Hi all,

I'm looking at getting a new Stereo unit for my car - 51 plate Fabia SDI Estate - as the old cassette player is starting to do my nut in! (plus in the long run I'd like to hook up a sub!)

the head unit I'm thinking of getting is this: Alpine iDA-X311

a friend mentioned that Skoda's (and most cars) have odd shaped openings for the head units, so I might need a faceplate to cover the gaps. From the same site I have found two faceplates, and was wondering if anyone know which one would be the right one for my car?

this is the one I think would be the right one:Small faceplate

this is the other option: Large Faceplate

this is the Stereo fitted at the moment (not my actual car - but same unit)

any help would be great, I'm looking to get this over the next week once I've been paid!

Cheers,

HJ

Small face plate is the one I used in the wifes fabia.

Can be had for a lot less than that one on ebay I paid £3.50 posted.

Edited 22 February, 201016 yr by Bodie

Cheers Bodie!

Have found a selection of the faceplates on ebay!

Why buy a cheapo one when the fill in section from Skoda is about £3

I used the genuine Skoda one. All it does is fill the gap at the top. You can still see a little of the top of the tray underneath the stereo. Other than that it looks tidy.

Buy the Skoda one!

For once the dealer/official option is the cheapest, and the best way to go...

I have the x300... the sound quality is great, but the stereo itselfs a bit frustrating. Everytime you turn the ignition on it has to "bank" every song on the usb stick which takes about 5 minutes... it plays while doing it, but you lose the display while its banking. Finding songs is also rather clunky.

might not be the same with this one, but a warning for you Hopefully you already know theres no CD players in the x series? They're just usb/ipod players

Buy the skoda faceplate, its the right colour plastic for a start lol Don't need any looms, just swap the yellow and red wires around on the bullet connectors on the alpine supplied one

Edited 22 February, 201016 yr by Confused_Cheese

Heres a pic of it fitted if it helps. The skoda plate is the thin bit above the stereo that just clips in nice and easy:

On the stereo itself, I went for the Parrot RKi8400 this time. I had the X001 in the last Fab and came upon the same issues as Mr Cheese mentions

The Parrot is much quicker and you get a alphanumeric numberpad too, which makes finding songs/artists SO much easier. The wheel response is better too. It's more expensive, but you benefit from a top-notch handsfree system built-in too (as you'd expect from Parrot).

So another one I'd recommend you consider - one thing to note is that it sticks out from the dash more than the Alpine, which takes some getting used to but it's fine - this is mainly because there's a SDHC slot on the side of the faceplate, so you need room to access that.

http://www.parrot.com/uk/products/hands-free-car-kits/parrot-rki8400

I got mine through Amazon

Steve

Wow i thought the x001 avoided the banking thing! Glad i didn't buy one now

Parrot looks pretty cool, bit ott price wise for me though :(

I have the pioneer p7900ub fitted with a 160gb hard disk with plenty of MP3's stashed away. I think it must take about 3 minutes to scan each time the ignition is turned on (quite good considering the gigabytes), but you can listen to the radio or a cd in the meantime. Navigating the folders is reasonably good. The model had now been superseded.

I bought an adaptor loom because I thought I needed one - glad I didn't as it would have been yet another blocky connector to spend hours trying stash behind the dash to let the stereo slide in.

Thanks for the heads up on the faceplate!

in regards to the 'banking' of the songs, is this only on USB stick/HDD? and what kinda size are we talking about? or does it happen with the iPod as well? because the iPod would be my primary media source, I'd only really use the USB for when I haven't had chance to update my iPod (happens far to often lol) or if someone else in the car had a USB with music on.

and yeah, I know there's no CD unit in these heads, fortunately I've not used CD's for a while!

The Parrot unit does look quite nice, but unfortunately is out of my price range!

Cheers for the additional info guys

Access issue only occurs with USB/HDDs - it's simply because of the file format and the way the Alpine accesses the songs. The Parrot gets round it.

I thought the price issue would crop up with the Parrot and I can understand why. But you get a proper colour screen compared with the X311, plus full handsfree and phone control on the unit. For me an extra £100 represented very good value for money. Everything's integrated and what would you pay fitted for a separate Bluetooth handsfree system? Certainly more than £100 - depends what you need from your setup though, of course!

Cheers,

Steve

personally, hands free isn't really an issue for me as I don't really need or want to use my phone whilst driving, and i've got a nice little bluetooth earpiece for the rare occasion I do

I think I'm going to stick with the Alpine unit as it's got all the functions I want for a reasonable price!

thanks a lot for all the info guys!

Cheers,

HJ

Edited 24 February, 201016 yr by Hippie_Jack