My take on the PA15-INFI iPod Adapter

[wazzu mille]

Ok, I had tons of questions and now that I had mine installed and can play with it, here's my personal take on this product.

1. It definitely is able to get great sound through the stock stereo
2. In Direct Mode, you have complete maual access of your Ipod and you can get to anything you want easily. This might be the way most people would interface with thier iPod. Not sure if this is the best product to just play your iPod this way (seems a bit spendy for this).
3. I would highly recommend placing the iPod in your center console or someplace near so you can use the direct input mode (see why below).
4. In either Artist or Album Folder mode, it's a HUGE pain to "scroll" (in this case, you hit your seek up or down button) through your list of artists or albums. The artist mode is my main way of finding an album I want to listen to (I don't listen to individual songs, I normally listen to entire albums) since I don't have albums memorized by alphabetical order. Here's where this thing fails. When you select an artist, it does not allow you to pick an individual album from that artist (when you have multiple albums loaded on your iPod). Once you've selected that artist, it starts playing the first song of the first album you've got loaded on the ipod. If you don't want to listen to that "album", you have to use the tuner knob to "fast forward" through each song until you get to through that "album" and start the next one. If there's a simpler way to do this from the experience of others, please tell me what I'm missing.
5. There are 3 other modes it will perform, it has a Playlist Folder mode, All Songs Folder mode and Genres Folder mode. For those that listen to songs randomly, it can do that.
6. I was able to switch betwen radio and the interface without any issues.
7. I was able to take a phone call through the car's bluetooth system while listening to the iPod and it automatically switched to the phone and when I hung up the car switched back to the iPod interface. No issues there.
8. I did not try using the Navigation while listening to the iPod.

There are many features in the owners manual and it's not very user friendly. I'm sure there's a way to do what I'm wanting it to do but I haven't figured it out. I'm going to move the iPod to my center console for direct access since it's currently sitting in my glovebox. This will be the fastest method for me to find what I want to hear.

FYI, if you're thinking of installing an amp and sub in addition to the stock system, don't bother. I'm running an 8" JBL sub powered by a Coustic amp (same exact setup as I had in my A6 w/Bose system that sounded great) and this car is so well insulated and sound deadened from the trunk that all that I hear is some rattling of the trunk liner! that was a bit of a let down. I guess there is probably a better way to get more bass IN the cabin, but it's not going to be through the trunk.

That's all I can think of for now.