Ok, so my Ipod dock arrived today - Just spent the last half hour playing with it to see if it was any good.
First impressions were very good - seems well made, and came with 5 different dock adapters to cater for the different sizes of Nano/Mini/Ipod available - I think that the one pre-fitted was the correct one for my 5G Ipod video.
There's not much to the instructions, and I didn't really refer to them. There are 4 buttons on the front - On/Off, Channel +, Channel - & Quick Switch. The Quick Switch button lets you choose between 4 pre-set channels, and the +/- lets you modify these up or down in 0.1 steps.
There are two connectors behind the dock connector - one for the 12v supply from the cigarette lighter, and one for any 3.5mm stereo input. The charging facility doesn't work if you use the 3.5mm input.
So, it was just a case of setting the dock into the front cupholder, connecting the power supply (the connector of which isn't any bigger than the cigarette lighter, so no problems with it pulling the cigarette lighter socket out
)
Then it was a case of finding a clear frequency - 88.0 worked here, as it was at least 0.3 away from the nearest broadcast station.
The first thing I noticed was that the sound was quite a bit quieter than from the radio/CD - to get an equivalent volume, the dial needed turned up 10/12 more than normal - i.e. 25 rather than 13. There is also a slight hiss in the background, which is more noticeable on quiet tracks. Some people might not like this - but you don't hear it as much when driving as the road noise masks the hissing to some extent. The volume control on the Ipod itself doesn't do anything when docked - the only volume adjustment is done via the head unit.
Not that I'm an expert, but the sound reproduction seemed accurate across high/mid/low frequencies - there was just as much bass as normal (probably not a good measure given the standard speakers
)
Driving about, if you concentrated you could hear the background hiss, and a good test was to pause the Ipod and listen to the pure static - it disappeared if the volume was turned down to about 14.
The LCD frequency display is backlit blue, and the Ipod is automatically paused if the ignition is switched off - I think this is a power saving feature, because if the Ipod is paused it will eventually go to sleep, thus saving the battery if there is no power going to it.
In terms of location in the car, the dock sits quite securely in the cup holder, and the coiled cable can be hidden inside the cupholder as well - so looks quite neat. With the Ipod sticking up out of the dock, it does come close to your hand when changing into 2nd/4th/6th - doesn't actually get in the way, but you notice it to begin with.
On the whole, pretty pleased with my purchase
