[WENZOR007]

I have an 03' MCS with the H/K Head Unit and I found someone on northamericanmotoring.com that has an 05 Standard Unit. Do you know if it would be possible to retro-fit the 05 Standard into my 03 H/K MCS? Would there be any drawbacks to doing so? I really want the MP3 portion.

Please help if you can.

 

[GBMINI]

The HU is the same for HK / non-HK.
Pre '03 HUs only work 95% with HK amps, but they do work.

I expect the '05 HU to work fine with pre-'05 HK, because I can't see the logic in MINI redesigning the communications.
I have not read anything about different '05 connections, and MikeyTheMINIs site does not show different harness adaptors, so presumably the connections are the same too.

I would guess it will work fine - try and see

 

[mikeythemini]

Connections are the same Ian

 

[JoeDentist]

When the MP3 feature of the 05 HU was announced. I predicted that transplants of the 05 HU to earlier year cars would be the new rage. I personally can not see putting a funky white IPOD with a tiny unreadable screen in the car to play MP3's when you can have a neater, no clutter, covered by insurance official Mini HU that will play MP3's off a CD.

You can get about 12 full albums of music on a single CD in MP3 format, and thats encoded at 160 instead of 128. Also, it has been discovered that the 05 HU can "fast forward" through MP3 files, as well as skipping them all at once. The lack of radout is a hassle, but quite frankly, given the position of the radio, trying to read and drive at the same time is a hazard, anyway. Since you can skip or scan with the MFSW, you can still do a lot of navigation of the CD blind.

Let us know how it goes. If it turns out to be as simple as everyone expects - literally a plug-in deal, the value of the 05 HU will rise.

 

[WENZOR007]

As I posted on NAM. It works! MP3, all HK functions! Thanks guys!

 

[plantain]

05 HU also handles long mp3 files

And by "long" I mean 2 hours.

I just finished my weekly commute where I listen to Garrison Keillor's a Prairie Home Companion on NPR. It's a 2 hour program, but I never had the time to listen to it all at once.

Well, the beauty of this head unit is I can encode the entire program as a continous 2 hour file. The HU not only plays it, but pauses when I turn it off manually, switch to radio, or turn off the car. It resumes *perfectly* to the paused point, even when I'm 1 hour 50 minutes into the program. Most head units are not so happy doing this; they tend to get "lost" and seek maybe a minute or so forward and back when dealing with very long files. In the past, I've had to divide the program up into 15 minute segments to avoid this.

So in case any of you were planning on doing this, I highly recommend it! It's a wonderful way to listen to my weekend radio programs during the week!

 

[WENZOR007]

And by "long" I mean 2 hours.

I just finished my weekly commute where I listen to Garrison Keillor's a Prairie Home Companion on NPR. It's a 2 hour program, but I never had the time to listen to it all at once.

Well, the beauty of this head unit is I can encode the entire program as a continous 2 hour file. The HU not only plays it, but pauses when I turn it off manually, switch to radio, or turn off the car. It resumes *perfectly* to the paused point, even when I'm 1 hour 50 minutes into the program. Most head units are not so happy doing this; they tend to get "lost" and seek maybe a minute or so forward and back when dealing with very long files. In the past, I've had to divide the program up into 15 minute segments to avoid this.

So in case any of you were planning on doing this, I highly recommend it! It's a wonderful way to listen to my weekend radio programs during the week!

Where do you download the NPR broadcasts? or do you record then encode?

 

[woodsy_bear]

Does anybody know how much it costs to get hold of an 05 HU?