Stereo with A2DP Audio Streaming/Bluetooth.

[jasper5]

I'm looking to buy one of these for my son's 30th birthday.

Any ideas which one to buy and where from for less than £100 if possible.

He wants to play music from his iphone 4.

Thanks guys

His car is a Vauxhall Astra 2001.

[lozz]

Sorry mate carnt help much
idont think theres much out there audio wise that streams music via bluetooth, (Icouid be wrong tho)
most have bluetooth but wont stream, the headunits ive seen that stream bluetooth are stupid money

you can buy dongles tho that you plug into the back of a radio and then it will stream to iphone,

[Gary406]

john your best off buying a decent radio and i-phone lead rather than streaming... streaming over bluetooth will lower the quality of the sound a lot....

this kit comes with the lead . in my opinion alpine are by FAR the best head units on the market . . .

http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/produc ... 14443.html

there are many radios out there for under £100 that will do streaming if thats the way he wants it ..

http://www.dynamicsounds.co.uk/sony-mex ... 25962.html

[jasper5]

Thanks Gary.
Thanks lozz.

Much appreciated.

[highlander]

john your best off buying a decent radio and i-phone lead rather than streaming... streaming over bluetooth will lower the quality of the sound a lot....

I stream my music over Bluetooth the whole time, I don't think it lowers the sound quality noticeably at all. Just sounds like playing off a CD. I rip all my music at 196 Kbit/sec (not the default 128 Kbit/sec) at 44.1 KHz, and I can't tell there's any loss in quality.

Bluetooth transfers data in optimal conditions at about 384 Kbit/sec - that's plenty for streaming bi-directional audio. In a car, the phone is never going to be any more than 6 feet from the head unit's receiver, and that's if you stick it on the rear parcel shelf. I either have mine in my coat pocket while I'm driving, or I have it on a mount on the dashboard, so mine is never more than 2 feet from the head unit.

My phone is an HTC Sensation (it's also flawless from a Blackberry Storm and from an HTC Desire), and my head unit is a Sony MEX-BT3600U outputting through the JBL amp and speaker system that came with the car. I made it sound even better by replacing the 6x9s with JBL GTO938s. It doesn't even sound crap if I turn the volume up to uncomfortable levels.

[jasper5]

I copped out and gave him the money to get his own

[highlander]

Well done

Good job he doesn't have a modern Astra - my colleague has a 10-plate Astra 1.6 SRi, and it looks like you can't put in an after-market HU at all because of the *stupid* way they've integrated all the on-board computer settings into the HU controls. Even worse, if you go for the "normal" CD HU, you can't then upgrade to the one that has a Sat-Nav and Bluetooth hands-free in it because of the amount of extra wiring that needs to be added to the car - the dealerships won't touch it and they'll even void your warranty if you try it yourself