Thread: Using Motorola Xoom as car head unit

i was unaware audison was building a couple more dsp's-- i thought that it was a typo at first.... the bit ten lineup looks pretty good...


at the moment, there is only one other documented xoom install:

http://www.mp3car.com/show-off-your-...tallation.html

and his discussion thread:
http://www.mp3car.com/fabrication/14...highlight=xoom

admittedly, his goals are much less SQ oriented..

unfortunately, there really is not a way to bypass the internal dac's. there is this module that might do the trick, but you could also lose the ability to use the xoom's display, and as it is a untested option, it might not work--so it could be a waste of money for something like this...

I'm also planning to move to an android tablet soon hopefully ( Probably Nook Color )

I'll be trying to get a digital sound from the nook and use an external DAC to get the most sq as possible
The nook has USB HOST ( OTG ) and using a usb dac it could work ( couldn't find someone who actually pulled it off )
Basically if the dac supports alsa drivers it should work
Now , Because I got the MS-8 I need analog and you need optical
So you probably need something like this :
http://www.audiophileproducts.com/usb-to-spdif

I don't know if its a quality adapter , I just googled it to show you what your'e after
I also don't know if it has the same driver structure as dac ( from my understand if its recognized as usb-audio / supported in linux it should be fine but it needs further investigating )

So you need to check if the XOOM has usb host ( go to xda , if there is it will be there )
If not it has HDMI - I'm sure there are quality HDMI-SPDIF converters ( check @ head-fi forums )

I don't think you will have any problem with the display cuz I just saw a youtube video of a xoom conected to lcd using hdmi and the display & touch work

You also need to check the optical signal the bit ten is capable of receiving and make sure it's compatible with the output from the device

the problem with hdmi is that everything is, for lack of a better term "wrapped" together. you can't get the audio without the video. at least that was what more technical people told me. if you find a solution for this, please let me know-- i would love to run hdmi to my amps...

If you have HDMI out, you could use this to get optical out.

http://www.amazon.com/SPDIF-Componen...629183&sr=8-16

However, any output that is good enough for headphones, should be good enough for the car? I mean can you get your car sound better then $500.00 Shure headphones/in ear plugs connected directly to the 3.5mm plug? If not, then...why bother? :-) Now if you want 5.1 channels, that's different.

soundman98 ,

Do you mean that you got to have the video output connected to something for the audio output to work? or you meant something else?
The nook actually doesn't have hdmi so I didn't look into it

RipplingHurst ,

From the little I know about the Digital "Realm" , In digital connections the "quality" comes to play with jitter
So a bad quality converter could cause problems and bad sound quality...
About the specific product you mentioned I don't really know but there are quite a lot of bad reviews there..

Does anyone know if the Xoom does audio out through the micro usb connection? If so I could run a micro to full size usb adapter and then run that to a usb to optical adapter for a digital connection.