Rosen FIT-MT15 Head Unit

[OEMRadio]

i am a little surprised everyone thinks that sync must be kept. Head units pretty routinely handle the things sync does for me, which is bluetooth audio/music off of usb, and hands free calling. What else does sync really do that anyone uses? I know it does some sort of 911 thing kind of like on-star on GM, but the odds of both my phone and the head unit working after a crash that i cant walk away from seems pretty unlikely to me. does sync do anything else important?

sync has been a horrible disappointment to me, both in my '11 f-150 and '15 mustang. They work 90% of the time, and that is not nearly enough.

on my mustang, i listen to bluetooth audio 99% of the time. And the mustang unit usually pairs with my phone when i get in. 10% of the time it doesnt, and then it switches to am/fm radio, and just BLARES the music. I have my phone turned all the way up, but it still is softer than the baseline used for the radio. This is just bad programming. My Toyota works perfectly every time. and when it doesnt link, like when my phone is off, it calmly waits till i decide what to listen to instead of blaring the damn radio. (this happened with my samsung note 3 and my nexus 6, so these are mainstream phones)

Obviously i didnt buy the mustang for the radio, but this annoys me far more than i would have guessed when i bought it.

You can unplug it.. Just eventually there will be more issues from it.. Communication systems in today's cars are advanced.. They expect to see certain components in the loop.. If you unplug your radio bezel and plug it in.. I can tell you that when I plug in.. If you take your radio out.. I can tell you that also.. Everything talks in the system.. So can it be unplugged.. Sure.. Why not.. Do I recommend it.. No..

For those that bash it.. I guess you never reboot your iPhone or android phone.. They are always perfect never an issue.. If sync doesn't pair it can be just as much fault of the phone as sync.. I have several different brands of cars.. And my phone has to be reset at times.. Computers are not 100% perfect.. None are.. And to expect 100% is unrealistic.. My sync system works fine.. Has it flaked.. Sure.. What system doesn't..

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[brandonsmash]

Has it flaked.. Sure.. What system doesn't..

I hate to beat a dead horse, but so far after 18 months of ownership the Bluetooth unit in my Mazda 6 has never needed to be reset. It always pairs just fine with my phone or my wife's phone and works as it should.

On the other hand, it's slow to start. Where I can get in my Mustang and start up the pony and have Bluetooth playing within 10 seconds, the Mazda takes 3 times that long. Furthermore, I had to deny the Mazda phonebook and text message privileges because EACH AND EVERY TIME I got in the car it wanted to download the entire phonebook and text log again, which added a couple minutes to the start delay every time. There isn't an option for "refresh intermittently" or "download updates only" -- it's just "do the whole thing every time."

So, the Mazda system has its quirks but it works.

The Ford system has its quirks and sometimes it just doesn't work.

 

[NewTekBuzz]

i listen to bluetooth audio 99% of the time. And the mustang unit usually pairs with my phone when i get in. 10% of the time it doesnt, and then it switches to am/fm radio, and just BLARES the music. I have my phone turned all the way up, but it still is softer than the baseline used for the radio. This is just bad programming...,

No, this is compressed audio (aka Bluetooth). the sound system in these fords are bad enough without running Bluetooth music, why you would ever want to use it for more than calls is beyond me.

 

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people trying to defend sync reminds me of Microsoft defending windows vista lol.

 

[chrsschb]

No, this is compressed audio (aka Bluetooth). the sound system in these fords are bad enough without running Bluetooth music, why you would ever want to use it for more than calls is beyond me.

He's not entirely wrong and you're not entirely right.

Yeah the bluetooth signal is compressed, but not in the way you're thinking. Lowering quality (which is really a pretty subtle amount) does not inherently lower volume. Conversely, radio signals are very often boosted audibly, especially in the low frequencies and even more so over the FM bands. If you're concerned with the quality of your bluetooth audio I'm going to assume you're playing 24-bit lossless wav/aiffs in your car through a hard connection? Because if not you truly have no room to speak. This is all of course ignoring the fact that few people actually have the money invested in a stereo system that will make use of a high-quality/lossless audio source.

Back on topic, I've never used sync, it simply didn't exist when I owned my last mustang. But I do know the bluetooth in my wife's kia and in my subaru are flawless. I've never had issues with either and connection is under 10 seconds with each the moment we turn on the cars. And the audio sounds pretty good too ;)

 

[D.Brown]

Please stay on topic with the fact that this will hopefully replace the useless 4" display on the Base GT's. Would love to see this as a reality.

 

[chrsschb]

Please stay on topic with the fact that this will hopefully replace the useless 4" display on the Base GT's. Would love to see this as a reality.

Agreed. Looking forward to something for the 350

 

[NewTekBuzz]

He's not entirely wrong and you're not entirely right.

Yeah the bluetooth signal is compressed, but not in the way you're thinking. Lowering quality (which is really a pretty subtle amount) does not inherently lower volume. Conversely, radio signals are very often boosted audibly, especially in the low frequencies and even more so over the FM bands. If you're concerned with the quality of your bluetooth audio I'm going to assume you're playing 24-bit lossless wav/aiffs in your car through a hard connection? Because if not you truly have no room to speak. This is all of course ignoring the fact that few people actually have the money invested in a stereo system that will make use of a high-quality/lossless audio source.

Back on topic, I've never used sync, it simply didn't exist when I owned my last mustang. But I do know the bluetooth in my wife's kia and in my subaru are flawless. I've never had issues with either and connection is under 10 seconds with each the moment we turn on the cars. And the audio sounds pretty good too ;)

If your running a 128bit vs a 320bit your volume will be less and BT is even less than that. So you are partly incorrect as well but thanks for your input.

 

[Heinoceros]

You can unplug it.. Just eventually there will be more issues from it.. Communication systems in today's cars are advanced.. They expect to see certain components in the loop.. If you unplug your radio bezel and plug it in.. I can tell you that when I plug in.. If you take your radio out.. I can tell you that also.. Everything talks in the system.. So can it be unplugged.. Sure.. Why not.. Do I recommend it.. No..

For those that bash it.. I guess you never reboot your iPhone or android phone.. They are always perfect never an issue.. If sync doesn't pair it can be just as much fault of the phone as sync.. I have several different brands of cars.. And my phone has to be reset at times.. Computers are not 100% perfect.. None are.. And to expect 100% is unrealistic.. My sync system works fine.. Has it flaked.. Sure.. What system doesn't..

could you elaborate a little more on why you dont recommend unplugging sync? Do you know of any specific bad thing that will happen? I am not trying to bust your chops here but i am looking for real information, not vague hang wringing.

And i have to disagree with your position that Sync is not significantly better or worse than other car systems. My toyota has never once had this problem. Again, i dont consider this the most important aspect of a vehicle obviously, but there is no reason to act like it doesnt exist. I dont expect 100%, but 90% is not close enough.

 

[chrsschb]

If your running a 128bit vs a 320bit your volume will be less and BT is even less than that. So you are partly incorrect as well but thanks for your input.

You're beyond wrong and it's not even remotely accurate to put quality and volume in the same sentence. It is a common misconception that higher quality means louder.

Also please show me where I'm wrong. I pointed to why the FM signal was likely louder and I admitted a BT signal would indeed lose a bit of quality (not much, BT3.0 and 4.0 are leagues better).

 

[NewTekBuzz]

You're beyond wrong and it's not even remotely accurate to put quality and volume in the same sentence. It is a common misconception that higher quality means louder.

Also please show me where I'm wrong. I pointed to why the FM signal was likely louder and I admitted a BT signal would indeed lose a bit of quality (not much, BT3.0 and 4.0 are leagues better).

First off, do some testing of your own. Rip the same song with two different bit rates and play them at the same "volume" one will be louder than the other if they are at opposite ends of the compression! However you want to label it is fine but there is a difference in volume with lower quality.
I did not realize BT 3 & 4 had made such great strides in their abilities... I'll give you that.

 

[Heinoceros]

First off, do some testing of your own. Rip the same song with two different bit rates and play them at the same "volume" one will be louder than the other if they are at opposite ends of the compression! However you want to label it is fine but there is a difference in volume with lower quality.
I did not realize BT 3 & 4 had made such great strides in their abilities... I'll give you that.

The compression quality should absolutely not change the volume, you have a broken encoder if you are seeing this. its just math here, the compression just uses less bits to encode the same waveform. The waveform is slightly less detailed, but the volume is determined by the highs and lows of each wave, and if you were doing anything that significantly messed with those values, the other damage you would be doing would be way more noticeable before the volume noticeably changed.

use any standard encoder, encode a 64 bit mp3 and a 320 bit mp3, they are the same volume.

But none of this even matters. If bluetooth was inherently quieter due to the compression, then they should compensate for it automatically. If you have a system where the bluetooth connect fails frequently (even due to problems with people phones) you should handle it gracefully.

I hope they come out with a decent system soon. I dont want to complain about sync anymore, i just want a replacement.

 

[NewTekBuzz]

Pointless

 

[pumxee]

Any one hear anything on when this will be available? I do not want to buy the Tomtop unit if this one is coming soon. But I do have a feeling that it will e about $800 or so

 

[svtguy]

ditto

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