LOL! - you sound like my wife!

Yes, it is a bit of money. But the way I look at it is I love my gadgets, and I love music, but I don't have time to listen to good music anywhere. The only place I fiund time to myself is in the car, and I have nothing else to do (except drive, I guess), so I put my killer audio in the car, rather than in the lounge room, it get's more use that way, better value for money.

The G4 is a little overkill, I admit, but for similar cost the existing popular units had shitty interfaces. This is lightning fast, great graphics, and instant access to 1,000's of uncompressed, exact-copy CDs! The ultimate stacker. Shows Album art as well.

It looks like my first version I will have to settle for stereo and use an external bluetooth kit. I can't seem to get the right combination of settings and software support to do what I was trying to do. So for now I'll run coax from the G4 into the Nak and use that as the master volume control and DAC. Haven't tested this configuration, but it should kick ass for SQ as I'm sending exact digital copy over the coax to the NAK DAC, which is awesome. This bypasses all EQ and gives me a very clean signal.

Am I the only one who has noooo idea what has been written (or described) in the post?! LOOKS awesome though

I gotta check it out when ya all done and have a listen

That's it, I'm leaving!....


Bye....

Naah! just kidding..

Checked the progress. Only about a week to go. So should be easily right for the Binalong trip.

Dropped by tonight and had a look at the console just below the gearstick, should be the bext place for the iPhone dock. So here's the "before" picture. They also patched up the old tweeter holes in the front triangle window trim, came up awesome, here's a before and after shot.

Took the iphone in and Pat masked it up and drowned it in fibreglass and resin!

Then I thought I'd take a photo... OOps, my iPhone was buried in resin.. Oh well.

So, after I dropped back in and they'd popped the iphone out of the fibreglass, I snapped a couple of shots. Here's the iphone imprint for the cradle to go in the console, a shot of the back parcel shelf middle panel with a section cut out and vented with drill holes, this will be covered in speaker cloth and rest into the panel to allow the subs in the boot to push air up the back window into the cabin, to help with the sub sound. The last shot is the fibreglassed front centre dash panel for the cd player.

So it looks like the iPhone is a little too long (tall) to fit in the gap below the gearstick in a straight line, we're going to have to spin it around about 45 degrees. Might work better that way anyway.

Here's a shot of the whole console and dash at the moment.

I fiddled with the usb digital tv tuner and got that working and also fixed the issue I had with dvd, so here's a shot of the G3 DVD playing (Steve Vai).

Hopefully get the car back in about a week.

Dropped in to Mazda today to remind myself what my car looks like when it's reassembled! How I miss her!
Found that with the location for the iphone under the gearstick, it needs to be dropped in a fair way and at about 30 degrees up-tilt to avoid reflection from out the windscreen.

Looking for a source for decent UHF in-car antennas, most seem to come from china/etc...

Got the Carnetix P5V supply today and tested on the bench with the G4. Works excellently! I peeled back the plastic and sheild from one of the usb cables to access the red wire (+5V) and tapped into it. Used that for the trigger for the P5V, then hooked it up to 12V, the 5v output goes to the usb hub and the audigy 2 NX sound card. So it's running entirely off 12v now. One thing I can't understand is how that doesn't make a 5v loop with the hub, but when the G4 turns off it turns off the P5V as hoped. strange.

Lastly, here's a photo of the front panel for the cd player (dash) it's come up great.

Dash pod looks good!

The top opening is for the lcd - temperature, etc.

The Din opening is for the Nakamichi head unit. Pat has started running all the wiring.

Scheduled to Fit the Carputer on Sunday.

Everyone's gone quiet... Is anyone still there?

yes, we're still here, we just can't say anything

top job...

I still can't believe this is all happening and it looks like top notch work as well

When's it going to be finished

Will

Look, I cannot give enough praise to Patrick. He really knows this stuff inside out and is totally a pro at doing these installs. Works late and works hard. If anyone in Canberra wants some work done on their car, go see superaudio in Phillip and talk to Pat. Make sure you bring a JD and coke!
My input has only been around a few wants and ideas, he's the legend that puts it all together.

Apparently they had only just finished the turbo black RX8 with the perspex rear shelf a week or so before starting mine.

I am aiming to pick up the car probably Friday next week.

I spent a little time stuffing around with Centrafuse (the carputer software) today. Still a few bugs, but I also fiddled with the skin to get it a little more interesting, the biggest thing (and simple to do) was the RX8 logo.

Wow, I love that song. I've got about 15 of Unknown Artist's discology.

Yes, very funny. Centrafuse doesn't read the *.ape tags. David (from Flux) is looking into it. That's why I get "Unknown Artist".

Anyway, I'm going to be installing the Carputer today, excellent, can't wait to give it a rip and make sure it was all worth it......

Here's a couple of shots of the back parcel shelf sub vent installed, and one of the finished dash panel for the cd700. I'll take some later with the G4 installed.

OK, fitted the carputer tonight. Not completely installed, but verified the hook-ups and audio quality.

Attached are a few pics of the console fired up, and the hubs/etc ready to tuck away.

What is good:
1) sound quality from the unit through the NAK is definitely listenable, not as good as a cd in the NAK though (see issue 1).
2) standby and restore are FAST! a few seconds each. And fairly reliable, time will tell on that.
3) Patrick has done an awesome job of the soundstage/imaging and producing a flatter response.

I didn't realise a smaller car impacts the dynamics/acoustics so much! very hard to have a broad and deep sound stage in a smaller cockpit.

Have a few outstanding issues:
1) cannot standby the unit from the acc input - trying to resolve this both through experimentation and talking with Infill in Korea. Have a workaround - need to sleep the unit before killing the ignition.
2) something is colouring the sound, I believe that although I have set digital output only and turned off cmss, eq, etc. The volume control still attenuates the digital signal, so the mixer must be active. I need to figure out how to disable that and have "pass-through" digital directly from disk to the coax output. Then, theoretically, I should get a BETTER signal than from a cd, since the audio copy software has corrected for jitter.
3) steering wheel controls work (almost perfectly) just need to manually tweak some values.

Looks like I am cutting it fine for the ride on Sunday. I am getting the car back on Saturday! Fingers crossed!...


Oh, and the aircon unit from Kanatechs looks to work great, just like factory (or very close).