uh oh now I'm getting a little more worried... I thought we had exactly similar stereos but I think I may have the premium stereo... although I'm not too sure... guess we'll just find out when I get the deck (hopefully tomorrow or sometime early next week)

 

Well, Called Visteon directly. They say "...there is NO amp in the 02 F-150 SuperCrew Premium System" other than in the head unit. Now, they built the head units, I would imagin they know. They also sold me the MP3 head unit which pluts right in and works, so I think they are right.

But then I call Crutchfield, the say same thing, "There is an Amp after the head unit int the F-150 Screw with Premium...."???

What a mess this industry is!! I can not even beleive people put up with this. They need a standard head unit connector, EVERYONE uses, with standard inputs and ouputs.

Anywho......

 

Well, lets put this to bed.

THERE IS NO AMP in the 2002 Screw with Premium sound system. And, you can get the wireing harnesses for it from PartsExpress. See my post titled "Pinouts?" for the proper part #'s. (I think it's under the Amplifiers section)

 

CCarrara,
Well I won't argue THAT with you. I haven't found a single aftermarket HU that plays MP3s that looks like it belongs inside my 2001 XLT SCab. I WAS leaning towards the Pioneer DEH-P9400MP, but the price and the damn looks are pretty much turning me off.


Whoa boy... now you went and did it!

Ok, I feel I can speak with at least a modicum of knowledge on this topic as I have had my hands in writing or at least porting various audio algorithms (MP3, MPEG AAC, WMA, MP3Pro) to various DSPs over the last 5 years. Let me address your numbered concerns.

1.) Ok, I can possibly understand your point on making the cds if you have aren't computer saavy. But let me put it to you THIS way... my father is not a computer guru. He has a cd burner in his PC. He can burn a cd in about 10 minutes depending on content. If you can't afford 10 minutes out of your life to put 6 albums (at least) of audio material on a disc... well that's plain scary. I mean, it's not like you need to baby-sit the silly thing. Most of the burner apps nowadays are practically idiot proof. Please don't take that as an insult... what I am trying to say is that in the 10 minutes it takes to burn the disc, you can be getting supper ready, taking the dog out to poop or planning your revenge on your twelve year old son for the butt-kicking he gave you in Tekken3. Maybe you can elaborate on the big deal about burning the cd?

2.) In regards to MP3 "sucking"... might I say puh-leez. MP3 files encoded at 44.1kHz at bitrates less than or equal to 128kbps in general are NOT the greatest. Myself, I don't archive anything lower than 192kbps. I use my ears everyday for audio analysis as it is my JOB to evaluate different codecs (i.e. encoders and decoders) to pitch to customers. I am involved in review boards and technical conferences fairly often.. not tooting my own horn... just want to say that I am not some goofy Mp3 zealot who thinks it is the greatest thing since the EZ Bake Oven. I challenge you and ANYONE to hear a significant quality difference in your friggin TRUCK tooling down the highway at 70 MPH while listening to an MP3 at 44.1kHz/192kbps if it has been ripped by a quality ripper. Most of the pissing and moaning amongst the audio community over the quality of MP3 deals with goobers who encode at the misnamed "near cd-quality" label applied to 128kbps/44.1kHz files. Let me tell you... if this was TRULY "near cd-quality" there are a CRAPLOAD of us guys and gals that would still be listening to cassettes and LPs rather than shiny cd's.

This is something that I explain to customers and partners ALL THE TIME. Please consider your ENVIRONMENT when you encode your songs. If you plan on using a portable player while you fly on an airplane sitting two seats back from the engines, why the hell waste the the memory (assuming you are using a fixed memory played of size 64MB or something) by encoding at 256kbps?!!? I mean, honestly, it's silly. Same goes with a car/truck. Unless you have gone to HURCULEAN lengths to totally and carefully soundPROOF your vehicle so as to reduce wind/road noise to 20-30dB... you ain't gonna hear diddly as far as artifacts. Truth be told... 128kpbs doesn't SUCK. It's not GREAT... that's for sure. But in most cases at least it doesn't exhibit the "choir of birds chirping" audio artifacts that a 56kbps file does. Y-U-C-K!

I totally agree with "premium" sound system comment. I currently have that paper coned, disc heating mechanism. However, I now await a pro-install of my new Focal Polykevlar 165K2 components and US Acoustics 2150 amp. I'm still not sure about the head unit thing, but if I can get a discount on the Visteon doodad since I think it's my code running on that sucker, then so be it.

Anywho... didn't mean to come off as busting your nads... just like to give some background when it seems like the situation calls for it. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have on this crap. Like I said... it's been my life for at LEAST 6 years and I've done audio for 10 total.

Have a good one,
Jeff in Houston

 

Slider Jeff,

Well put buddy!! Actually, that was EONS ago if you notice when I posted that. I now have the Visteon MP3 player head unit in my truck and am enjoying the hell out of those sucky 128bit mp3's I've burnt. Not to mention the 200 songs on one CD!!

I was really posting some of that to get a reaction and see what the real dela was, cause I had not experimented with MP3's much at that point. Now that I have, I find that some music actually sounds better (cleaner) on a low res mp3 than prior. Because it cleans out some of the noise in between the notes. I love crystal clean music. Unfortunately, I love old reggae of which ALOT of it was recored via $20 mics in somebody's basement in Jamaca in 1967. I've found burning mp3's out that stuff actually cleans it up a bit.

BUT, thank for the grat info!!! As for the Visteon unit, the only problem I have with it is, no on screen text. If it is playing MP3's and obviously reading a digital sugnal, why not display the text? Can't be very difficult to add some code to display text for gods sake?

PS - I was a programmer for 15 years, now an IT manager for a large corporation.

Regards

 

Yeah... that is pretty darn cool, isn't it?

hehehe.... yeah, not exactly state-of-the-art studio work is it? That's actually the first time I've heard someone say that they PREFERRED MP3 quality to the original analog (LP) or cd signal. Interesting...

No problem... this crap has been my life for some time, so it's cool to talk about it in a NON-work related forum every now and then. Also, that no screen text is the biggest thing keeping me from the Visteon unit. Also, I mispoke... Visteon is NOT using my Mp3 code or DSPs in their unit. It is a fixed function ASIC from Micron I think. The reason they are not doing the display stuff is that they don't have the horsepower on that stupid chip to do it. Their chip is a one-trick-pony... MP3 decode only and is NOT re-programmable like a DSP is. Oh well... perhaps SOMEONE will put out a head unit that actually matches our interiors one of these days.

You poor bastard. Yeah... I've only been doing the programming thing since '91. I still keep hoping to win the lottery and quit this crap, but 'til then... at least I get to work with audio stuff.

Good talking to you,
Jeff

 

Just to update...

I snagged a new Visteon MP3 player in dealer black from ebay this weekend. I hope to get it installed with my amp and Focal components within a week or two. I am PLANNING on powering the components up front with my 2x150 W amp, and use the head unit to power my stock cheap-o paper coned stuff for "rear fill". You see any problems with that?

Thanks,
Jeff