looking for HU that I can control ipod with remote

[blazian87 10+ year member]

I currently own a Alpine CDA-9886 and i've been loving the sound quality from it. I've always loved Alpine so I might be looking into another one. Anyway, the reason I'm thinking about a new HU is because I want better Ipod controls. The navigation on the 9886 is hard to find songs especially when driving. The unit comes with a remote but it's only for moving to the next track or artist. I want to scroll through the artist list with the remote instead of the knob so I don't have to lean over everytime to change to a song I want to listen to.

I've been looking into the IXA-W404 and I think it looks sweet but I'm just wondering for anyone that owns it, can you control anything through the remote? or even with the Alpine Remote RUE-4203?

My main focus is convenience scrolling through my ipod and sound quality.

or if anything, does anyone know a good double din unit that can scroll through the ipod with only the remote? I appreciate your comments. Thanks

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[blazian87 10+ year member]

no one? somebody's gotta have something..

 

[makdaddy 10+ year member]

All of the new Kenwoods have the direct USB for Ipod

I like the nav system double din brcause it is touch screen as well

But the single Din kenwoods look nice

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

With my Pioneer Premier DEH 980BT I have almost 100% control of all functions of the head unit through the remote including the IPOD. I can scroll through albums, playlists, genres, choose songs, whatever. I can also work all the functions of the radio, CD player, and even all the tuning features such as the EQ and time alignment with the remote.

Actually I think the Pioneer's IPOD interface itself is a bit more cumbersome than the Alpine's. On the Alpine my songs came up alphabetically and if I remember correctly there was a way to do a speed search to get to specific portions of the list as well as by using playlists. So on the Alpine if I wanted to I could jump to one random song anywhere in my whole song list and then jump to any other after that, whereas on the Pioneer if you go into a playlist, album, or genre to find something specific you're limited to the songs on that list and you have to repeat the process if you want to hear something completely different next. So if you go into a playlist just to look for one specific song you're stuck there until you toggle back through to 'playlist', choose which one, then find another song. And I haven't found a way to at least get my whole song list to show up in alphabetical order so it's all random unless I'm in a playlist.

The Pioneer is a bit more cumbersome but still workable but it is a big plus for me that the remote is so user-friendly and can access almost all the same functions as you can from the faceplate. This to me more than makes up for the drawbacks of the way it interracts with the IPOD. I barely even touch any of the faceplate controls anymore unless the remote's batteries die. It's especially useful to have considering it's a 2nd generation Tundra and the head unit is about a quarter mile's reach from the driver's seat.

May wanna stop by a Pioneer dealer with your IPOD, hook it up to one, and see if it works for you.