New guy, total Noob says: "Hi!"

[amix]

Hi,

my name is Andreas, from Germany, a total noob, which means, I never did more than installing an aftermarket casseiver/cd-receiver. I have, superficial, electric hardware knowledge.
Since my car (Mitsubishi Carisma 1.6, 1997) has gotten old and may not be with me for very long, I decided, that I will use this car to learn more about cars, how to dampen/insulate them, how to install HiFi and whatever.

I am into "Fun-Only" or SQ, depending on budget ;-) My first build will be "Fun-Only".

This involves adding a 4-channel amplifier (Pioneer GM-A4704) for the 4x Philips OEM speakers that came with the car, because my current head unit, an early 2000's DENSION DH200ix CD receiver, does not play loud enough when at higher speeds. Later I may dampen.

The receiver is also head-unit to the matching DENSION DMP3 harddisk player (now running an SD-card-to-IDE adapter instead of the 3.5" harddisk). The HDD player is a container with a little headunit mounted to it. This means, the player also could be used stand-alone, which in fact first it was, since this was the first product, DENSION came up with. People would either mount the whole device somewhere below the glove compartment or behind the shifting stick. It had a little VFC display, a pushknob, a 3.5 line out jack and a DC-in, which meant, it could be unmounted from the car and used on its own. Later on they added the possibility to store it in an aluminium frame with cooling fins. That one can then be connected with a 5 meter cable, via the CD changer control port of the DH200ix CD-receiver or a separate control unit, that just looks like the one mounted to the hard disk container. It was possible to use this container as an exchangeable harddisk on your PC, sliding it in and out of the frame you would install to your PC's case. They even had a software, that would allow creation of complex playlists, including moods and whatever. The whole harddisk player, mounted in the alu-fin case, is about the size of a medium sized 1990's 2-channel amp.

They also produced a head-unit with a mount frame for a 2.5" harddisk. It made the DMP3 unit redundant. That device was called DH100ix.

DENSION was very successful, back in the day over here in EU and Mercedes bought them. Currently, as it seems, they are independent again.

Enough with the history!

The first I will do is adding aforementioned (or stronger, if not enough, it's 4 x 40W RMS) power-amp. Then I may do sound-dampening. I won't upgrade speakers, since I may get a new car in a not too distant future, which will mean a total change in the hardware anyway, including the head unit. I may go full DSP and three-way then.

It's late at night, so I can't shoot photos of the devices I mentioned, I will follow suit tomorrow by editing this post (photos in post below), if interested.

EDIT: Should have said something about the music I listen to, which is, practically, everything, as long it's got some soul, blood, sweat and tears, ranging from classical, hip-hop, heavy, rock'n'roll, rythm'n'blues, disco, punk, old-school industrial, electro, etc.

Have a good day!

Click to read more...

 

[1aespinoza Premium Member]

Hi,

my name is Andreas, from Germany, a total noob, which means, I never did more than installing an aftermarket casseiver/cd-receiver. I have, superficial, electric hardware knowledge.
Since my car (Mitsubishi Carisma 1.6, 1997) has gotten old and may not be with me for very long, I decided, that I will use this car to learn more about cars, how to dampen/insulate them, how to install HiFi and whatever.

I am into "Fun-Only" or SQ, depending on budget ;-) My first build will be "Fun-Only".

This involves adding a 4-channel amplifier (Pioneer GM-A4704) for the 4x Philips OEM speakers that came with the car, because my current head unit, an early 2000's DENSION DH200ix CD receiver, does not play loud enough when at higher speeds. Later I may dampen.

The receiver is also head-unit to the matching DENSION DMP3 harddisk player (now running an SD-card-to-IDE adapter instead of the 3.5" harddisk). The HDD player is a container with a little headunit mounted to it. This means, the player also could be used stand-alone, which in fact first it was, since this was the first product, DENSION came up with. People would either mount the whole device somewhere below the glove compartment or behind the shifting stick. It had a little VFC display, a pushknob, a 3.5 line out jack and a DC-in, which meant, it could be unmounted from the car and used on its own. Later on they added the possibility to store it in an aluminium frame with cooling fins. That one can then be connected with a 5 meter cable, via the CD changer control port of the DH200ix CD-receiver or a separate control unit, that just looks like the one mounted to the hard disk container. It was possible to use this container as an exchangeable harddisk on your PC, sliding it in and out of the frame you would install to your PC's case. They even had a software, that would allow creation of complex playlists, including moods and whatever. The whole harddisk player, mounted in the alu-fin case, is about the size of a medium sized 1990's 2-channel amp.

They also produced a head-unit with a mount frame for a 2.5" harddisk. It made the DMP3 unit redundant. That device was called DH100ix.

DENSION was very successful, back in the day over here in EU and Mercedes bought them. Currently, as it seems, they are independent again.

Enough with the history!

The first I will do is adding aforementioned (or stronger, if not enough, it's 4 x 40W RMS) power-amp. Then I may do sound-dampening. I won't upgrade speakers, since I may get a new car in a not too distant future, which will mean a total change in the hardware anyway, including the head unit. I may go full DSP and three-way then.

It's late at night, so I can't shoot photos of the devices I mentioned, I will follow suit tomorrow by editing this post, if interested.

Have a good day!

Welcome. Thanks for the product highlight. I saw a few Denison products way back when in downtown boutique stores. Radios looked very clean and simplistic. I did not know they were that advanced.

 

[amix]

Welcome.

Thanks!

Radios looked very clean and simplistic. I did not know they were that advanced.

They have a nice, pragmatic layout and are (mostly) easy to use. Nothing fancy, as long as you don't connect the DMP3 player. Then you can control that fully from the head unit. Not unlike a CD changer.

You said "downtown". Was that in a US city? Since they are a, rather small, I believe, Hungarian company, I would be surprised, that they made it that far! Albeit, Mercedes bought them at the height of the iPod craze (they later developed an interface for the iPod to be connected to the head unit, which may have been the reason Mercedes had an interest in them), so they sure were state of the art in-vehicle MP3 playing, back then.

I'll update the previous post with a few images (follow up post), but first need to scale them down a little.

 

[amix]

Going to add the photos to a separate post here. Didn't have best lighting, so a bit blurry.

This is the DMP3 in the "Alu Car Host" (front):

Same, but back (serial No. removed). You can see the GND and the socket for the 5 meter cable, that connects it to the control unit:

Top/side view:

Removed from the car host. You can see the line-out socket and the socket for an external 12V PSU. This way you could simply pull it out of your car, add some headphones or active desktop speakers and listen to your library in a motel room or bring it to a party:

Back of the removed unit. The blue connector also would connect it to a swap frame in your PC. You'd plug it in, copy your library to some folder on the harddisk's root (you also could have a full operating system install on it. The disk had to be FAT32 formatted, sadly that is very restrictive, today. I contacted support, whether there was an update toe exFAT, but they barely remembered this product ;-) ):

Following two, rather ugly, pictures from the head unit, tuned to a local FM station. The display and LED colors can be set to any of, I think, eight colors. It has also a few VU-Meter displays, which I don't use, I prefer a pragmatic approach. The satellite dish, in the upper right corner, could have been replaced with a clock, i.e. You may see a DSP button. That is not a real DSP, but gives your typical "Rock, Jazz, Classical, etc." EQ presets. The CD is behind the frontplate, which also can be removed and transported to protect against theft:

I connect my Smartphone to a Xiaomi cigarette-lighter plugin, that has two USB charge ports, Bluetooth, a microphone and an FM-transmitter, which it uses to broadcast the audio it gets via Bluetooth to the radio. Via the mic one can do telephony.

Enjoy.

EDIT: Here is a pretty nice demo of the head unit, albeit in the cooler variant, that could take a stand-alone MP3 player with a laptop disk where, otherwise, the CD would go.

 

[1aespinoza Premium Member]

You said "downtown". Was that in a US city? Since they are a, rather small, I believe, Hungarian company, I would be surprised, that they made it that far!

Yes, it is Stateside. It was an odd store because it did not specialize in car audio. It was the only store that carried Oz Audio with the Superman logo. They only carried one subwoofer model and in 12 inch with square magnets, brand unknown. I vaguely recall most other items for lack of interest but they had some nice clocks and ornaments. Maybe it was a curio shop.

This is the DMP3 in the "Alu Car Host" (front)

I read the brand wrong. I saw it as Denison, but just saw that the logo says Dension. That headunit takes me back to an old Philips car radio that had an active matrix display. It was mesmerizing. You certainly have a unique setup. It is nice.

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

Welcome!!!

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

Ive never seen that Brand or set up in my time. Very unusual and very interesting. Thanks for sharing and the history given on it. Very unique

 

[amix]

Welcome!!!

Thanks!

Ive never seen that Brand or set up in my time. Very unusual and very interesting. Thanks for sharing and the history given on it. Very unique

It may never have made it to U.S. retail. Actually, I highly doubt it! They have diversified their product line now as can be seen on their home-page.