Thread: iPad Project in Land Rover Discovery

Originally Posted by DiscoNomad

No sweat man. There is lots of good info in here. I am thinking that I must either use the Bluetooth device along with the JL preamplifier OR just plug in to the headphone port on the ipad. I tested the difference in audio quality using both methods and I can't tell the slightest difference. I'm really having an issue trying to find an elegant spot to mount the ugly volume knob of the preamplifier. So it's either deal with a small cable on top of the ipad or deal with the volume knob. Any suggestions?

Pitty I hadn't posed in the other threat earlier Audio streaming over bluetooth

I'm in the same boat as I really didn't want to have to plug in the 3.5 jack or have to put up with the sight of it... I don't want a separate volume knob on the car either, I was hoping just to put in in the doc and everything to work from there I'm starting to think that I might have to use the headphone jack also. If you find a really small and low profile right angle 3.5mm connector please let me know as I'm looking around for options.

I have just purchased one of these http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....=STRK:MEWAX:IT which I intend on breaking open and wiring into my existing steering wheel buttons hence the reason I really really want to control the volume on the iPad. It's pass through meaning I can piggy back it off the dock and not being bluetooth the batteries in it should last a long time between charges/swaps.

Originally Posted by GizmoQ

Having had some experience with mounting tablets in cars(~15 years), I would recommend you change your plan for the mount. I briefly looked at the iPad dock and its perfect (with some mods/fab) to use as your mount and it will hide all your cables. I did this with the dock for my tablets and disconnected and disassembled the base so I could stuff it inside the dash. All my connectors mate to the dock inside the dash - clean, compact, rotates solid, and tablet is more secure/accessible than anything I could have built myself.

I seen GizmoQ's mounts - tough stuff

I too plan to use an iPad in my truck. I'll be removing a Xenarc 1020TSV that I never used.

Jim

DiscoNomad I am doing the exact same thing as you inky with my iPhone as my wife won't approve of me mounting her iPad in my truck

I am using clarion blt370 http://www.clarion.com/us/en/product...294998507.html

It's currently clipped on my visor with wires ran down pillar to din area where power is ran to ignition and rya outs from clarion run into a PAC lc1 http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_5260_PAC+LC1.html ( volume control) that runs to my factory amp. Clarion's volume control works perfect and I would recommend it!



My only issue is that the iPod doesn't send a strong enough signal for stock amp so not sire if I will by a preamplifier booster or an aftermarket amp.

Great vehicle, great iPad! I'm following this thread!

In case someone wants to see the finished product:

http://disconomad.com/DiscoNomad/Blo..._in_a_Car.html

This might be interesting to some of you:

If you ever tried to use an iOS device to push audio via a bluetooth stereo you might know a little annoying issue that you can't adjust volume from the device it self. Now I am not talking about a bluetooth headset for phone calls...that you can. For some reason because of conflicts in early A2DP standards, Apple decided not to include the ability to change volume from the iPhone. In most cases this isn't an issue because the headphones or stereo have there own volume. But in applications where you only have a line level out to an amp with no volume knob there was no way to adjust volume. What kind of environment would that exist in you ask? Well my Disco for one. When I pulled out the head unit, I just relied on the line level out of my Mac Mini and now my iPad to adjust the volume. I didn't like the look of wires plugged into the top of the iPad as it took away from the slickness of the mount. Bluetooth was the obvious answer but without a sort of pre amp in between to control the volume it was useless. JL had the solution with this. Only issue was I would have to drill the dash to install a volume knob...again not ideal. Well today I discovered the solution. A little side note about me, I am a registered Apple developer and have access to unreleased versions of iOS for testing apps. Well as it turns out iOS 4.2, which is about to come out for iPhone and iPad in about two weeks, now fully supports volume adjustment over A2DP. So I ripped everything out and mounted this inside the 1 DIN box I created for my mount. Using my carnetix power supply that I had left over from the MacMini days I had it output a nice clean 5.2 volt output and ran a wire up to the 1 DIN space which now powers the Belkin bluetooth receiver. The audio is then directly plugged into that and any iPhone or iPad in the car can seamlessly connect to it and push audio from music or video right into the car stereo system. Sound is actually noticeably better then the headphone jack method used previously because I am no longer using the iPad's built in DAC which isn't optimized for anything other then headphones. Finally its clean...no wires.

Cheers.

^ Great info! I might be looking into that when I add some aftermarket amps to the mix.

Great information. I wonder how much using BT for audio will impact battery life though. That's why I'm using Apple's AV cable...but if you have no way to dock it, or don't want to, yeah, this is the way to go.