I'm wanting to make mine do instead of having to toss a switch

 

Mine has a switch now, but before we put it in, what I was (am still) using was (is) this:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search

Basically when you plug the cable in it switches the lines from the cd changer to the input.

 

thats the same jack I'm using... wait you can wire it to act as your switch man I'm going to have to kill time trying to work on it again I'll have to look harder at it and figure out how it works.

any tips/tricks to working on things this small, like some clip ons that work with the tinny deals on the back side of it?

 

My pops did all the soldering, so I don't necessarily rememeber which wires were fed where, but I did follow Puredrifters splice and tapped into w/e wires the thread specified to do so to. Check up on it again, but if you think about it, its stereo with 5 inputs. 1 for ground I believe and 2 for left and right channel. I can't personally say how to do it, because I'm horrible at wiring and don't want to be responsible if your car blows up from my bad advice

 

i figured it out just have to solder it now... ugg

 

I've got to tell you.....maybe your tape deck heads are dirty or the cassette adapter is bad, because I use a inexpensive cassette adapter with my Zune, connected via the 3.5mm head phone jack, and it sounds great !!!! I have the factory Nav and a cradle/charger made specifically for a Zune which then plugs into the cigarette lighter in the ashtray. The cradle also has a built in FM transmitter (which sounds bad) but the cassette adapter option sounds wonderful (for a car stereo).

If you have an iPod...there are hundreds of cradle options for that product.
Just my .02 .

 

yeah a tape adapter would work but it doesn't have half the cool factor of a hard wired input lol

 

Plus with a tape adaptor those things wear out fast. At least the one in my buddies car did. He had to replace them often, and they are about 15 bucks a pop. I prefer the 5 dollar cables that you have to rarely change out and a one time fee for building it.

 

both cassettes and fm transmitters have inherent flaws since they both cut off the usable frequency ranges compared to a CD or high quality MP3 recording.