The Best and Worst iPod Car Audio Solutions

Love them or hate them, iPods are everywhere. Until recently I tied myself to a ship mast and resisted the nearly irresistible siren song of the iPod. I should’ve used stronger rope or better ear plugs, because now I carry an iPhone in my pocket every day. With that, comes an iPod. Being an audiophile, music is a big deal to me, it isn’t some background noise or the faint soundtrack to the movie of my life. Music is the movie, if you will, so it needs to sound as good as possible. Piping all of that gigacrazy music into your car’s audio system is easier than ever with today’s technology. That also means, inevitably, there are some really jank ways to transfer sound from the iPod to the car stereo. Since there are so many music enthusiasts in the world and many new music lovers that have no clue about car audio, we thought we would set the record straight and take a look at some of the best and worst options for iPod integration. If you’re using one of the worst options—look, we’re not trying to make you look bad; we simply want you to do yourself a favor and upgrade. Since we are talking about basic integration, the focus here is mostly on stock head units; that is, connecting your iPod to your factory radio. We’ll take a look at other types of iPod connectivity in a separate article. Worst It is appropriate to start with the worst options, since these are where many beginner enthusiasts get started with integration, the main reason being that they are cheap, simple and easy to install. The problem with these devices is that they seriously inhibit sound quality, not to mention that in some cases they can damage the stereo itself. FM Modulator “Bringing you the absolute worst audio since AM” should be the slogan for FM-modulators. To be clear though FM radio transmissions are not bad, they use high-powered antennas to broadcast a signal through the air and cover up to 100 or so miles. The tiny 12-volt powered FM-Modulator sitting in the ashtray of your car broadcasts a weak signal about ten feet, to the car’s antenna, where it has to fight much more powerful signals to get picked up. Unfortunately we know a lot of you are actually opting for this easy and inferior solution. We understand the temptation. Installation is easy—plug it in, tune your radio to 88-whatever (or another low-digit where there is no radio station signal) and rock out as best you can with the extra richness of static enhancement. Just because it is cheap does not mean it is a good idea. There are other options that aren’t that expensive. If you absolutely MUST use an FM Modulator, buy one that actually plugs in between the radio and the antenna. When it is on, it interrupts the signal to the radio from the antenna, improving the sound quality by limiting the other more powerful signals that interfere. DICE Electronics and other smart manufacturers make such solutions (look at the stand-alone review here). Cassette Tape Adapter Rockin’ it old-school with a tape deck? Holy crud. Unfortunately, we know there are some of you using this option as well! Don’t ruin your tape deck with a cassette adapter to get your music (not that we particularly care about cassette players!). Cassette tape adapters are commonly included in iPod accessory bundles because they are cheap to make and work. Besides the inherent issues with transferring music through the headphone jack, these cassette tape adapters will quickly ruin the tape head in the stereo, so your grandma’s Johnny Mathis tape won’t play. She probably won’t let you borrow her car any more after that. You were driving your grandma’s car, right? Why else would you be in a car with a tape deck? Headphone to 1.5mm Connector Even though this is a better solution than the first two in terms of audio quality, if your car has a 1.5mm jack (headphone size auxiliary input) or even an RCA input on the back of the radio, it still won’t sound that good. The iPod does some funky things to the audio that comes out of the headphone jack, not to mention that we’ve owned a few iPods and that’s the only part that’s mechanically failed. The jack was junk! Since headphones are small, heavy bass passages tend to overdrive the tiny speakers. For this reason, Apple chose to limit the bottom end output via the headphone jack. The result is less-than-stellar bass output and an anemic sound. There are fixes for this, like the AudioControl Epicenter, which rebuilds the lost lower frequencies that the iPod steals away. But that’s practically another story. The headphone jack is not the best method of getting digital music out of your iPod, unless you are actually using headphones. Better While streaming the music through the air with an FM Modulator is not a good solution, Bluetooth is not a bad option. If your radio has the capability, then streaming from your iPhone or other Bluetooth-enabled iPod provides decent quality sound to your head unit. There is some quality loss and with no hard connection the battery won’t be charging. Compound that with the fact that streaming Bluetooth audio can suck down the battery in short order. You say your head unit does not offer Bluetooth? Aftermarket accessories like the Parrot MKi9200 hands-free devices allow you to stream from your iPhone or iPod through the Parrot unit which can be connected to the radio through various means. These are nice because you stream your music and talk handsfree at the same time. Best There are really fine alternatives, but most involve aftermarket head units. Unless you have a brand new car with a premium stereo system like the Ford Sync or Dodge UConnect, you need a better way to transfer your tunes. Some of these are simple installations, while others are a little more complicated. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. Direct connection The connection on the bottom of the iPod/iPhone is the best way to get the original data out and into the radio. There are numerous methods of direct connection. And many newer cars have an iPod port or optional direct connection cable. Most aftermarket head units have some version of direct connection. For factory stereos, the direct connection is almost always iPod specific, whereas aftermarket head units may use USB connection to allow for many different types of PMP (Personal Media Player) devices and then a specific iPod adapter. There are of course aftermarket head units that have iPod connections. There are different levels of direct connection. Music Only These connections provide basic data transfer and possibly battery charging. These do not provide control of the iPod and may or may not provide song data like titles or ID3 tags. Full Control These connections, usually from an OEM head unit or aftermarket iPod-specific connection not only transfer the music, but also provide charging and full control of the iPod from the radio. This is nice because you can just put the iPod in the glove box or console and have full access to the music. There are so many options to get the iPod music into the radio, there is even a way of using your iPod as your head unit. And we’re not talking about an iPod-dedicated mechless unit like the ones by Alpine. We’re talking iPod as the source.You heard me. Kicker is getting ready to introduce their latest module that combined with a piece or two from Soundgate, allows you to use the iPod as the main source unit to supply your amps with the electronic signals we call music. In reality, the new module, called the Kicker Dual-Zone Remote Level Control (model ZRMRLC), is level control (JL Audio has the CL-RLC) but with two distinct controllers, which is of course the cool part. You can have the front speakers play at one volume and the rear speakers play at another volume. If you are using an iPod as the source, one zone can be the mids and highs, and the second zone can control the subwoofer output, just like a head unit subwoofer control. Using the Soundgate Core device and cable pack (models REMCORE and PDCBLPKS respectively), the iPod will have a direct connection to the amplifiers and the battery will charge. This works for iPhone and iPod units, so all you Apple heads are covered. As long as you are using amps for all of your speakers, this is a great solution for hot rods and muscle cars as well as any other vehicle. If you use splitters, you can wire the Kicker dual-zone control in-line with a non-iPod interfaced head unit and use the head unit for CDs and radio, then turn it off completely and use the iPod when you want to. There are a lot of possibilities with this system. It can be tough deciphering all of the options in accessories for the iPod. If you follow this guide, you will be able to pick out which method is best for you and your car. Sometimes you don’t have much choice but use an FM-modulator, specifically on an older car with nothing but FM/AM and you can’t or refuse to swap it out. In this instance, adding an amp and using the Kicker module is a great idea.