Rock Carver
Registered User
After a bit of an installation saga, finally my new Pioneer SPH-DA120 is in place and working. Well sort off.
I thought I'd share the experience just in case anyone else is thinking about fitting one of these mech-less Head Units in an A3/S3 8P.
First off, the sound quality is a vast improvement over the Concert II+ it replaced. Despite the pain I've gone through, it is worth it just for that. The downside is that Audiopilot is still engaged on the Bose amp. So my next task is definitely to disable that.
Talking about Bose, why they make it so difficult to fit aftermarket head units to the amplified Bose system is a mystery to me. Other than rip it out completely, which I personally didn't want to do, the best you can hope for is a pretty good fudge. The new head unit has been in and out a number of times whilst the Bose white noise issue is addressed. There is still a very slight amount of white noise in the background but, it is very slight and with the engine on, it masks it completely.
Carplay works well but, has a few quirks that don't come out in the apple promo video! When you enable "Hey Siri" on your iPhone it can be activated in your car and it does mostly recognise your command. However, just saying "Hey Siri" once is not enough. When you get the first ping and the screen says "What can I help you with today", you have to say "Hey Siri" Again and then it lets you say what it is you want. Phone, Text, Maps etc... However, failing the voice command, if you just keep your finger on the Home Button to activate Siri, it works perfectly.
I have to say, when it works, it does work well and having text messages ping up and have them read to you by Siri is a nice feature. The maps function is still only as good as Apple maps, and all iPhone users know how rubbish that can be but, tell Siri to take you home and it/he activates your maps and engages the sat nav.
Yes, you can play video from your iPhone via an expensive Apple DV/HDMI Lightning connector but, and this is a major flaw in my opinion, you can only have your phone connected to one or the other as both Carplay and Video wont work through the same connection. You either have to disconnect the DV connector and just use a lightning connector for Carplay or add the DV/HDMI for video playback and have no Carplay functionality. Madness or what!!!!
Another major flaw is that AppRadio is not compliant with IOS 8. So, if you have an iPhone 6, this function wont work at all. If you have an iPhone 5/5C or 5S with IOS 7, apparently it will. You could say why would you want it if Carplay works but, given that there are loads of apps for AppRadio, it would be nice if it actually worked and you could choose which one you wanted to use. I suspect this will be fixed by Pioneer in the future but, I wont be holding my breath given their customer service.
Music from your phone via Carplay works well and gives you a great view of your library and track and artist info. One thing that isn't so good in my opinion is that your artwork is only displayed faintly in the background. You can change from Carplay to iPod mode and then the album artwork is displayed but, a bit odd that this isn't the case within Carplay.
It's also worth pointing out that the only MFSW features you will get are Volume, Track Skip, and Station Skip on Radio.
If anyone else has one of these fitted and hasn't got the issues I have, then feel free to correct me and tell me how you did it..
Lastly, a special thanks to Leshkin for helping me out with the right part numbers.. The crowd I used fitted all the wrong parts despite me telling them!!!!! They did finally sort it but, it could have been a much easier experience and cheaper!!!!
I thought I'd share the experience just in case anyone else is thinking about fitting one of these mech-less Head Units in an A3/S3 8P.
First off, the sound quality is a vast improvement over the Concert II+ it replaced. Despite the pain I've gone through, it is worth it just for that. The downside is that Audiopilot is still engaged on the Bose amp. So my next task is definitely to disable that.
Talking about Bose, why they make it so difficult to fit aftermarket head units to the amplified Bose system is a mystery to me. Other than rip it out completely, which I personally didn't want to do, the best you can hope for is a pretty good fudge. The new head unit has been in and out a number of times whilst the Bose white noise issue is addressed. There is still a very slight amount of white noise in the background but, it is very slight and with the engine on, it masks it completely.
Carplay works well but, has a few quirks that don't come out in the apple promo video! When you enable "Hey Siri" on your iPhone it can be activated in your car and it does mostly recognise your command. However, just saying "Hey Siri" once is not enough. When you get the first ping and the screen says "What can I help you with today", you have to say "Hey Siri" Again and then it lets you say what it is you want. Phone, Text, Maps etc... However, failing the voice command, if you just keep your finger on the Home Button to activate Siri, it works perfectly.
I have to say, when it works, it does work well and having text messages ping up and have them read to you by Siri is a nice feature. The maps function is still only as good as Apple maps, and all iPhone users know how rubbish that can be but, tell Siri to take you home and it/he activates your maps and engages the sat nav.
Yes, you can play video from your iPhone via an expensive Apple DV/HDMI Lightning connector but, and this is a major flaw in my opinion, you can only have your phone connected to one or the other as both Carplay and Video wont work through the same connection. You either have to disconnect the DV connector and just use a lightning connector for Carplay or add the DV/HDMI for video playback and have no Carplay functionality. Madness or what!!!!
Another major flaw is that AppRadio is not compliant with IOS 8. So, if you have an iPhone 6, this function wont work at all. If you have an iPhone 5/5C or 5S with IOS 7, apparently it will. You could say why would you want it if Carplay works but, given that there are loads of apps for AppRadio, it would be nice if it actually worked and you could choose which one you wanted to use. I suspect this will be fixed by Pioneer in the future but, I wont be holding my breath given their customer service.
Music from your phone via Carplay works well and gives you a great view of your library and track and artist info. One thing that isn't so good in my opinion is that your artwork is only displayed faintly in the background. You can change from Carplay to iPod mode and then the album artwork is displayed but, a bit odd that this isn't the case within Carplay.
It's also worth pointing out that the only MFSW features you will get are Volume, Track Skip, and Station Skip on Radio.
If anyone else has one of these fitted and hasn't got the issues I have, then feel free to correct me and tell me how you did it..
Lastly, a special thanks to Leshkin for helping me out with the right part numbers.. The crowd I used fitted all the wrong parts despite me telling them!!!!! They did finally sort it but, it could have been a much easier experience and cheaper!!!!