- Sep 10, 2004
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About mid-week last week I received the DICE Silverline DUO in the mail from a retailer my wife found online: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...O-100-BMW.html
My car: 2003 BMW M3 with HK audio sans navigation
I've done at least a dozen car audio installs of all types over the last 20 years, doing everything from multi-thousand dollar full system builds to enclosures and false floors, head units, simple alternator noise elimination and everything in between. In short, I know what I'm doing.
On to the install. Very easy. There just aren't not a lot of ways to screw this up. Noobs can do this, no problem. The most difficult part was locating the 3 and 6 pin connectors. They were hidden so thoroughly behind the factory amp I thought I didn't have them. Once I found those, I carefully ran the cabling up to the front of the car and behind the glove box, paying close attention to keep it away from anything that may cause interference. The running of the cable was easy, but I won't lie: it took a while. Rushing here can lead to broken interior pieces or the mysterious buzzing/hissing/alternator whine if you just throw the cable any old place and hope for the best. I chose the slow and steady route.
Once everything was in place I fired up my system and the DICE unit instantly detected. Nice! And that's where the good ends, unfortunately.
Once audio started playing I was shocked at the difference between the sound level of my iPod and the sound level of the CD player and radio. It sounded like the gain was turned up all the way on the iPod or the DICE. And sure enough it was. On the DICE. I found the adjustment, pressing the 3 button on my head unit and slowy notching down the gain for the DICE with the left arrow button on the HU. Even at the absolute minimum, the distortion level and sound quality was HORRIBLE. It sounded like really, really awful FM radio reception played through an amp with the gain turned up all the way.
So I took my iPod off the adapter and checked the Firmware: 1.3, the version recommended by the DICE docs. Next I made sure I had no EQ or other settings enabled in my iPod. Hooked it back up, still trash. Garbage. I grabbed my wife's iPod and hooked it up. Horrible. More distortion. WTF is going on? I checked the forums and found a lot of talk about electronic interference and a varying buzzing that increased with the RPMs of the car, classic alternator whine or other electronic interference. But that's not what I had. Turning the car on made no difference whatsoever.
One support person kept suggesting people suffering from this problem should buy the unit that installs in the dash. I wasn't convinced.
Wanting to exhaust every conceivable solution, I upgraded the DICE firmware, which made no difference at all.
And finally, completely sure that my cable route was clean but determined to find out where this noise was coming from, I undid the cable route and chose one that would be certain to contain no interference from anything at all electronic. My driveway:
Guess what? This didn't fix it either.
Between researching forums and methodically trying one alteration at a time, I spent the better part of my Memorial day weekend fiddling with this adapter. I ended up sending it back, and now I've got a replacement device en route.
As a sysadmin with thousands of dollars of spare parts and cannibalization candidate servers and workstations around me, it makes me appreciate what I've got in that regard. At work I can just throw a different processor or drive or motherboard in. At home, I have to trust that what the vendor sends me isn't DOA...
My car: 2003 BMW M3 with HK audio sans navigation
I've done at least a dozen car audio installs of all types over the last 20 years, doing everything from multi-thousand dollar full system builds to enclosures and false floors, head units, simple alternator noise elimination and everything in between. In short, I know what I'm doing.
On to the install. Very easy. There just aren't not a lot of ways to screw this up. Noobs can do this, no problem. The most difficult part was locating the 3 and 6 pin connectors. They were hidden so thoroughly behind the factory amp I thought I didn't have them. Once I found those, I carefully ran the cabling up to the front of the car and behind the glove box, paying close attention to keep it away from anything that may cause interference. The running of the cable was easy, but I won't lie: it took a while. Rushing here can lead to broken interior pieces or the mysterious buzzing/hissing/alternator whine if you just throw the cable any old place and hope for the best. I chose the slow and steady route.
Once everything was in place I fired up my system and the DICE unit instantly detected. Nice! And that's where the good ends, unfortunately.
Once audio started playing I was shocked at the difference between the sound level of my iPod and the sound level of the CD player and radio. It sounded like the gain was turned up all the way on the iPod or the DICE. And sure enough it was. On the DICE. I found the adjustment, pressing the 3 button on my head unit and slowy notching down the gain for the DICE with the left arrow button on the HU. Even at the absolute minimum, the distortion level and sound quality was HORRIBLE. It sounded like really, really awful FM radio reception played through an amp with the gain turned up all the way.
So I took my iPod off the adapter and checked the Firmware: 1.3, the version recommended by the DICE docs. Next I made sure I had no EQ or other settings enabled in my iPod. Hooked it back up, still trash. Garbage. I grabbed my wife's iPod and hooked it up. Horrible. More distortion. WTF is going on? I checked the forums and found a lot of talk about electronic interference and a varying buzzing that increased with the RPMs of the car, classic alternator whine or other electronic interference. But that's not what I had. Turning the car on made no difference whatsoever.
One support person kept suggesting people suffering from this problem should buy the unit that installs in the dash. I wasn't convinced.
Wanting to exhaust every conceivable solution, I upgraded the DICE firmware, which made no difference at all.
And finally, completely sure that my cable route was clean but determined to find out where this noise was coming from, I undid the cable route and chose one that would be certain to contain no interference from anything at all electronic. My driveway:
Guess what? This didn't fix it either.
Between researching forums and methodically trying one alteration at a time, I spent the better part of my Memorial day weekend fiddling with this adapter. I ended up sending it back, and now I've got a replacement device en route.
As a sysadmin with thousands of dollars of spare parts and cannibalization candidate servers and workstations around me, it makes me appreciate what I've got in that regard. At work I can just throw a different processor or drive or motherboard in. At home, I have to trust that what the vendor sends me isn't DOA...
Probably a month or two down the road. I like projects, so if I go that route I'll take pics and write something up.
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