31st July 2012, 03:21
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#11
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Fellow Member (>400)
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1) Yes, I do have a CD changer. So, yes I have looked at the Gateway 500 with bluetooth module. Concern with that is apparently the bluetooth module is not supposed to be great. Also, I'm worried that the BMW bluetooth and Dension Bluetooth will conflict.
I have no feedback about how the Dension Bluetooth interacts with the factory bluetooth. But I can tell you that with two different streaming devices that I tried (the motorola HF1001 and the Blackberry streamer) that they worked concurrently with the BMW phone bluetooth. They handshake between the services seamlessly. Even if you have the new Idrive and a factory bluetooth streaming you connect to two different services at the same time. One a phone and the other the A2DP streaming connection. When you are listening to music you get a phone call, the BMW system takes over and the phone pauses the playback. When the call is finished the connection to the music resumes the music.
2) I need to check re: the MP3 CD. Why does that have an impact on whether I can install the Gateway or not thought? You seem to be suggesting if I don't have MP3 playback in the front CD loader that then the Dension won't work? Is that right? Also assume I can put folders on to the MP3 CD which shows up on the idrive?
From my understanding the Dension simulates a CD player, so it reads the phones memory by pulling in and decoding the MP3 file. I am not fully positive, I am only going by what I have read over the years. Further research would be due. If you don't need Iphone/Ipod connectivity since you already have that cable then the Dension seems like a fairly useless - and very expensive - upgrade. Really it is mostly centered around giving you Ipod service to the Idrive and allowing you to controls playlists and such through different CD selections (CD5/CD6 become playslists?)
3) The Aux in option sounds like a possibility. Issue with that currently in the centre armrest I have an Iphone 4 cradle and don't want to lose that. Can I put the aux in in there with the USB adapter for the Blackberry Bluetooth streamer?
Is the Iphone cradle hooked into the Idrive? Just curious. If so you have MP3 playback probably active. If so you can burn several hundred songs to a disc, even using folders like you say to sub-categorize your songs. If you really want to go nutty you can burn 4.7gb of songs onto a DVD and use that in your Navigation DVD drive. Obviously with the Nav disc out you lose your navigation and map feature. I believe you can also burn a 8.7gb dual layer DVD with music and have even more capacity.
The Aux In sounds like what you really are in need of! This is nothing more than giving you a female headphone jack like you have in all cars now-a-days for Analog input of music directly from your portable device. So you could run the cable wherever you want. But if you buy a streamer then it really doesn't make much sense to worry about putting it anywhere accessible unless you feel you want to physically connect it (maybe someone elses phone?). Since you would have the bluetooth streamer attached to it you will always be "wireless". I don't think you would notice any difference in quality, after all the A2DP is not transmitting the MP3 encoded song data, it is sending the signal that is already decoded into Analog format. So my point is that the bluetooth stream is the same signal as what is coming out of your headphone jack in the phone.
Details about the Aux In kit, see my post which links to a thread on the 6 board going over the details of an Aux In installation:
AUX INPUT just added what a nightmare!!! - Bimmerfest - BMW Forums
Last edited by tampamark; 31st July 2012 at 03:23.
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3Likes
You've owned both of my favorite BMW's now (E46 M3 and M6) so you have incredible taste in my opinion!
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