Harman Kardon Drive+Play

im searching for reviews on that unit also

Originally posted by GavinD
It is not out yet... Right?

You can preorder it at crutchfield.com for 199.ooUS which isnt a bad price given if it works absolutely as designed. It did receive 'Best Of Macworld 2005' though. Crutchfield says it will ship Oct.10.

i've heard nothing but goodness wholesome two thumbs up action on the harmon kardon drive and play, and i am going to buy it as soon as i gets out. it has everything i wanted with nothing more. k well you can bu a deck but i've had 2 decks aready and they both got ripped off, and i lost a window. with this all it is is a lcd display and a little ball so all you would get is some stupid person looking at it and realizing it's worth nothing. i'm buying it, it's a keeper

here's a review

rainydaymagazine.com/RDM2005/Workshops/Garage/RDG_DriveNPlayTestPlacement.htm

The Drive+Play unit also requires some sort of way to get the audio into the system, independent of the unit itself (it does not provide this function). If your radio has an AUX-in then you're set, otherwise that is an additional cost on top of the $200 for the unit. Seems to me to be an expensive price to pay just for an "ipod-like" b&w interface. If you are going to install the iPod in the car like in the reviews, then why not use the genuine iPod interface with a iPod2Car or USA-spec or new ion adapter?

Originally posted by sahmad88
$200 is a lot to pay, but I did because in my case, this was the perfect solution for me.

I have a 3G ipod and I find the display a bit hard to read when mounted on my vent with the Nyko universal mount. (That mount is great by the way.) The Drive+Play is much easier on my eyes, which is important while driving. I don't have to keep glancing and straining to see the display on the HK unit.

Also, I wanted a solution that I could plug into my aux input on my car stereo through the dock connector instead of the headphone jack on the ipod. I get much better sound through the dock, than the headphone jack. While this is not the only solution to that, it does that for me, and charges at the same time. Not all the other cables out there can charge at the same time.

I also wanted to have a way to plug my other mp3 player and cell phone into my aux input when I wanted to without constantly changing cables. This does that.

Finally, this charges my ipod while listening and it doesn't take up my only cigarette plug while doing so.

This gets two thumbs up from me. The controller is postitioned so when my arm is on the armrest of my car, my hand naturally is in position to control the ipod. I can comfortably control my ipod as safely as changing a radio station on my car radio.

Is it worth the $$? I think so, since it matches so many needs/wants so well. For others, maybe not. It is all a personal preference. thanks for a clean, good review! i've ben thinking 'bout this item too...how much did it cost to installl?

I played with one of these at work yesterday and I am very impressed. This is the first integrated car solution that actually comes close to the iPod's intuitive interface. I've got an Alpine head unit (CDA-9855) with the KCA-420i box, which is great, but the iPod's native controls are so much more natural and efficient. I just hate to have the extra LCD screen sticking out of my dash and attracting attention. If there were only some way I could get the best of both worlds- the Harmon/Kardon's excellent control knob with the display on my head unit.

It is indeed a proprietary plug, not a standard composite. The screen is a monochrome block-pixel type display, not hi-res at all.

I'm very interested in this - I called Circuit City and they said they had it - and that it was $200.00 plus $70.00 installation. Not bad - and it looks like a nice design.

Since the radio in my car doesn't have a line in, I have to use an FM-modulator to connect my iPod to the radio. I read that many modulators produce a bad sound quality.

My question: how is the quality of Harman/Kardon's (hard-wired) FM-modulator?

Thanks for your answer. I bought the set and - as expected - the quality of the FM-transmitter sucks, half of the time it's even mono :confused:. So I'll try to find some kind of connector for the CD-changer input on my radio, like you suggested.

Too bad the radio that came with my car is from some Portuguese brand called Visteon, so I guess it'll be hard to find that connector.

EDIT: Oops... Visteon is not from Portugal, it's from the U.S., that other country that's world famous for its high quality consumer electronics.

Regarding the speed of scrolling, if you hold the wheel to one direction, it starts out by scrolling individual songs and after a few seconds it starts to skip faster through the alphabet. It is similar to the way the iPod scrolls faster if you manipulate the wheel faster. I will try to get some more hands-on time with it and give you a more accurate description of how long it takes to start skipping and how many items it skips at a time when it does speed up.

It is faster than the Alpine interface by far, however the 2005 Alpine units equipped with the TouchGlide strip are capable of skipping twelve items at a time if you lightly and quickly swipe you finger across the strip. Supposedly the 2006 Alpines are similar to the same speed as the iPod itself, but I get the impression that with these 2006 units Alpine skimped on the real bread and butter, the sound quality (i.e. no units with 4v pre-out). They are tacking on too many bells and whistles and forgetting the core of the product. I will reserve final judgement until I can check it out first hand though.

JC,

Another small remark to the use of the screen and the controller:

I am used to access albums on my iPod by choosing the genre first, then choosing 'All Artists' and then choosing an album, because I'm playing lots of compilations. D+P doesn't seem to have the option to choose 'All Artists', or (after you've chosen an artist) 'All Albums'.

This is the only real shortcoming I found until now, after using the system for a week. (except for the issue with the wired FM-transmitter which i hope will be solved very soon...).

The scrolling and selecting is VERY fast and the buttons on the controller are easy to find. If you turn and hold the controller (about 1 sec.) to scroll large parts of the list, it will jump up or down 10% of the list, so if you have a list of 700 artists it will jump 70 entries down every time. The 10% is a default setting and can be changed by the user between 5% and 25% (steps of 5%).

The controller itself is made out of some kind of metal which feels cold in winter, but also creates a high-quality look and feel.

After using D+P for one week (6 hours of driving on the Autobahn) I still believe it's worth every one of the 199.99 euros I spent.

One more question: I manually turn off the Drive + Play (by holding down the bottom/play/pause button) before turning off my car.

When I start the car, the Drive + Play turns on automatically and starts playing.

Is it supposed to do that? Shouldn't it stay off and only turn on when you press any button on the remote?

By the way guys, for those of you interested, I found a way around the issue with the lack of an option to select "all" from a particular genre.

I personally don't use the "Composer" field for anything so I made the composer the same as the genre and play them all by composer. It works like a charm.

PS: I'm still having an issue with the Drive + Play playing automatically when I start the car. Is this happening to anyone else?

All it needs now it is to be able to control the 5G Video and control the videos so we can have them shown on our LCD screens in the car. Would not take much in the way of extending the control to the video side I would have thought.

Switch, can you elaborate on that problem when the engine is cut off? I don't think if I've experienced it.

Jikes. People with weak electrical systems forgitit.

I don't have any problems with it when my car isn't running...:confused: I also noticed that when the car is completely off my iPod is still charging - which I love.

if u don't plan to replace your head, the HK still rules, IMO.

Otherwise check out the latest Alpine/Pioneer Offerings.

Thanks so much.

No, bobb-mini - no plans to replace my head any time soon - although what a concept :>)

And thank u, HarajukuGuy24 - any tips on the best place to have it installed? I wouldn't do it myself.

My question about this is; can you remove the display easily and stash it somewhere. Something about a display like that permanantly affixed to my dashboard seems to me like it attracts theives, even if you have an alarm and whatnot.
Nope, it's an hard mount.

Of course u can always build yourself a detachable "dock" or since eventually everybody get tired of mounting and remove everytime one gets out of the car, find a hole on your dash and hide it behind some smoke acrylic door or s'thing.

...I asked them to drill as less as possible so they went through a crease in my dashboard - I have a Jeep Liberty and there is a crease in the dashboard - they did a very nice job...

Hey man, can you post some photos of this? I want to put one in my GF's Liberty and I'd love to see how you have yours in there.

Hi All,
I live in Chicago. Does anyone know about installation between Circuit City & Best Buy? Which might be better? Also, any other suggestions for installation by an alternate source? I want to have it hard-wired and need to have it professionally installed.

Thanks.
I'd go to a specialty audio place. BB & CC only care that it works, not how well it looks. Most car audio shops take pride in their work, even if just to spread business by word of mouth.

Hey man, can you post some photos of this? I want to put one in my GF's Liberty and I'd love to see how you have yours in there.

I'll have to borrow someone's camera as I don't have a digital one anymore...but give me a few days and i'll TRY...

Hi All,

I just spoke with Tweeter in Chicago, they tell me if they install through aux/hard wired and they tap into my CD Changer in the glove box, that I will no longer be able to use my CD Changer, is that true?

In addition, he said he could hard wire through and FM transmitter - however, if I do it that way, then the sound won't be very good, is that true?

Thanks for your help.