[bhz1]

I just received my new Alpine CDA-105 headunit that I had pre-ordered at least 6 weeks ago. I chose this particular unit mainly because it was touted as being iPhone 3G friendly AND has the ability to receive Sirius or XM radio (with adapter). I already had an older Alpine in my car with the Sirius tuner module. The new unit uses the exact same Sirius module so i figure plug and play. Well sort of.

The first minor issue was the fact that the new wire harness, while had the exact same pin layout and connector shape, the new connector has wider pins rendering the old wire connector useless. So I cut and slpiced the new connector plug onto my exisiting wiring.

Plug everything in and wow it worked, Sirius, iPhone and it charged the phone too. For all of a few minutes when I pushed the head into its permanent position in my dash and lost my Sirius radio. Head would not recognize it at all. Well, a thorough check of the wiring with a multimeter, shoed a blown fuse in the power wire to the Sirius adapter. So new fuse, but still no Sirius.

I realized that somehow I had a short that caused the fuse to blow and it somehow messed up the internals of the head unit since none of the resets were working. By this time it was after 4PM when I called Crutchfield . They told me they'd send a replacement head and I could sent the bad one back.

I received my new replacement the next day, not even 24 hours later. Plugged it in and everthing is working and wonderful.

The added bouns of this unit is that you can choose either blue or red illumination (including the blue buttons) which for those with Audi's or BMW's is a closer match to the rest of your dash lights.

In retrospect, I believe the short issue was because the so-called professional installers that did the original Sirius wiring, left a mess of wires in there including the old wiring and plugs from the portable Sirius we had before. With all that stuffed behind the kickpanel of a 21 year old car (an original BMW M5) was a recipe for trouble. I took the opportunity to sort all that mess out and neaten things up. I dont blame the hardware at all. Time will tell if that was a fluke or if this unit is prone to issues. But if you happen to be in the market for a new car stereo or dont feel like dealing with a Scosche or similar. This unit is worth a look at.

[hondakorn]

i almost got this unit for my honda.....hows the navigation in terms of searching albums/artist?