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Can anyone with one of these chime in if there is any way to get optical audio output from the unit?

I want to use an aftermarket dsp and much prefer to run it with digital input. Android phones can run audio out over USB. I would love to know if these can do the same?

Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk
 
Discussion starter · #82 ·
Can anyone with one of these chime in if there is any way to get optical audio output from the unit?

I want to use an aftermarket dsp and much prefer to run it with digital input. Android phones can run audio out over USB. I would love to know if these can do the same?

Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk
In the as-delivered configuration of the Xtrons, no - no optical out available.

Is there a way to get USB-to-optical to work? I suspect there is. The question is simply how much time & effort it'll take to get there? At a minimum, I'd bet you'd have to root the unit (or load the pre-rooted Malaysk ROM) in order to redirect the audio output to the USB. And I'd also bet I'm making that sound much easier than it really is. :)
 
That is pretty much what I was thinking.

The unit looks great. A fitting update to the style of the E39. But as an audio enthusiast as much as an auto enthusiast, I really want to start with the cleanest possible source.

Aside from that I would be all over these units.

Thanks for the input.
 
Thanks for the great thread!

Hi all! Although I have an 01 540i, I had to come register and thank you all for the great thread! It has answered many questions I have about my upcoming install of an Android head unit. My stock setup is a factory 16:9 nav with DSP and I have the dreaded blank screen due to sudden power loss to the MKIII and any attempts to revive it have failed.

So I'm all for an android head unit as I have been wanting one for a long time now (I have installed car PC's and the like in my 4Runner in the past but they where just not doing it for me... I always wanted my phone as my head unit and finally with in the last few years, they have some decent Android head units!). It must be one of the newer 4gb octa core units which seems to only leave the Xtrons units mentioned here, namely the PB7839BP.
I already went ahead and bought the Resler interface as I know I will need that for sure and it's on the way to me and should be here any day now (but he never gave me a tracking number? But he says it's on the way...).

So I understand everything I will need and all but, while looking over the PB7839BP's description, I see where it mentions that: "*Please note that if your radio harness is 17 pins and the 4 pins indicated are empty, this unit can NOT fit with your car.", (see attached pic below) was your's like that too? Is that just for the DSP and need not worry thanks to the Resler and hook all up anyway with the needed extension cable?

Also speaking of extension cables, are you sure that EXL005 is the correct one?
What about the EXL007? It specifically mentions: "Male Connectors: If there is DSP (Digital Sound Processing) button in your factory radio, or your car has digital sound system, then you need to connect these male connectors to have the sound system work".
The EXL005 has no mention at all about DSP? Or is it that you need not worry as the Resler will take care of this and to just use the EXL005?

And my last question (for now I think lol), my antenna looks like the one in the picture attached below, is the extension cable linked in the OP still the correct one for my antenna?
 

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Discussion starter · #85 ·
April 2018 Update:

Again, since this forum doesn't allow edits, I'll just update here and hope people read it through to the end. I recently read this from the beginning and there's a couple things that are outdated or could use clarification:

- Coding the DSP Amp - This was initially a major hurdle as you needed to have a working laptop with the BMW Software Tools suite, NCSExpert, and so on. However, the new v2.0 iBus app allows this coding to be performed from within the app. It's very easy and simple to do.

- Resler interface connection - I didn't know at the time of my original install, but the Xtrons adapter harness which sits behind the head unit has extra wiring in place that mates perfectly with the Resler interface. 12V, Gnd, & bus are all available once you cut off the extra square connector, which you should do anyway for packaging reasons. The connection method I described earlier is still valid, but wiring the interface to the Xtrons harness accomplishes the same thing and saves you $5 in BMW-sepcific connector parts - your choice

- The v2.0 app is a huge step forward. Lots of great features and I'm excited to see what's next.

My impressions of the unit after 3 months:

- The instant resume from sleep is outstanding. As soon as I turn the key, the system is up and ready. I don't even recommend changing the boot screen since you'll never see it.

- Spotify on the head unit is better, after changing the auto-bandwidth settings from "Auto" to "normal". Evidently, in Auto mode the Spotify app sees a full strength Wifi signal and assumes you are sitting at home with unlimited bandwidth, so it tries to stream with very little buffering. This leads to music skipping and so on. If you save the music to the head unit, obviously there's no buffering issue at all. And with 32GB of onboard storage + another 32GB MicroSD, there's really no good reason not to save music to the unit...

- iPod - There is an iPod menu item available, but it does not work with my iPhone 7. Perhaps it would work with an old school iPod? Although the argument could be made that you move all that music from your iTunes library to a SD card and use the included music app (or something like PowerAmp) to just play the music and leave the iPod out of it. If anyone wants to try it, the iPod app can be enabled from within the factory settings (password 126)

- Navigation really shines with an active network connection. Waze is great to have as Nav/Traffic/Police and I could see this being invaluable on a long trip. Using my iPhone as a hotspot works great once connected, but it's tedious to get going as the phone doesn't allow the unit to auto-connect. I have to go into Settings->Personal Hotspot every time and that's a pain for short trips.

- While the active network connection is great for waze, I find it to be of limited use for most other things. I have Google Maps, Google, Gmail, etc on the head unit but it's not like I'm going to type an email or search for a restaurant on the head unit. And that's not a slam of this unit in particular - Ergonomically it's awkward & frustratingly slow to try and one-finger type on any upright screen mounted to your dash. The reality is I'm going to grab my phone and just do it there because it's more comfortable and much faster using both thumbs to type. The trick becomes how do I get directions to the restaurant from my phone to the head unit screen? So far, CarPlay has filled that void nicely. I suspect Android Auto would be very similar. I initially considered the CarPlay interface to be an optional piece of this but now I consider it to be a crucial component of how I use the system on a daily basis

- DSP Amp Volume. Much like it was with the Dynavin, this continues to be a source of minor annoyances and unpredictability. Sometimes you start the car and it works beautifully. Other times, not so much. At this point, I think I'm keeping the DSP amp out of sheer stubbornness moreso than any real "ease" of installation or use. lol
 
Discussion starter · #86 ·
My apologies - I just saw this !

I already went ahead and bought the Resler interface as I know I will need that for sure and it's on the way to me and should be here any day now (but he never gave me a tracking number? But he says it's on the way...).
Rolf didn't send me tracking either, but it arrived it about 8 days or so after shipment. He's sold these for many years and is active on the German FB group, so I wouldn't sweat it. He does only ship on Mondays and has an order cut-off of the previous Saturday, so depending on when you ordered there may be a shipment delay. For example, I ordered on a Sunday and it didn't ship until 8 days later + 8 days in transit. But I knew about the order deadline, I just wasn't in a big hurry. No fault of Rolf's

I see where it mentions that: "*Please note that if your radio harness is 17 pins and the 4 pins indicated are empty, this unit can NOT fit with your car.", (see attached pic below) was your's like that too? Is that just for the DSP and need not worry thanks to the Resler and hook all up anyway with the needed extension cable?
Correct. Xtrons (and most other resellers) include that because their systems are not natively compatible with DSP. The ibus app and interface take care of that though

Also speaking of extension cables, are you sure that EXL005 is the correct one?
It worked for me, but I'm not sure off the top of my head what's different about the EXL007?

And my last question (for now I think lol), my antenna looks like the one in the picture attached below, is the extension cable linked in the OP still the correct one for my antenna?
You'll need a short adapter to convert that to the FAKRA plug. You may be able to find an extension cable with the correct end for your car too. Several of the ebay sellers can custom make cables as well...
 
My apologies - I just saw this !
No worries, thanks for the response. It had kind of slipped in under the radar. I had tried to post that back on the 11th but since I'm new and it had a bunch of links, it auto-filtered me for approval so I had to contact the admin as it was taking a long time to post and the admin just approved it and posted yesterday :)



Rolf didn't send me tracking either, but it arrived it about 8 days or so after shipment. He's sold these for many years and is active on the German FB group, so I wouldn't sweat it. He does only ship on Mondays and has an order cut-off of the previous Saturday, so depending on when you ordered there may be a shipment delay. For example, I ordered on a Sunday and it didn't ship until 8 days later + 8 days in transit. But I knew about the order deadline, I just wasn't in a big hurry. No fault of Rolf's
I wasn't too worried if he would send it or not but I'm kind of weird about tracking just so I can have an idea when to expect it and it feels like I can rest once I know that it's in the mail and I know my money bought something.
But I did order it back on the 1st and the email said it would be shipped the 3rd (I was aware of the cutoff as well and thought I got my order placed in time) and emailed Rolf on the 8th, and he confirmed that it was mailed out on the 3rd but it's now the 18th and still no Resler interface. But I'm hopeful it will be here today.



Correct. Xtrons (and most other resellers) include that because their systems are not natively compatible with DSP. The ibus app and interface take care of that though
Sweet! Thanks!



It worked for me, but I'm not sure off the top of my head what's different about the EXL007?
The EXL007 specifically mentions DSP where as the EXL005 does not. But somewhere I was reading said that both the EXL005 and EXL007 are compatible, but maybe for systems without DSP? :dunno: See the attached pictures below.



You'll need a short adapter to convert that to the FAKRA plug. You may be able to find an extension cable with the correct end for your car too. Several of the ebay sellers can custom make cables as well...
That's what I was thinking. I'm going to try and figure out what that antenna connector is called and a get said connector to FAKRA extension cable.
*Edit: That connector is called an ISO Female but all I can find is short adapters to FAKRA and no 6m extensions.
 

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Discussion starter · #88 ·
Hmm.. Those descriptions are confusingly similar. The pictures on Xtrons' website show the EXL005 has one connector at the front of the car and 2 in the trunk. In the trunk, you can either connect with the 17-pin or 40-pin connector, depending on what your car has. This leaves one connector in the trunk unused. (My 12/00 car has the 17-pin for what it's worth).

The EXL007 adds two additional connectors, presumably at the front of the car. Not only is there no space for those, there would be no reason to have them on our cars. I'm confused as to why they exist, but maybe there's some other model of BMW that would use those? I can tell you that the 4 pins in the EXL007's extra male connectors, 2 of them are 12V, 1 is gnd, & 1 iBus. With our cars, there's no need to route those signals back to the trunk. How does that has anything to do with DSP? No clue!

So, I think the EXL007 adds some compatibility that is unecesaary

The DSP input is fairly simple, in theory. The factory radio outputs 2 channels to the DSP amp inputs, split Left & right. So, 4 total wires - 2 for left, 2 for right. Aside from the bizarre volume control, it's not totally unlike a standard set of RCA inputs. The Xtrons extension allows you to route it's output to the same inputs previously occupied by the stock radio. Add in power, ground, iBus, and maybe another wire or two and that's about all you need in an extension.

Hope this helps!
 
Thanks for the all the info! Yeah, I thought the same thing, they look like the same description other than the mention of the DSP. But it seemed like the EXL005 would be all that is needed, and you got yours working just fine with it. And I'm all about less cluttered wiring.

Just got my Resler in the mail! I had a feeling it would be here today!
I had planned on testing it out when I got it in by using my smartphone, the app and the Relser but my car is on a 500mi journey on a flatbed to the dealer in Denver for the airbag recall. But it should be back tomorrow and I'll get to play around with it then!
 
Discussion starter · #91 ·
I haven’t yet, there’s a procedure for it though. I’ve heard stories of people bricking their systems, so I’m going to let others work out the bugs first. [emoji38]
 
So I was trying to test out the Ibus app on my s7 and while it seems that it recognizes the Resler, nothing seems to be working... other than RPM I think was the only one. So I figured I needed to buy the license to make everything work. So when I go to "unlock" within the app, it takes me to their website where I have already registered, but when I signed up, there was only the option for just one country, Deutschland. And I really don't want to have to pay their VAT taxes for them too and that brings the app to almost $50?? Did anyone else have the same issues? I've already tried to contact them weeks ago (when I first signed up with them) but never got a response.
 
Discussion starter · #93 ·
So I was trying to test out the Ibus app on my s7 and while it seems that it recognizes the Resler, nothing seems to be working... other than RPM I think was the only one. So I figured I needed to buy the license to make everything work. So when I go to "unlock" within the app, it takes me to their website where I have already registered, but when I signed up, there was only the option for just one country, Deutschland. And I really don't want to have to pay their VAT taxes for them too and that brings the app to almost $50?? Did anyone else have the same issues? I've already tried to contact them weeks ago (when I first signed up with them) but never got a response.


At least with the older version of the app, there was some basic functionality that would work without licensing. So, if you see even a single field populate and work, it means that the interface is working correctly.

The website is also new with v2.0, so I’m not sure about registration as that didn’t exist with the older website. I just looked at it quickly and saw what you’re talking about - the only country available is Deutschland. Although since the VAT is built into the price and there’s no shipping required, I’m not sure that it matters. Also looks like the price has gone up since the update. 39.50 EUR = $48.63 for the app license + DSP License
 
At least with the older version of the app, there was some basic functionality that would work without licensing. So, if you see even a single field populate and work, it means that the interface is working correctly.

The website is also new with v2.0, so I’m not sure about registration as that didn’t exist with the older website. I just looked at it quickly and saw what you’re talking about - the only country available is Deutschland. Although since the VAT is built into the price and there’s no shipping required, I’m not sure that it matters. Also looks like the price has gone up since the update. 39.50 EUR = $48.63 for the app license + DSP License
Okay cool, thanks. Yeah, I at least got RPM and it want's to auto start the app when I plug in the interface so it seems good there. I just need to go buy the license.

I did finally get a response from the app developer, they are aware of the issue with the country selection but that the prices are with $0 VAT. So I should be good to go :M5thumbs:
 
Rontgen - it looks like your ibus program is different than mine. It set up more with sliders and some that I don't see on mine.

1) how do I update apps? I'm an iphone user, so I'm used to "update everything" and it updates. Is that an option on these units, or is it more difficult?
2) Did you get a new carplay dongle to work? I don't have fwd/back buttons working at all when using it, and the permission screen won't save. Otherwise, it's identical to carplay on the rental cars I've used (ex. 2018 ford expedition).

I did go for an aftermarket amp. Still working on getting it tuned, and mostly getting the sub rattles out of the back dash.
 
Discussion starter · #96 ·
Rontgen - it looks like your ibus program is different than mine. It set up more with sliders and some that I don't see on mine.



1) how do I update apps? I'm an iphone user, so I'm used to "update everything" and it updates. Is that an option on these units, or is it more difficult?

2) Did you get a new carplay dongle to work? I don't have fwd/back buttons working at all when using it, and the permission screen won't save. Otherwise, it's identical to carplay on the rental cars I've used (ex. 2018 ford expedition).



I did go for an aftermarket amp. Still working on getting it tuned, and mostly getting the sub rattles out of the back dash.


Updates are generally done from within the app itself. If you look in the main menu of the iBus app, you’ll see the option to update. Also, within the config menu somewhere you can have the app check for updates each time it starts. For what it’s worth, 2.0.1 was released a couple days ago, with some minor tweaks to the big 2.0 release.

I returned the white CarPlay dongle for a refund and bought the zjinnova-brand, which I’m far more impressed with. Seems like a much more polished product with a much better app. The only glitch I’ve discovered so far is when using Spotify and the steering wheel next song control, sometimes it stops playing the song. Aside from that, it seems to be solid.





Over the Air app update, which is nice.

 
Discussion starter · #98 ·
So what made you all choose the Xtrons over the Eonon unit? I'm torn between the 2...


I haven’t looked at the Eonon, but I’d be willing to bet the 2 units are pretty close in terms of specs and may even share the same Rockchip PX5 Android mainboard. I chose the Xtrons solely based on the feedback from the German iBus group, which is overwhelmingly positive. Seeing as that specific Xtrons unit is the one they recommend, I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel with a different model.

That being said, Eonon is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) name in the Chinese Android head unit game, so I suspect it’s a quality unit.
 
Just a little update, I was able to connect to my car with the resler, the Ibus app, and my s7 and was even able to code my DSP amp and changed it from "boardmonitor" to “mid_basis” and now I can at least enjoy the radio without it shutting off every 2 min. 40 seconds!!! And it even programed my time and date on my high! It will at least tide me over a little until I get my head unit...

Still just so undecided what brand to go for, Eonon or the Xtrons.
I know they both have pretty much the same PX5 motherboards with 4Gb of RAM.
But Eonon seems to maybe have better support compared to Xtrons?
The Eonon seems a little more limited on their inputs/outputs on the back of the unit.
Xtrons has more RCA's, both input and output.
Eonon only has 2 USB ports, Xtrons has 3.
I couldn't tell if either of them have a dimmer wire for the cars dimmer switch?
And Xtrons has nicer heat sink on the back (I've read some android units had heat problems).
Xtrons has problems with the mounting brackets needing to be modified, not sure if Eonon has that problem or not.
I think I remember reading that someone has made and published 3d printed brackets for the Xtrons.
Not sure which UI I prefer but I think I like Eonon's a little better.
Not sure which one has better phone interfacing or if they are about the same?
Both, if bought from the manufactures website, are around the same price and both carry 2 year warranties....
Feature wise, I'm leaning a little towards the Xtrons...
Decisions, Decisions :kaffe:
 
Discussion starter · #100 ·
My assumption would be that while the mounting brackets you receive from Eonon may be different, they’re probably still garbage. [emoji23]

A member in the German FB group 3D prints brackets that fit very nicely. His Facebook name is “Da Ondy”

I’ve contacted Xtrons about a couple things and always found them to be responsive and helpful. That said, I’ve also seen where Eonon has had a fairly active presence on enthusiast forums in the past (although not this one).

The UI you see is all based on the Android launcher in use. There are several available to choose from with endless amounts of customization. The software is manufacturer-specific (Xtrons would have a different base software load than Eonon), but it’s all very similar since it’s based on the same version of Android
 
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