Pioneer CD-IB100 iPod Interface/Controller

CD - IB100 iPOD Interface/Controller is a must for in-car use

Posted Feb 28, 2006 - The CD-IB100 is a great addition for anyone with an IPOD and a IP BUS capable Pioneer unit. This makes connections to a IPOD simple and allows playing while charging. Also using the IPOD while driving is made simple once you get over the hurdle of learning the head units existing buttons and how it controls the various functions of the IPOD. The major weakness is the lack of jumping from one artist to another. If you have a large artist list and you want to select an artist from the "A" group and jump to an artist in the "L" group for example you have to single select through each artist to get this accomplished. Since the IPBUS is not necessarily high speed it takes about 1 second for each selection which can take an extremely long time when skipping through a large number of artists. This may have to do with the actual headunit however there were no provisions in the users manual to quickly skip through artists. You are better off unplugging the IPOD from the CD-IB100 and selecting the artist you want on the IPOD and then plugging it back in.

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A Trick To Get Your Ipod To Work With The Adapter

Posted Feb 16, 2006 - No Thanks to Pioneer for this trick - I found it on the internet. this trick allows you to control and navigate through your library using the Ipod controls. The trick states that following: "Turn the car completely off, then proceed to unhook the Ipod from the adapter. The Pioneer display should disappear leaving you at the menu screen. Next, turn the Ipod off (hold down play/pause button)and put it on HOLD. Now plug it back into the adapter, wait about 5 seconds or so, then turn the car on. You should see the charge screen on your Ipod. Turn HOLD off and once you do this it will return to the Pioneer display screen (it may also stay on the charge screen). If you try and press menu it should back out of the Pioneer (or charge) screen and into main menu." I still gave this a bad rating since this trick was not from Pioneer who offer you no help on the phone and are in fact very rude and make you feel worthless.

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if you know how to work it, it works great

Posted Dec 27, 2005 - when i installed this, i was terribly dissapointed at the interface. others have been saying that the functions such as "pause" and "fast foward" and "8 character titles" were what made it so horrible. this is not what dissapointed me. if you are searching for an artist or album from your ENTIRE collection, good luck. when you are browsing, the delay between each artist is literally almost 2 seconds. it takes me a rediculous amount of time just to reach the 'B' artists. there is no way to continue listening to your music while browsing, as it forces you to listen to each artist you are browsing through. USELESS, i'd rather burn 300 cds. luckily another reviewer here found the key to using this, and that is to browse using your actual ipod. the technique he describes saves the hardware, without this technique, this adapter is UNUSABLE. overall, the sound quality is great. it works fine if you dodge the interface and use your ipod, but you shouldn't have to do that. i am going to give this a middle of the road rating, as it does what I wanted to, and really nothing more.

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Great Product!

Posted Dec 20, 2005 - Because of this discovery, I would rate this product with 5 out of 5 stars :-D HOW TO WORK THE IPOD and STEREO at the same time (GUIDE) THIS WAS TESTED ONLY WITH IPOD 5th GEN (IPOD VIDEO) will test it soon with the others when I can borrow. The secret is to let your IPOD shut down by itself (Auto shut off) before plugging it to the pioneer CD-IB100. YOu will then get the charging signal, then press menyu and voila browse through your IPOD or through your Pioneer stereo. Remember, you have to let the ipod auto shut down AND NOT THE FORCE SHOT DOWN (pressing play/pause button.) The auto shutodown will take about 1 minute or so (didnt actually time it) When you disconnet you IPOD from the CD-IB100 you have to go through the auto shutdown again but if you leave your IPOD connected, shutdown your car and start your car again there is no need to go through the auto shutdown process anymore. Cheers!

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Not the best solution

Posted Sep 28, 2005 - This adapter is good at some things and bad at others. First off, the install looks pretty sweet. Everyone who has seen me pull the iPod cord out of the glove compartment is fairly impressed, so that's cool. Also, the audio quality couldn't get any better, since it's all digital. But when it comes to actual use of the device there are a few problems. Switching between browse modes and finding the artist/genre/playlist is easy (except for having to use arrow buttons as opposed to the iPod's clickwheel). Switching between tracks is also easy, using the left and right arrows. After that, other operations are hard to do since you must select through the various function modes to even pause. Also, scanning is not the intuitive "hold down 'next track' button" that it should be. This does not hinder the unit greatly, but it could be better. Display-wise, the unit can only display 8 characters on screen, no matter what type of head-unit you have, and this is a minor irritant as well. In the end, I bought this to hook up my iPod to my car stereo with basic functionality, and the unit pulls this off pretty well (as long as you don't expect it to function on par with the iPod itself). It does what it's advertised to do, but doesn't go beyond that.

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CD-IB100

Posted Sep 19, 2005 - I bought this with the AVIC-D1 head unit. It does not work as advertised by Pioneer's website and product litature. Appearantly, there is a head unit that does work with this unit, but the AVIC-D1 is not one of them. This is odd since I have a full 6.5" screen. I can understand that I don't get all the info that I get using iTunes on my PC at home, but I should at least get the name of the track, artist, album and track length (that is what their litature says you will get with this unit. Problem is you don't. I went back to Circuit City where I purchased all of this and they told me that everyone that bought this unit came back to them complaining about it (don't know why they sold it to me). I called Pioneer and they try to pass it off by saying that the unit does have the listed feature, but only for the head unit AVH-P5700DVD. That might be the case, but I didn't buy that one -- so my suggestion is to stay away from this product. I wish I would have bought the Alpine head unit and iPOD adaptor that I was looking at originally.

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Much better than FM Tuner for Music Quality

Posted Aug 12, 2005 - I recently got a new Pioneer CD deck installed as well as this Ipod interface adapter and just love it! I can't begin to tell how much better the sound quality is then any other method. My reason for wanting the adapter was for dedicated music feed from my Ipod at a great quality sound. I've heard people complain about the name of the song that displays on the player with only 8 characters etc. and really don't care about that because the sound is worth it. In addition your Ipod charges at the same time it plays and when you turn off and on your car the Ipod turns on or off with your car and picks up from where it left off. If you do purchase one of these units make sure you have good playlists created. This will make navigation easier. And most of all, Enjoy!

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Okay It's not as bad for me as It Is for some of t ...

Posted May 9, 2005 - Okay It's not as bad for me as It Is for some of the others that purchased the unit. It may have something to do with what head unit your using as well as the way you have your Mp3's or acc's organized on your ipod.I'm using a AVH-P6500DVD and for what I want It to do It's simple. My Band button cycles through genres, artist, albums, songs, playlists. the up and down knob go's through each album,song or artist, and left and right advances or rewinds to the next song on the specified category. My pause button Is the pgm button on the top of the LCD screen. The only functions that require me to dig into the menu are repeat and shuffle play which I don't really use. My only real major complaint Is the Eight character display, even on my 6.5 inch LCD the Ipod display Is only eight characters on a thin bar at the top of the screen. For me the CD-Ib100 gets the job done. I ordered a custom Ipod holder and mount for my car from dension, so my install Is perfect(I don't have some contraption coming out my cigarette lighter and no crappy FM tuners that don't really work).It would've been way better If you could've used the actual CD player controls, but as Is, It's fine for me . Worth 100 bucs.

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I can't begin to express how disappointed I am wit ...

Posted Apr 8, 2005 - I can't begin to express how disappointed I am with this adapter. I have an AVIC-N2 and specifically called Pioneer to see if it would have the "enhanced iPod interface" that another touch screen unit (I think it's the AVH-P5700DVD) has. I was told that it would have the same interface. It doesn't, and the interface is essentially worthless. There are several "Function" buttons (labeled 1-6), and to control the iPod, you need to push one of these buttons. There is no indication as to what they do - you need to look in the instructions for that, and I guess they imagine that you'll just memorize the functions. As an example of this, to display the title of a song, you have to push "Function 3," then the down button 3 times. And even then, it only displays the first 8 characters of the title. There is no support for bookmarks at all. And there's only one fast-forward speed, so if you want to find where you were in an audiobook, you'll need to hold down the fast-forward button for about 5 minutes. I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. I would not recommend this product to ANYBODY unless they have the unit with the enhanced interface. Mine's going back to Best Buy tonight.

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I am using this unit with AVIC-N1 . A unit with to ...

Posted Apr 6, 2005 - I am using this unit with AVIC-N1 . A unit with touch screen and extensive text / graphics capability, but with the CD-IB100 no song title or song time, no etc..... is displayed. Basically you have to operate this unit totally on guess basis!! I am not sure if Pioneer relizes this unit is useless and inoperable. I had high hopes for this unit. What a diisapointement.

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I have this hooked up to a DEH-P4700MP head unit. ...

Posted Apr 6, 2005 - I have this hooked up to a DEH-P4700MP head unit. Here is the reason I would never purchase this product again - the interface it provides between the head unit and the iPod is crap. To do something even so basic as pause, which the head unit has a pause button on it, you must go through the function menu (whose entries consist of "FUNC 1", "FUNC 2", "FUNC 3", and "AUTO"/"MANUAL") until you reach the correct entry and press either up or down before the "FUNC #" text goes away. Also, if you use the CD player in your head unit, you know that to skip a song you press and release either the right or left arrow, and to scan through a song (FF/RW) you just press and hold the right or left arrow. However, when controling you iPod using the head unit via the CD-IB100, you have to use the function menu to select which you want the right/left arrows to do - "AUTO" makes them skip songs, "MANUAL" makes them scan. Oh, and don't think that if you are unsatisfied with the product because of such a horrible interface Pioneer will even care - I called up, got passed off a couple of times to different people, and the last person I spoke with only cared about the text in the warranty, saying that "we can't make a product that satisfies every customer - it's impossible." This problem isn't about satisfying every customer, it's about satisfying the customers that are using head units Pioneer claims the device was intended for, but aren't one of the few touch screen head units they had in mind when they made it. I'm just going to take it back and get the CD-RB10 and use a remote and car charger - I won't get song text, but I will be able to use it the way I want to, it will still charge, and it will cost less than half the cost of the CD-IB100. What a dissappointment this was.

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