Disco 1 ES, new head unit - can they have MP3 stored in them?

My stereo head unit works fine.

However, taking my iPhone out of it's case, putting it into the phone holder, plugging in the audio lead, turning on the stereo, switching it to "TAPE", unlocking the iPhone, navigating to "iPod" and then playing music is such a hassle that I tend not to bother.

This means I don't listen to all that music I lovingly ripped, tagged and organised!

So... do head units exist that have a radio, control the CD auto-changer that's built into the ES and have 32GB (or more) built in memory onto which I can copy all my MP3s?

Failing that, do any exist which have a USB socket into which I can plug a USB pen which contains all my MP3s?

Or... as a last resort, are there any that allow either of the above, but which don't control the CD autochanger?

Losing the auto-changer isn't my preferred approach, but the end result would be that I don't care about getting the insides wet quite so much any more. not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes, I could look into this myself, but I've no idea is CD auto-changers all operate on a standard, or whether LR ones are weird in some way, or whether you can just swap one head unit for another universally, or who knows what... it's brand new territory for me, so as usual, i'm clueless!

Alternatively, of course, a head unit with built-in autochanger would be just as useful (if they exist).

And yes - I do have working speakers in the rear door. I'd like *all* my speakers to work, as I intend to upgrade/replace them too at some point in life!

You can get plenty of units that have usb ports but i doubt any will work with such an old system.
Just remove the old units and fit something up to date as it sounds like you dont really need the cd changer.
I have a Sony Xplod that plays discs and has a usb slot and works fine. Cost about £80.

when you say "old system", do you mean the CD autochanger?

Also, how many modern stereos will cope with the front speakers, rear speakers and the standard bass speaker in the rear door? I'm sure normal cars don't have that many speakers...

Also, how many watts do I need it to output? I know about home HiFi, watts, impedance, etc... but i have no idea what wattage the discovery speakers are, or what impedance they are either.

The standard LR Philips system that u have has as a max wattage of something around 35watt per channel ie. 35x4 with the bass amp in the back door giving some extra wattage.

There are patch leads to interface an mp3/iPod to the Philips head unit but this will take the place of your CD multi player under the seat, u can not have both... and it will be just an audio input u would not be able to control what is playing from the headunit (as u can do with the CD player) the only control would from the mp3/iPod player it's self.

You can replace your head unit and CD multi player, as suggested above, with a modern unit with an mp3/iPod interface built in and some will give full functionality to the iPod so what u see on the screen and the various controls of the ipod can be carried out directly from the new head unit and display.
There are headunits with there own hard drive which you can download to. Megga

Most quality headunits give an output of at least 45x4 watts and also most have a least one pre-amplified output (pre-out) to enable the connection to the disco's rear amp to be retained. Also most headunits have the facility to retain the dash vol etc. controls (if you still wish too) but that will require ann additional patch lead to suit vehicle and headunit.

Your existing loudspeakers are ok and able to cope with the extra maximum power of a standard headunit.

I hope that helps

Wow... thanks for the fantastic response!

It's good to know the bass amp is actually in the back door, as that means I can presumably just connect up the 4 wires for the channels (front-left, front-right, rear-left, rear-right), plug the rear speaker cables into the pre-out (to go off to the rear amp), and job done!

Regarding the dashboard controls, I don't care about those. They don't work properly anyway. I'm also not too fussed about iPhone/iPod support unless it's wireless and can be controlled from the head unit itself.

I'm also looking to spend as little money as possible!

So anyway... to summarise, if I don't care about the dashboard controls or the CD autochanger, but want every single speaker in the vehicle to work, then all I need to do is buy absolutely any head unit out there, as long as it supports 4 channels and has a pre-out.

Is that right?

Once I know if the above is correct and valid, I can start comparing features and just buy the features I want instead of having to compare technical aspects of them any more. Obviously, the more watts the better, regardless of speaker quality (future-proofing, and better low-volume sound quality).

I've just put one of these in my disco 1 Halfords | Ripspeed DVD733B DVD/CD/MP3 Player

it has a usb cable that can be fed through to the glove box, has aux in on the front for the ipod and also has an sd slot behind the face, plus it plays dvds, i plugged the rear door sub directly into it and set it to 80hz and it works, plus you can also add other things to it like a reversing camera which i'm adding when it turns up in the post.

Its a little bit of a tight squeeze to get all the wiring in but it fits plus it also plays dvds.

Whatever unit you purchase don't get sold any additional leads to convert the cabling because the disco 1 has a standard ISO connector for the headunit.

Any questions pm me cause i'm pretty good with car stereo's, just put this unit in because of the price and the job it will do (reversing camera)

Hi
Installed Blaupunkt head unit that has usb in the back lead goes to glove box where I have a 40gig Lacie Hard drive that powers through the head unit and it plugs straight in to the usb on the home PC to add new tracks or delet one you don't like,the only thing I've lost is the remote control bit on the steering wheel
got all my albums on it put it on random put it in, in april all have to do is turn vol up or down

It's either clarion or kenwood do a head unit now that has no mechanical drivews in it so it's all usb or Ipod driven

You can buy a head unit which plays MP3s which have been written to a CD. Due to the compressed file format, you can store approx 150 tracks on. With that much playing time of music, you don't really need a CD changer (just rip all the CDs you'd have had in it, to MP3, transfer them to 1x CD and add a few more too.

If 150 or so tracks aren't enough, then you can also buy head units which can play MP3s off of a data DVD.

hmm... the Ripspeed thing looks kinda nice. don't need the DVD feature, but I guess it costs almost nothing to have it. It's 4x50W as well, which is nice, and supposedly has a pre-out for a subwoofer (or the rear door speaker in my case).

Regarding the MP3 functionality of it though, it has an SD card slot, but it's only up to 1GB, and presumably the other way it plays MP3s is either through the AUX socket in the front or by burning them to a CD/DVD. Neither of these are really suitable, sadly, because I have many more MP3s than would fit on even a DVD, and the whole point of wanting a new one was so I don't have to plug in my iPhone any more.

Regarding the Blaupunkt unit with USB hard drive in the glove box, that's not a bad plan. Presumably the USB hard drive could be substituted with a USB memory stick? If so, that would remove the only concern i'd have about jolting the hard drive mechanism when off roading. Seems a shame to wire up a USB socket to the glove box just for a USB memory stick then though... does it have a USB socket in the front?

So... then, regarding the clarion or kenwood USB or iPod driven unit... is that via a cable? If so, it's not for me. I either want it to control my iPhone/iPod wirelessly (if that's even possible), or have the tracks inside it somehow (either running from a USB memory stick, SD card slot or with internal memory).

And finally... regarding head units which play MP3s which have been written to a CD, that's no good either. I have way too many for that (28GB at the moment). CDs hold 700MB (0.7GB).

Also, you say "If 150 or so tracks aren't enough, then you can also buy head units which can play MP3s off of a data DVD.". That's not enough either... DVDs can hold 4.7GB. I have 28GB of MP3s!

Regarding offroading has not jumped jolted skipped or anything i've made a bracket in the glove box padded with foam. I'll put some picckies up later I'm at work at the mo.

Had the system when i offroaded the freelander I had same setup no hassel and i used to knock that motor about, on when crossing or if i had to drive in the rutts, system was perfect never missed a beat (no pun intended)..

You can run any usb stick, from the cable, I wanted one with usb in the back, Don't like wires on show unless no other choice,

on the 40 gig drive obvisoly depends on lengts of the tracks I had 9500 tracks I'll double check when i get home as i'm clearing stuff off it to add some new stuff,

I will read the handbook for the unit and see what the specs are for you
I got it from Bluespot.com in oxford i think they are
Blaupunkt mp53 Queens

fishsponge said:

Regarding the MP3 functionality of it though, it has an SD card slot, but it's only up to 1GB, and presumably the other way it plays MP3s is either through the AUX socket in the front or by burning them to a CD/DVD. Neither of these are really suitable, sadly, because I have many more MP3s than would fit on even a DVD, and the whole point of wanting a new one was so I don't have to plug in my iPhone any more.

Click to expand...

it also has a usb lead on the back which is fed through to the glove box, i haven't tested a hard drive running off it yet but i know you can get 32gb usb sticks now so maybe thats an option.

i'll also test the sd card slot for you because I'm sure it'll accept more than 1gb, i'll have to load a few onto my 16gb sd card and get back to you on both the usb and sd slot.

Can't you just sort out the MP3s you like, and play them in the car? 1GB is enough for 200 tracks, after all. You run the risk of spending more money for no extra benefit except saving 20 mins or so sorting out your music collection.

Thanks again

First of all, bluespot.com appears to be some weird web site... not related to car audio at all! Are you sure that's correct?

As for the specs of the unit... as long as it has a USB socket and a pre-out, I don't think there's anything else I care about, is there? I can plug either a memory stick or USB hard drive (USB-powered) into the USB socket and the pre-out will allow me to use the speaker in the boot.

As for the number of tracks you can fit on a given device, it depends on the length of track and bitrate used, basically. That's why I've been talking GB, not number of tracks! I have around 5,000 songs, but it occupies 28GB because I used the lowest bitrate my ears would allow (which happened to be variable, but generally quite high). My tracks are therefore relatively large compared to the same track compressed "normally".

I could re-compress all of them for car use, but probably wouldn't bother. I'd just buy more storage or leave tracks out.

So in summary, the blaupunkt unit owned by landy1uk and the Ripspeed unit owned by jason both have USB sockets in the back, and both have pre-outs.

Therefore, either would be suitable for me..... right? I can put my MP3s on a memory stick or USB hard drive, play them from the head unit and have every single speaker in my Discovery ES playing sound!

paul_c said:

Can't you just sort out the MP3s you like, and play them in the car? 1GB is enough for 200 tracks, after all. You run the risk of spending more money for no extra benefit except saving 20 mins or so sorting out your music collection.

Click to expand...

I like all my MP3s... otherwise i'd have deleted them

And I never know what I want to listen to... some days i'm in the mood for one things, and on other days it's something else. Most days I like the whole lot on random, to get a huge mix of genres all at once.

As for spending 20 minutes or so sorting out my collection... it'd take a lot longer than that. I want all or nothing. It'd frustrate me having half of my songs available, and the other half missing, because sod's law says i'd always want to listen to the half that isn't there!

Storage is not a problem as you can get terabyte external hard drives and with no moving parts, but the question is can your headunit of choice access and display storage and track data other than just play the track. Find a headunit that can access and display the amount of storage u require first.

oh... i'd never thought of that! Good point though... it'll have to keep an index of all the ID3 tags somewhere, somehow, and that index will most likely have a maximum size. I'd have thought the max size would have been absolutely huge in this day and age, but who knows.

I think I need to pop into my local Halfrauds and see if they have any knowledge whatsoever. Failing that, I guess i need to find my nearest car audio shop! Do I need to care about the heatsink/heat dissipation etc... or do head units generally not overheat these days?

There's a just few ICE suppliers on the www this is just one of them. Car Stereo - Quality and Value - CarAudioCentre.co.uk

You do have a vent on the dash top help with any heat from the head unit.

All i can say is go to a car audio shop.

Went to my local Halfords ended up sending an email to complaints department as the one that delt with me didn't have a clue, told them what i wanted and i was told that you could not do it all radios had usb in front only and they couldn't run a hard drive,you had to have an ipod. Parkedout side in car park was my freelander with the unit already in hard drive as well, and i told him that. and he said you can't have, so he came to the car and i showed him.. oh and while we were talking over his right should was a stereo big lable on it Rear usb.

Ok I know not all Halfords staff are like that.. anyways gotta go Home time Bye for now

Well by Old System I mean OLD technology afterall the std system has to be well over 10 years old by now. So is very outdated.
Well the Xplod unit I have has all you are looking for so check them out I got from Halfords in the sale a couple of years ago and it has done me well.
You may have 5000 track but you cant listen to them all at once.
Do like I have done I have a USB stick from the local pound shop that takes SD cards.
It works great. Sort out your music into groups and store them on a few SD cards.
I have 1 that just has Rock and 1 for Indie and another with other stuff on.
I use 2GB SD cards and the cost a couple of quid each.
Cant see the point in putting an expensive Hard drive in the glovebox or ****ing around with an ipod.