iPod, Rockbox, and car audio

[sappyswami]

I have tried to trudge through all the topics on this subject here, so hopefully my question is not a matter of my being dumb or lazy.

So I've recently ordered a 5th gen iPod 80 gig (first apple product. Ugh, apple. At least with rockbox it'll only be their hardware...) and I want it primarily if not exclusively for car audio. I haven't put speakers or stereo or anything in yet, so I can start from scratch really. (1960 Comet. Not trying to only listen to AM, here.)

Does anyone have any suggestions for head units that I can connect the ipod to through the bottom connector. Now to be clear, I don't want to us the head unit to control the ipod. Quite the contrary! I only want it to charge, and to play some fine tunes.

From the wiki, it seemed like my best bet was to use a Kenwood head unit with the KCA-iP500, but then this post got me worried. Though I'm not sure if his problem is using something other than the KCA-IP500. Not clear on that.

I just really don't want to have two cables, one to charge and one for sound, when I can get it all through the single cable, and with probably better sound. And again, I want to be able to control all the music through the ipod itself, and of course use the rockbox functionality.

So any suggestions? And, yes, if I end up just trying stuff, I'll edit the wiki article to help everyone out. This post is just to see how much I can learn since there were only four car audio tests on the article.

Thanks all!

[GodEater]

So to be clear, you're looking for a headunit which will allow you to connect to the lineout in the ipod's dock connector (and supply current so that the ipod doesn't go flat) ?

[evilny0]

If you don't need the ability to control the iPod on the headunit, I suppose any headunit with RCA or jack connectors will do, along with any adaptor such as Griffin AutoPilot, which includes a jack audio output and power connector. It's the first one I found after a quick search, but I guess others exist with even no controls, only audio output and power connector.

[sappyswami]

So to be clear, you're looking for a headunit which will allow you to connect to the lineout in the ipod's dock connector (and supply current so that the ipod doesn't go flat) ?

Exactly.

I think maybe this is what I'm looking for. I just don't know if it will work with rockbox is all.

[Chronon]

Any device that offers control of the iPod via your stereo's controls invokes Apple's accessory protocol.  There's limited support for this in Rockbox.  It's possible it will work as expected, but it's also possible it relies on features that have not been implemented yet. 

There's some info on tested accessories here: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome?topic=IpodAccessories

[GodEater]

So to be clear, you're looking for a headunit which will allow you to connect to the lineout in the ipod's dock connector (and supply current so that the ipod doesn't go flat) ?

Exactly.

I think maybe this is what I'm looking for. I just don't know if it will work with rockbox is all.

If you believe that is what you're looking for, then you're explicitly NOT looking for what I said. Your first post said you *didn't* want the head unit to control the ipod - the device you've just linked to says that's exactly what it does. Make your mind up