Use one of these, to connect the iPod interface line-out instead of the headphone out:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...903986-5490233

 

I do, but that wont connect to the USB port and display playlists.

 

True. Folks were complaining about poor audio via the aux jack.

Edit: Sorry, I missed the detail about the y-cable. Odd that they would rely on the headphone jack. Honestly, were I blessed with a USB port, I would run out and get a cheap USB portable drive, and leave the iPod at home.

 

You can always try a digital FM transmitter,I bought a Kensington 33199 from Amazon for $ 60 and It works great,plugs into the lighter,charges the Ipod,FM channels were easy to sinc the sound is amazingly good...not perfect but sure solves the problem easily and somewhat inexpensively...take alook at the amazon link above...take care

 

Why on earth would you use that when you have the aux-in available for free? FM is guaranteed to be the worst possible sound quality.

 

Has anyone confirmed yet whether the USB port will work with a bus-powered portable hard drive?

 

Oh well...first of all it charges the ipod,and I beg to differ with you on the sound quality it sounds great and works perfectly with all the sound controls on the factory amp,It also works in my other cars that do not have the auxilary plugs installed....

 

I ordered the iPod adapter in my '06 MC, and I love it. The insrtuctions I have are to title the playlist in iTunes with MINI1, MINI2, etc. This is how I have mine:

MINI1 Little of Everything
MINI2 Poco de Espanol
MINI3 Jazzy
MINI4 Driving Music
MINI5 Oldies & R&B

I have other playlists too, but the ones I use in the MINI are the ones I have on the MINI playlists. I know I have over 600 songs on the first playlist and over 400 on the second, and they play every song. Depending on how you save the order of the playlists on iTunes should determine the order in which it plays in your car. Also, if you were listening to another playlist not under MINI, it will still play that list from where you left off. I have 1700 songs total and if I push 6 on the head unit of the radio, I know it will play the whole iPod, from 1-1700.

Good luck!

 

I'm sure a stand-alone iPod car charger would be cheaper than an FM transmitter. I think most would agree that FM ranks quite a bit below the other choices (CD, USB, Aux port, iPod Adapter).

I've tried FM transmitters in the past, and they have been very hissy & distorted, even worse than the FM radio stations. But I did hear one recently that sounded acceptable for non-critical listening. Anyhow, sounds like you got a setup that works for you - that's a good thing.

 

Someone on MINI2 tried it but it didn't work. However, based on the drive's behavior he thought the USB port was not supplying enough power for the drive. He was going to look for a low power hard drive and try again (I don't know the outcome).

Actually the Y cable adapter uses the dock port. Photo from MINI2:

 

Not true... If you look closely, you'll see that it has a 3.5mm headphone jack (in addition to the dock connector - and they both have to be connected for it to function) that has to also plug into the headphone out plug on the iPod. Basically, the dock connector is for controlling the navigation functions of the iPod and the headphone connector is for the audio output. I'm not sure why they built it that way, but I heard tale that it had something to do with making it be able to work with iTunes DRM audio files (i.e. it's a kludge).

 

If you look at the picture rkw posted (not just the cable, but also what you can see of the directions behind it), it appears that the only connection to the iPod is the dock connector.

The 3.5mm jack goes into the car's AUX input, and the USB connector goes into the car's USB port, obviously.

 

Yea, it looks like sound from iPod dock to AUX, and directory from iPod dock to USB. I guess with a USB stick the MINI is doing the mp3 decoding (as it does for an mp3 CD), but with this iPod connector it lets the iPod decode.

 

well it certainly makes little sense to have the dock connector on one end of the cord and a headphone jack at the other, along with the usb plug.

I can't tell from the #2 diagram, but it seems like the usb plug goes in the usb socket, and the headphone jack goes into the Mini's aux port, not the ipod's.

The dock connection should take care of power and audio, and allow for control via the car's audio system.

FWIW, I have the current Mini interface and have no problem playing itunes DRM files on it.

 

With the Y Cable you get everything . (playlists - I have cca 210 playlists on Ipod classic 160GB ). In my case though the quality of the sound is dissapointing...(with some kinds of music a lot of distortion..) .

I am getting much better sound with USB sticks, CF and SD cards plugged into the MINI USB port...
(I got My MCS (European version ) with bluetooth usb audio & hi-fi cca 2 weeks ago).

(The Y cable - dock port plugs into Ipod the other two ends plug into MINI USB and AUX ports). (some people were stipulating that the stereo plug should be inserted into ipod phones jack - If you try this - nothing works, you get nothing - just checked !)

Reggarding hard disks plugged into USB - some work (exactly as with USB sticks - You can see folder hierarchy and the song titles).
The only drawback - I have not figured out if playlists are possible - looks NO.) Some (trackstor 160GB - I can not make this one function - although powered through the lighter ! ). I believe all low powerd HDDs should work if there is no some dedicated software crap on them.

 

Ah, my bad. Sorry about the misunderstanding on my part. No matter though as the audio will still only be as good as the AUX in port can produce on the MINI then (i.e. the audio is still being sent into the MINI's audio system via the AUX input).

On my 1st gen MINI I have two iPod setups. One of them connects the iPod's dock connector line-out directly to the CD changer cables in the boot. The other setup connects the iPod's dock connector line-out to the MINI's AUX input port. There's a huge difference in the sound quality between the two connections (with the AUX input being the worse one by far).

The OEM iPod adapter on our 2nd gen MINI also taps directly into the CD changer connection and it sounds great as well (i.e. it's basically using the exact same setup as the better sounding connection in my 1st gen MINI). Thus, any way you boil it down, connecting an iPod via the CD changer input produces superior sound quality over using the USB port's y cable that connects via the MINI's AUX input.

 

Can it use iPod as a USB HDD? In iTunes you can set an iPod to allow function as a generic USB mass storage device.

 

You will find that in mass storage mode none of your music is available. This is probably part of Apple's agreement with the music industry to limit piracy.

 

I meant copying MP3 files into the HDD file system. I know this is not the best use of an iPod, as the iPod player will not access and play such files. However if you have a spare iPod, in theory you can make use of its low power HDD and take advantage of the higher sound quality through an OEM USB connection (without getting an iPod adapter).

 

That should work. I have a 60 meg iPod set set for managing songs manually. It was just updated to the latest software version (1.2.3) and it does allow mp3 files to be copied to the data area. Now, if someone will just give me an MCS with a USB connection I'll be happy to try it out.

 

I am inclined to believe this will bring nothing much. Did I mention that (at least in my case) you can hear the ipod hard drive spining when you change songs ? As said the sound quality is much better from IPOD NANO 8GB 3.gen (solid state drive inside (flash drive)) and even better from USB sticks and CF cards.
Maybe the answer lies in solid state HDD (or beter flash memory drives) with no movable parts (true - at this moment in time those are quite expensive - but quite soon the price will go down - in the meantime you can use USB sticks (I ve seen 8GB and probably there are bigger as well).

 

You are misunderstanding me. What I'm suggesting is using an iPod as generic USB flash or hard drive storage (you have to configure it that way in iTunes), and manually copying MP3 files onto the storage. It is the MINI USB that would decode the files, not the iPod. It would yield the same sound quality as any other USB memory card or hard drive.

 

Are you talking about using an iPod with the Y adaptor into AUX and USB? That's not what we are talking about. We are talking about using something like this:

Weren't you the one that originally suggested using a HDD?

 

I just visited my Mini dealer today and the service tech and I spent some time trying to figure out the initial issue that I reported at the start of this thread. The issue remains. The dealer replicated it but had never seen the problem before. We attached my iPod to a Clubman with the regular interface (USB & non-SatNav) and found no problem, so the issue does not seem to be my iPod or the current models. It MAY be SatNav specific in regards to the iPod interface. He is sending it along to Mini engineers.

Our (his and my) big question is: Is this an issue of memory with the SatNav or a defective product somewhere along the line?

IF anyone out there wants to help me troubleshoot this, it would be helpful. The dealership had no SatNavs with iPod adapter to test it ourselves. Please shoot me a PM if you have the SatNav, the Mini iPod Adapter (preferrably the 07 version that is tucked in the secret compartment, not the USB), a fairly large iPod and some free time. :-)

Thanks!
JMelrose

 

RESOLVED:

The dealership called me yesterday after putting in a ticket with the Mini Engineers and let me know that this problem I'm seeing IS a real one and it is unsolved and likely unsolveable. The SatNav display runs out of memory and the result is the playlist craps out after X number of song item spaces has been used up.

So, again, buyer beware if you have the iPod interface with the SatNav, or plan to purchase it. I still enjoy mine despite this additional limitation.