I have read that the 2005 Radio Head Unit will play MP3's off CD's, but have been unable to get any further info. Has anyone come across this information?

Who makes the 2004 unit, and is there an equivalent private branded model. If so I might be able to look for a new unit from them and extrapolate the features,

 

Existing head units are Alpine. I don't think it is a re-packaged model - if it was it would probably have had MP3 CD playback long ago!

 

Alpine is contracted by Bmw wot make unit to their specifications. The units are made specifcally for Bmw, but they may make one with similar guts in it for other car companies. Alpine's brand models typically are much more feature packed than their oem for Bmw base vanilla models.

 

That's correct. My colege is one of the System Sound Engineer at Alpine.

They do build them to spec. But they build them to BMW wishes only.

Meaning, OEM Car manufacctures will never spend the extra $2.00 to add RCA pre-outs for any aftermarket use. Yeah, we're talking about $2.00

If it was up to Alpine, wouldn't you think that Alpine would design it so that aftermarket integration would be seamless?