Hello knowledgeable ones. I am hoping to find information on the best way to hookup my newer iPod Classic to my Alpine car stereo head unit. I had thought that all I would need was the Alpine cord (KCE 422i) that connects to the CD changer DIN output and terminates with the iPod dock connector. Today, I was told by a local Alpine dealer that Apple has reduced voltage on newer ipods down to five volts, and that the KCE 422i cable will not charge the newer iPods. They recommended two separate cables. The first would go from the CD changer's DIN output to RCA. The second cable would go from RCA to terminate with the iPod dock connector. This second cable stepped the voltage down to 5 volts and had a power and ground cable to give power to charge and run the iPod. Both cables ran about $70.
This seemed kind of steep to me, but I DON'T want to use a cheaper cable that would require the use of the iPod's 1/8th inch headphone output, which would place the iPod's headphone amp in the chain and degrade sound.
Is this the best way to go? Apparently the Alpine cable KCE 422i will only charge older iPods. Plus, I read a review on the Amazon site that said that even with the KCE 422i the Alpine head unit would only read one level of text from the iPod, and could not open subsets of text. Plus, with the KCE 422i, the screen on the iPod is dark and shut down. With the two-cable option I was told that song selection would have to be performed on the iPod directly. The cables were only to charge the iPod and carry a line level signal from the preamp outputs.
Is anyone here using this two cable system with a new Classic ipod and Alpine head unit?