[ct.p]

Just got out of my freezing car in my freezing garage after playing with my new toy.... The time is 2.07 am !!

I bought it today and planned to fit it tomorrow but I just couldn't resist fitting it tonight. Got the kids in bed at about 8.00pm, then spent about and hour swatting up online about 'K' lines and all that..

The Mrs got home from work so spent an hour or so catching up on the day and then made my excuses and went out into the garage to play...

I didn't fit the DAB ariel so don't as yet have the dab fuctionality but there was enough to play with and keep me occupied.

Now I like numbered lists so here's one detailing what I've so far gleaned....

1, x2 aux inputs which means i-pod or creative zen-touch connectivity when I get round to buying one.

2, second aux input is for cd changer... I'm hoping to use the oem one that was hooked up to my gamma, same mini iso connector but I think cable layout needs swapping in plug.... didn't manage to get that going tonight.

3, fantastic sound quality and an almost infinite number of ways to configure.

4, adjustable base boost/cut across 5 frequencies that makes the sub behave nicely... need to do some fine tuning when I can give it some volume in the daytime.

5, enviromental presets can s elect type of vehicle your installing it in and then its run pre-configured soundstage.... havn't sussed this at all as yet.

6, you can buy an external microphone (which installs temporarily which you place where your listening area is i.e. 'your' head !) and it will auto sample sound and then auto configure best 'soundstage' for the enviroment. There is also the facility to take this info out of the car via the sd memory card reader, download some software and really give it a good 'tweaking' on your PC.... this is real 'rocket' science and as yet i'm not even pretending that I understand it ! I think you can programme 3 sets of sounstage info into it and s elect for 'driver', driver + passenger' and 'car fully occupied'.

7, MP3 single disk player, much the same as my old sony unit but you have the abilty to s elect and programme in your faves from a disc.

8, on FM reception it reads the scrolling data.... never seen this before and didn't know it existed until just now !

9, Colour config. You've got 16 to choose from for the buttons, quite obviously I chose red. The central dot matrix main display has over 4000 colours so getting an exact match to the climatronic should be do-able although I havn't as yet got it right. (anyone ever notice how the gamma was a slightly different blue to the climatronic ?)

10, SD card reader which can be used as another audio mp3 input.

So all this from a half installed system. What I really bought it for was the DAB tuner which I hope to get going tomorrow.... watch out as no doubt i'll post another really boring over-long update on it !

 

[simfin]

Nice 'mini' review.

This is a unit I am considering putting in My Golf mk5 - I like the idea of DAB but am a little disappointed to find that the Kerrang! station is very limited in coverage.

Which type of DAB aerial are you fitting? And do you get some sort of signal strength for the station you recieve?

Oh and how much can you get these units for?

Cheers.

 

[ct.p]

Kerrrangggggg !! LOL.

I've gone for the external glass mount ariel to get the best gain. You can get a combined ariel that replaces the stubby on the roof, but I think thats over a 100 quid on its own.

Shock and horror..... I bought it from Halfords. I was in there the other day to spend 1.69 on some tail light bulbs and walked out with the Woodstock....

It's marked up at 399.99 BUT they are doing 20% off at the moment + FREE fitting if you want it. Fitting is by a specialist and NOT in the stores car park by the way.

So I paid 320 for the kit which also contains the Woodstock, 64mb mem card and the ariel + FREE fitting if so required. Online, the cheapest I found the DAB64 for was 299 with NO ariel, 329 with an interal stick on ariel or 350 with the external glass mount (as I've got). The online prices did not include for the fitting either. One thing I do like the idea of instead of buying online is that when things go wrong you can just pop into the local branch to sort it rather than waiting weeks for the post.

To be honest, I thought Halfords would be the last place I'd pick up a deal like that ! (think the 20% off ends on the 16th Dec)

 

[ct.p]

Just fitted the DAB ariel so the system is now complete.

Trying to get my head around 'ensemble's' etc just now but DAB seems to be very user friendly as you search stations by name. Sound quality is excellent plus there's lots more variety to choose from.

From my original post, there are a few errors, these being...

To set up the soundstage within the car, you can use the plug in microphone and use the auto-configure function or better still get an RS232 interface cable so you can plug your laptop in and really have a play with the sound. You cannot use the SD card to do this as I first thought. The software is downloadable from the Blaupunkt site.

As yet havn't looked into hooking up the oem cd changer to it but as i've said its the same mini iso connector so i'm sure it's possbile.

One thing to watch though is the ariel connections particularly if you've got an amplified ariel (curly wire around main ariel). The standard autolead if just plugged in will provide power to the auto ariel output. I've heard this can 'fry' the head unit and also causes problems with vag.com etc (anyone more more on this ?). It will also add quite a large parasitic drain to your battery which is not good if you leave the car for more than a few days. All you need to do is cut the wire on the adaptor loom and make it safe. Also you'll need an AM/LW inline booster to enable AM/FM reception, this connects into the wire that descrbed as cut above from the stereo side, not the loom side... I never listen to LW/MW anyway so i've not bothered. Those that do use MW/LW for talksport or worldservice etc shouldn't be to worrried as you can pick them up in crystal clear near cd quality on the DAB tuner anyway...

 

[cjp2k]

Just to let u guys know my local halfords so possibly everywhere else as well are doing this HU for ?299 and free fitting dunno if it includes all the ariels etc though

 

[coupe-sport]

One thing to watch though is the ariel connections particularly if you've got an amplified ariel (curly wire around main ariel). The standard autolead if just plugged in will provide power to the auto ariel output. I've heard this can 'fry' the head unit and also causes problems with vag.com etc (anyone more more on this ?).

? - you are thinking of the K wire - happens if you dont use an adapter cable between the HU and standard VW loom. Headunit puts 12v onto the K wire which buggers up any diagnostic gear plugged in.

Not sure what you mean about amplified antennas - the standard VW unit feeds 12v up the antenna coax as a phantom feed to power the amplifier in the antenna base. Replacement HU's need an adapter to feed 12v onto the coax to power this amp - if not done then reception suffers.

James.

 

[ct.p]

Think I've got the hang of piccies now, just to bore you some more...

 

[S1R SS]

Very nice looking bit of kit there

 

[Dazer]

does anyone know if there is a big difference in the 54 and the 52?

 

[ct.p]

Think the 52's display is LED rather than dot matrix. 54 has XD card reader as additional aux input (you can use it to play mp3's or record off the DAB tuner). 54 has the auto setup for sound (via mic)or you can plug your laptop (via interface) into it to set up the sound, 52 doesn't have this feature.

Oh... The 52 is a lot cheaper !

 

[wallacel]

That looks flash mate.[8D]

Like the gauges above the stereo too, didn't think about getting them for a TDI.[]

 

[stevesusername]

Did you get the auotchanger working? And if so what did you have to do?

I have the bootchanger and am looking at this HU. Just want to know if I am going to need to splash out another 150 notes.......

 

[ct.p]

Boot changer lead plug and you can hear it whirring and clicking in the boot but I didn't manage to get it working....

 

[Sem]

I like that a lot, very clean and OEM looking. Nice one!

 

[Kaushik]

very nice install mate, are you running the original mk4 speakers with that? if so does it sound much better then the gamma?

 

[ct.p]

Still have original MK4 speakers which sound good (did with gamma in my opinion) and handle the extra output ok. I've supplemented them with an amp & sub in the boot though so the stock door speakers handle mid-range upwards.

You could spend ???? on speakers, but as i'm driving them from the headunit there is no real advantage to doing so. The sound is very clear and detailed and goes loud enough for me.....

What's good about the DAB 54 is the almost infinite ways you can configure the soundstage to suit the particular car. As I've said you can even plug in an optional microphone and it will set itself up..... or plug your laptop into it and really start playing with the sound....

Sure the 'Alpine' purists out there will say that the Alpines can also do all this, but there again they seem to cost twice as much....

The DAB54 is good for an 'average' Joe install (like mine) sounds nice and does a LOT out of the box...

 

[Dazer]

Had a problem with dianostic tool the other day, no communication to it. 99% certain it's to do with the K wire. As read above sounds like I just need to cut it, but which one is it on the wiring loom??

 

[ct.p]

Had a problem with dianostic tool the other day, no communication to it. 99% certain it's to do with the K wire. As read above sounds like I just need to cut it, but which one is it on the wiring loom??

.............Seem to remember it was the blue one !!! LOL