I picked up the Shure MPA-3C Music Phone Adapter from the Apple store today. The adapter includes a microphone and narrow plug and is compatible with the iPhone. So far I’ve only tested the playback quality and it seems to be on par with the straight through wired connection, so no change there.
I’m posting this mostly for me, but as a general piece of information, this offers a good explanation of how bass works in a sedan. In my old Honda (search the articles), the trunk and passenger compartment were sealed off from each other as show in figure 4. This prevented the cancellation of sound waves shown in the previous figures.
In digging through some old pictures, I came across the pictures of my car audio system from 1994. This was built into a 1993 Honda Accord EX with the sole intention of entering IASCA competitions. While the scene has certainly changed since I was in the game, the sound remains the same. Loud, quality audio systems that reproduce a concert-level music atmosphere.
The system took first in every competition entered, and even took best of show in the 1994 Car Toys season finale. I managed to snag enough points for a nationals invitation, but bought a house and didn’t have the funds to compete at the national level.
The system consisted of the following components:
You can see pictures of the system in the gallery.
Saw this from CES, looks like a winner. Available in March for under $1000, it includes navigation, DVD video playback, solid high-speed iPod integration, support for AAC, and numerous other features. Look for this one to get some serious penetration.
There is also a community for the AVIC line of receivers at AVIC411.COM.
UPDATE: Pioneer has the full details on the D3 posted online. Looks like iTunes AAC support is included now as well. I wonder if that includes Apple Lossless Codec support for playing ALC tunes from your iPod via the D3.
Add this in the column of really cool features that you didn’t expect. When you double-click the volume icon, you get a lovely set of mixer pots. These let you adjust the volume of all the running applications, in addition to a master fader. Talk about sweet, you can finally silence IE without diminishing the volume of your iTunes library.
Audio as a whole seems to be handled a lot better in this new version of Windows. It seems like the OS does high-quality audio internally now instead of the nasty KMIXER sampling we had before. Time will tell, however, and more advanced tools come out to check into the details.
With kids, it’s rare that I get to enjoy the great home theater experience in the main room. The TV in there is old (55″ SDTV, 10+ years old) and will soon be due for replacement. When that day comes, it’s hard to justify anything hard core because I never to get watch TV in there and the 5.1 system mostly goes to the likes of The Incredibles or NEMO.
That being said, I watch almost all movies in the bedroom on a 37″ 1080p HD LCD. It’s a solid experience, using a Sony 5-disc HDMI player that upconverts to 1080i (yeah, no P, bummer I know). The sound however sucks. I use the built-in speakers and it is just lame all around.
I recently discovered the Yamaha YSP-1100. It’s a 42-speaker bar that sits until your TV and provides a theater surround sound from a single position. The box has some video inputs and switching, and eliminates the need for a receiver, wires and a ton of speakers. The system seems cool, but with no support for HDMI, it seems like this awesome product is due a refresh in the spring (yeah, even though it just came out in September).
If this box had three HDMI inputs, at least one component video input (converted to ride along the HDMI output to the TV), I would have one in a heartbeat. That way I could hook the DVR (Motorola STB w/HDMI output), DVD Player, HTPC (w/nVidia HDMI output), and PS2 to a single box and feed the need on the TV Monitor. Until then, I’m going to have to wait until it gets better because the current config isn’t quite gravy.
FYI: Gravy === The SHIT! 
Well, they’re here and they are very impressive. I’m surprised at the improvement compared to the e4c, I didn’t expect them too be such an improvement.
The sound is less congested, bass is greatly improved, treble is brighter and more defined, everything that I grew to dislike when comparing my e4c to my previous Beyerdynamic DT-880′s is now gone. Soundstage is wide, the treble my god is so much better.
I’m very happy so far, I’ve listened to Shpongle, Ott, Barenaked Ladies, Collective Soul and some various artists and I can’t complain yet. Rock music is drastically improved over the e4c, which felt lifeless with rock but very good with electronica. I haven’t heard anything yet on the e500 that has disappointed me.
Well, word is people are starting to get the first production run of the new IEM from Shure this week. Several have posted on head-fi that their earphones have arrived, along with their early impressions. Even the iPodLounge crew piped up with a glowing review of them.
Mine have not arrived yet, but once they do you can be sure I’ll post my comments on them. My current units (Shure e4c) are still doing quite well, but this new release from Shure is a major technological upgrade compared to the single-driver setup in the e4c and expectations are quite high for their sound.