IO Play in Audi's

[fubar84]

Hi guys,

Having recently had an IO Play (half) fitted in my A3 I thought I'd share a little bit of knowledge that I've learned. The hard way.

People may have seen these for sale in Halfords for £150 including fitting. They're a great and fairly cheap option to have a hands free system and music streamed via bluetooth through the car speakers. Perfect for my iPhone.

After a little googling I bought one online (ebay seller magicgadgetz) brand new for £60 inc p&p. For the ebayphobic's amongst you Carphone Warehouse have them online for a similar price and free postage.

A phone call to Halfords later and I found out they would fit it for £40, a saving of £50 meaning Halfords charge £110 for the unit - but they only sell it with fitting, quote: "you can buy it without fitting but it's still £150"

Despite them charging an extortionate price for the unit, I decided to go with Halfords because they were the cheapest for fitting. A Darlington based authorised IO Play installer in Darlington wanted £75 plus VAT for fitting!

So the day arrived and I turned up at Halfords to have my IO play fitted in the car only to be told by the 'engineer' that he'd tried to fit one in the managers Audi and because my stereo (a symphony with built in 6 disc changer) was half amplified it wouldn't work. To compound the situation there isn't a SOT cable available anywhere online that will rectify the situation. Funny that neither the bloke in Halfords that tried to flog me one nor the IO Play site mentioned that little nugget of information.

Before giving up completely I decided to try another company in Teesside on the IO Play authorised installer's list. He said he could fit it, even with my particular stereo system and he would do it for £50 all in, including wiring in a phone charger for my ipod that I already owned.

Another week later, a couple of hours at the garage and the time comes to test the IO Play. Long story short - crap sound quality only through the front speakers. This was bemusing to the guy fitting the kit because he'd 'not found any mention of problems with audi's in the specifics he had for fitting the IO Play'

Off he went to ring IO. Upon return he said that IO told him that they were in the process of designing an extra cable for fitment to Audi's. When the guy at IO had gleaned enough info to realise that the fitter working on my car had actual experience in car audio wiring he did say that the bloke could knock one up himself (forgive my own lack of stereo wiring know-how) using a diode and some line out reducers.

The bloke said to me that my stereo had a build in amplifier for the front speakers and a seperate amplifier for the rears and sub, and that he could just bridge the inputs from the IO Play amp to all speakers but as it would be going through the head unit, being amplified and then sent to front seakers/ second amplifier simultaneously it would probably blow something.

I'm going back on Friday to have the 'special cable' fitted and the job completed, and I'm hoping to get the 'cable' specifics' so I can post an update on here for anyone that's a dab hand with a soldering iron.

Here's the main points for Audi owners looking at IO Play's that I've learned:

1. Don't go to Halfords.
2. Don't go to Halfords.
3. Carphonewarehouse.com are about the cheapest around for IO Play.
4. If you're car speakers are all amplified by the headunit, the kit will work fine.
5. If you have a second amp, or Bose system you'll need a workaround.
6. IO Play are working on a proper SOT cable, so if you're more conservative with your car mods it may be worth waiting.
7. Shop around for fitting there's a massive difference, even amongst authorised fitters.
8. DON'T GO TO HALFORDS.

Important: I mentioned to the guy working on my car that I was compiling some info for Audi owners and he said to mention about battery drain. Apparently a couple of wires in the loom that come with the IO Play have to be cut, swapped and re-soldered otherwise it will stay on permanently and drain your battery. He said it's to do with a slightly different wiring set up in Audi's due to all the computers that run everything. Again, you won't find any mention of this from Halfords of IO.


So that's it, a long post so congrats if you read all the way to the end If you live in the North East or are willing to travel to Teesside and thinking of having IO play fitted, PM me and I'll give you the number of the guy fitting mine.

All the best,
Ben

[rolfee]

Hi,
Got a 2004 54 plate A3, and having exactly the same problem as above, IOplayfitted by IO installer and i have bought the SOT cable SOT-IO2s (got CD changer symphony stereo), everything got instaleld and still not working, terrible sound only out of front single dash speaker (which i did not even know existed).

Anybody got any ideas or experience, the SOT cable i believe should have resolved this? Installer is checking with IO, and i am hoping to get in touch with Nexxia who provided IO cable, i will share any news if no one had any fixes.

Thx.

[rolfee]

Unfortunately, after what i can only say as top notch customer support from both IO, and the installation company i have had the unit de-installed and am now looking for a refund.

They managed to get the unit working by refitting cable the right way, and it muted front speakers as expected, however they could not mute the rears, and the sound quality (although loud enough this time) was very poor compared to a Fm tuner on the iphone or a cassette adaptor. It had no real bass, and the high end was really distorted. Even after trying all the EQ settings we just could not get it sounding anything near decent.

I'll advise how the refund goes... Apparently they are making a custom Audi cable, but who knows when.

If anyone has this working, would be intrigued to see what they thought of sound quality.