help

[Hakujin1977]

not sure if something like this has been posted already and after 2 bottles of red can't be bothered checking.

serious car audio n00b here so laymans terms please.

i'm off to japan soon and was thinking about bringing back a new head unit. but the more i thought about it (and the better the dollar does) the better the unit i want to get.

was going to get an in car dvd but they scream "steal me!" was thinking to get a mp3 minidisc player and hook it into my current system.

how would i do this? would i need an amp? i currently have a shite sony xplode deck.

or could anyone recommend other options? help me please! i don't want to come back from japan without a schmick new 'whatever' to show off!

[hippy]

i'm not sure if stuff over there really is cheaper ... but i'd imagine they'd be technically much better ..

[Guest downward-spiral]

No way is it cheaper up there. Not retail anyway.

[geordie]

If the aftermarket stuff has same problems of the stuf that comes from the factory's ie: the factory cd player that came in my line.......it wont work any way lol, i think that maybe just the cd player that was in my car though, you will stilll need ot get frequency expander and the such any way.

[Hakujin1977]

you can get international items. stuff that alreday has been set up to be able to play in different countries.

but forgetting that for now, how can i get a portable mp3 to work through my cars system? do i need an audio line in in my head deck? can i hook it into an amp? what's the best way?

[hippy]

the cheapest way i reckon to get cheap top stuff is imported from US if u can't get wholesale prices here ... eg ... my 9815 cost me 650 total shipped and delivered .. the unit i think would cost at least 900 cash in the shop here ... even if u buy overseas u lose warranty anyways ..

[geordie]

If you mean portable like a creative mp3 unit, that would be easy all you need is to pull the rca out of the back of your head unit and buy a stero>rca lead and hook the to rca ends up, and put the stereo plug in the headphone socket of your mp3, i do this with my my p/a system in my bed room, hook my discman,mp3 etc via the rca input. Only prob is that if you have any speakers hooked up to your head unit they wont put any sound out, makes shure you dont pull out the remote wire or the amp wont turn on. A bit of a pain every time you want to swap between sound sources, you could buy two extra rca cables (like those used to hook up the multi channel amps) and have your cd and mp3 hooked up at the same time.

[siksII]

I have done this in my car, when i had head unit issues. Works well.

BUT, u should maybe check out the voltage that your portable player puts out, and whether the amp is meant to recieve the same voltage.

Also, most discmans/mp3 players start to distort quite easily when u turn the volume of the output up, which is easily heard in the car.

[«Cyph3r»]

Depending on the head-unit only high end (nakamichi, eclipse etc..) NEED and amp to run speakers but all systems will sound better run off decent powered amps, generally the more power, the more control, so better sound. By this i don't mean buy a more powerful amp like a powerful low quality amp over a lower power quality amp. As for it working, all that is different is if you have a tuner, you will need a frequency expander as in japan radio stations broadcast on different frequences to asutralia, and if you buy a dvd player i think they need converting or sumthin. Also if you plan on addind a stacker later the japanese models may have different connections to the australian models even i n the same brand.

[streamer]

i heard a frequency expander is 20 bucks of mr dickie smith or somthing...

but if the radio in japan only goes till 89.00hz or something, how do we tune in to say 92.9?