Things I Hate About My Phatnoise!

[Simeon]

Hi everbody

I apologise if these questions have been asked before, this is my first post and I don't really know where to start looking for the answers.

I have a 2006 Audi A4 with phatnoise fitted and connected to the Audi Sat Nav Plus head unit. There are some things I really hate so if anyone knows of an answer I would really appreciate it.

1. The fact that the head unit cannot display disc and track names.
2. Say I am listening to disc 37 but I want to listen to disc 40 I select changer and go to the disc list which always goes to disc 1. Why can't it remember that I have just listened to disc 37 so starting the disc list at 37 would be good so scrolling is minimal?
3. five seconds before the disc is automatically selected is too short when you are negotiating a roundabout.
4. I dont think that copying a CD on to the DMS at CD quality bit rate is as good a quality as playing a CD, anyone agree or disagree? Is there a better way of copying CDs rather than using Phatnoise CD Manager?

The floor is now yours, Thanks in advance.

[S80_UK]

Hi,

Well, I am sorry you hate your PB.  Did you find this when searching?  It's a thread on customising the timeout behaviour on the Audi software.

http://forum.phathack.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1134412272/0#0

You will not be able to display the text on your Audi head unit.  Phatnoise thoughtfully provided voice so that you don't take your eyes off the road any more than necessary .  Text is supported on Kenwood units via alternative sofware - but they generally lack the voice support.

As for "CD quality" - well, it's a marketing term.  If you don't like it, try a higher data rate or a different audio coder.  The Phatbox supports several including AAC at a very high rate of 296kbps as well as FLAC which is lossless (at around 700kbps).  With FLAC, the idea is that the audio DAC in the PB gets the same data as the DAC in a normal CD player.  Of course, you can't fit so much music on the DMS, but that is why this forum exists - to allow folks an alternative upgrade path.

[judb]

topic moved, nothing to do with DMS hacks / hacking

[Simeon]

Thanks for your reply S80. I don't hate the PB it just has a few irritating features. When I bought the car I had never heard of the PhatNoise and only found a small peice of literature in the Audi garage. The salesman had never sold one and was completely in the dark. I thought it was only available for Audis. What I am trying to say is no I did'nt do any research before I bought it.

[SteveC]

The Phatbox is one of those devices that works the way it wants to work, not the way you want it to work. Once you get past that hurdle, and get used to it, I think you will find things much more to your liking. That's not to say that there aren't annoying "features", but overall it's a very functional piece of audio gear, and considering that the core design was set more than 6 years ago, it was far ahead of it's time.

[masterblaster]

Hi everbody

I apologise if these questions have been asked before, this is my first post and I don't really know where to start looking for the answers.

I have a 2006 Audi A4 with phatnoise fitted and connected to the Audi Sat Nav Plus head unit. There are some things I really hate so if anyone knows of an answer I would really appreciate it.

1. The fact that the head unit cannot display disc and track names.

Once you get use to the audio prompts, I think you will find they are way more useful than the text displays. You can keep you eyes on the road while you cycle through your CDs.

2. Say I am listening to disc 37 but I want to listen to disc 40 I select changer and go to the disc list which always goes to disc 1. Why can't it remember that I have just listened to disc 37 so starting the disc list at 37 would be good so scrolling is minimal?

You need to learn to completely ignore what is shown on the screen. The disc numbers dont mean anything. It goes to "Disc 1" because that's the default search mode..I think that search by artist. Hit that, then scroll through all your artists, songs, etc. read the manual...if you comprehend the manual, you'll understand why the screen is useless.

3. five seconds before the disc is automatically selected is too short when you are negotiating a roundabout.

You can change this to anytime amount you want by editing the .sys file. Do a search and you'll find the directions.

4. I dont think that copying a CD on to the DMS at CD quality bit rate is as good a quality as playing a CD, anyone agree or disagree? Is there a better way of copying CDs rather than using Phatnoise CD Manager?

Maybe I'm stating the obvious but why dont you choose a higher bit rate, then? 220VBR sounds good to me.

The floor is now yours, Thanks in advance.

[todd1010]

Go to the link provided by S80_UK and copy and paste that phatbox.ini file in your head unit. That .ini file works great especiall with the RNS-E navigation plus head unit.