Aux Input In Stock Hu's

Hey everyone

I just bought myself a 2000 Olds Alero GL and have some questions about the stock hu.
2 part question.

What I want to do is is listen to my mp3 player (Creative Zen Micro) through my car speakers. Is there any way to wire an aux input into the stock hu? I have been told it is not possible but want second and third opinions.

Secondly, I was thinking if that is not possible, then I will install a Apline CDE-9845 deck and run an aux in with that. My question is though, is a deck such as that one going to signifcantly improve my sound quality over just simply using a cassette adapter for my mp3 player into the stock hu?

Thanks, any advice and pictures of other peoples aftermarket hu set up would be very much appreciated.

Ryan.

[turtles_ride]

you could get an fm transmitor

yea there is no aux input for the factory deck, i dont know how well the sound will be coming off tape deck that plays your mp3's.......id hafta say you will definately notice a difference between a new deck with aux input and the stocker using the tape deck......

[02_Silver_Ho]

As far as I know, they only have aux adaptors for the ipod so far. I would definately do your 2nd option, I just got an Alpine CDA-9831 with the ipod adapter and the sound quality is incredible, plus i can control the ipod through the stereo controls, where you would have to use the mp3 player controls. Don't go any less than an aux connection, you will be incredibly disappointed.

[cherrington17]

using the tape adapter will sound ok. not quite cd quality but decent cheap fix. if you got the cash i'd go with the head unit change. The aux input keeps everything line level, meaning there isn't a major digital-analog converstion. (yeah, sure you can argue about it w/ the cable... bah!) but it will sound much better and there will be less distortion.

[wrightie]

I know for a fact that you can get an FM modulator that pushes into your car cigarette lighter that sends the signal to one of the fm radio stations. Pretty sure I saw it at future shop or best buy.
good luck

Wrightie

[BLK03GXS]

ways to get what you want in order of goodness

1 Get a new HU, will make everything better, SQ power to your speakers, if you buy a deacent one, a better HU is the way to go...

2 Get a FM modulator... relativly cheep... no internal or wireing mods needed really...

3 get tape adapter...

[cherrington17]

fm modulators take your sound quality right down to crap.

[mikegett]

I have to agree that fm modulators suck. However, it is more a personal opinion. If you don't find much of a problem with the sound of fm, you will be fine with a modulator. They will deffinately be the cheapest option. I believe they tend to run as low as 14 dollars for a sosche.
To get technical, there are no differences between a FM, cd, xm or auxillary input on the HU. If you have a factory HU that uses a cd changer it can be modified into a auxillary. I had a minidisk HU from japan that I removed the tuner and replaced it with a aux. It is not extremely hard but some knowledge of electronics and soldering would be needed. The bad factor is that you will only be inputing in the signal. There will be no controls other than volume. Otherwise, there are plug in modules that will do the voltage step. You must have a cd changer conrtol (this is a extra input on the HU) for this to work.
http://www.logjamelectronics.com/piegm10aux.html
For the cost of these, I would suggest buying a new HU.

How about buying a headunit that plays mp3's, burn some mp3's and then play them in your headunit. Get's rid of all those wires and no need to have the mp3 player sitting on the seat or on the dash.

I'm probably going to embarrass myself with this one, but here is a longshot I thought of. First off, obviously there are better options out there, but for about $8 it might not be a bad idea if you simply want some tunes.

If your speakers are amped, could the speaker wire going into the amp be spliced into, off of which you would run a headphone extension wire so you could plug in mp3 players. You would turn off the HU, and use the Mp3 player to control the volume and track changes.

One problem I see right away is the gains that would be needed to be changed based on what you were listening to. You would have to wire it to both front speakers inputs so it played from both speakers and not just one though.

Headphone extension wire
I even took the time to draw up a diagram:

[niral622]

There is actually another option that not many people know about...I looked into it some time ago, it's something that plugs into the CD-changer input of the Head Unit and allows you to have aux-input from the stock HU. I don't have the site bookmarked anymore, but just google for "stock head unit auxiliary cd changer" or something and narrow your search from that using quotes or something...thats how I stumbled across it.

Either that, or just get the alpine

Hey,

I posted a question a while back about hooking my iPod up to the stock unit. I found that there was a lot of options for me.

I also came across this link that allows for auxillary hook up of pretty much anything. It provides you with a pair of RCA cables to do what you want with. So you could virtually hook anything up to it.

here's the link i hope that works.
AUX[/url]http://www.x10.com/electronics/allcategories/electronics/caraudiovideo/accessories/pac.html

Hopefully that hel;ps you out a bit