I managed to get a Phatnoise box on ebay and so I have got rid of all those CD's floating around the boot of my Skoda Superb I keep meaning to tidy up and put away.

Out with the 6 CD changer

And in with the Phatnoise box. Simply plugs inot the CD changer cable.

And unlike the instructions that come with it (for the VW Passat). it fitted a treat with the screww holes that already existed for the CD. No modifiactions required as per the instructions to shut the door.

Things have never been tider in the boot.

And it works so much better than I thought it would with the DX unit and steering wheel controls to change the track. Once I put a bigger drive int he DMS cartridge there will be no need for the Ipod in the car unless someone wants to watch a video. So simple to use and now so much music to choose from with out going into that blooming CD changer. And no more no disc messages either! I know these units are out of date old hat but if you can find one they better than the in boot CD changer. (unbelieveable the phat noise media manger works on Windows 7 too. There I thought I would struggle).

Embarrasingly I've never heard of a phatnoise box (it's an age thing, confirmed by my opinion of the CDs you had in your boot ). Reading your post it looks like a good idea though - the unreliability of the CD changer is tiring to say the least.

So, where do I get one? How much? what else will I need? Will they all fit so well, as yours did? etc

cheers

Edited 20 September, 201114 yr by sidewaze samm

The one I have seen has an 80gb cartridge so can hold loads of albums, just wondered how the navigation works for more than 6 albums and the songs on those albums?

The one I have seen has an 80gb cartridge so can hold loads of albums, just wondered how the navigation works for more than 6 albums and the songs on those albums?

You can put a hell of a lot of songs on. The problem is the cartridge size on most appears to be 20gb. So you have a big one at 80gb. If you follow phathack you can put a larger disc in a 2.5 laptop hard drive PATA type.

The 6 CD selection of the nav system does not select the CD's.

if you press:

1 it is HELP option

2 it selcects by playlist

3 it selects by Album

4 selects by artist

5 selects by Genre

6 is an options setting.

So if you press 4, the unit tells you through computerised speech which artist is playing now, and then you use the up/down selection keys either on the the unit or steering wheel to change artist, and as you go through them alaphbeticaly it tells you again what the artist is.Once you are on the artist you want you wait 5 seconds it then plays that artist and the up and down buttons go through the tracks instead.

Embarrasingly I've never heard of a phatnoise box (it's an age thing, confirmed by my opinion of the CDs you had in your boot ). Reading your post it looks like a good idea though - the unreliability of the CD changer is tiring to say the least.

So, where do I get one? How much? what else will I need? Will they all fit so well, as yours did? etc

cheers

I got mine of the usual place 'ebay', after months of waiting for one to come up.

I paid £90 for it and for that I got, Phatnoise box, 20gb DMS cartridge, USB 2.0 Cradle, Phatnoise box to VW cd changer lead, Software for PC and the manuals for it.

Note that while the anceint software installed (phatnoise music media) on my windows 7 PC, it installed on my XP pc with more voices to select from.

There are two different units. On top of this I understand the US models don't always work well with European head units.

The installation instructions are here: My link

Having read the installation instructions I really didn't want to cut a hole in the cupboard and was really suprised to find that when I took the CD changer out, that it all fitted properly without any messing or drilling new holes and I did not need to cut a hole out either.

Personaly I'm well please with it and glad I took what apeared to be a bit of a risky plunge for an 'old' type technology. But it is better than fiddling with an ipod.

Hope the above helps

I got mine of the usual place 'ebay', after months of waiting for one to come up.

I paid £90 for it and for that I got, Phatnoise box, 20gb DMS cartridge, USB 2.0 Cradle, Phatnoise box to VW cd changer lead, Software for PC and the manuals for it.

Note that while the anceint software installed (phatnoise music media) on my windows 7 PC, it installed on my XP pc with more voices to select from.

There are two different units. On top of this I understand the US models don't always work well with European head units.

The installation instructions are here: My link

Having read the installation instructions I really didn't want to cut a hole in the cupboard and was really suprised to find that when I took the CD changer out, that it all fitted properly without any messing or drilling new holes and I did not need to cut a hole out either.

Personaly I'm well please with it and glad I took what apeared to be a bit of a risk plunge.

Hope the above helps

thanx for that - very helpful

- there's one on ebay at the moment (with a BIN of £250!)

Just thought I'd let those intrested in this lead that I have managed to use the Phathack tool PhatHack DMS Tools v2.14

to sort out the phatbox to accept a larger capacity drive (now 120GB) and to update the box so that it will also play FLAC files etc.

The above makes it easy and so does the instructions that come with it - instructions.

Anyway more info can be found here on the unit and problems etc

www.phathack.com

and the fourm page : here

Just thought I'd let those intrested in this lead that I have managed to use the Phathack tool PhatHack DMS Tools v2.14

to sort out the phatbox to accept a larger capacity drive (now 120GB) and to update the box so that it will also play FLAC files etc.

The above makes it easy and so does the instructions that come with it - instructions.

Anyway more info can be found here on the unit and problems etc

www.phathack.com

and the fourm page : here

Great to see more confirmations that the DMS Tools are still being useful!

For anyone reaching this topic late, you need to use the latest version of the DMS Tools which can be found via this thread: v2.15 as we changed a few things to do with firmware updates that should allow firmware updates to work through the old PhatNoise software, and that renders all previous versions of the DMS tools useless.

Also, if you are feeling brave and want maintained software that is PhatBox compatible and that supports Windows/Vista 7, you can also try out my replacement for PhatNoise MM, appropriately called PhatHack Media Manager over at http://phathackmm.com, which recently got released as stable after GraceNote validated the software.

Like the DMS Tools, I fully support both and respond to requests/feature changes!

Just sourced one of these and it's ace! Plug and play after following the instructions Most pleased!

If your instructions did not come with a stereo type card you can see the options here and then select the correct one.

link

Thank you kind sir, mine was plug and play after I installed the unit, put the DMS Cart in, turned the car on then plugged the unit into the wiring. It works a treat! Much better than the 3.5mm jack that I was using before - much better volume and response, especially with the DPS fitted to my Superb

Some more Phatnoise info here. Loved mine.

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/86209-calling-phatnoise-phatbox-users/