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Well, it's funny you should ask if they tapped into the antennae lead. Yes, they did, but it's not what they were going to do originally. They said installation should only take 2 hours, it ended up taking closer to 5. Needless to say, they didn't make any money off the cost of installation as they had two guys working on my one car the whole time. hahaha! But it worked out fine!
They orginally were going to use a Sirius FM adaptor cable ($20.00) or a USA Spec input device ($60.00) that was designed for VW's audio system. Well, the USA Spec part actually doesn't work for Saabs (I told them I knew of no similarities between VWs and Saabs, but they said it'd work) and they used the Sirius FM adaptor cable.
They figured that that wouldn't work, so they told me they'd use a casetter adaptor and I'd just have to select "Tape" as my input and it'd work. This worked, however, I wasn't happy with the sound, nor were they. So next they tried to hook into the wiring for the CD changer (I don't have one, but the wiring is present) but this was during the fourth hour when I was actually helping the guys figure stuff out as they don't do many Saabs. I looked at how far back they'd have to run wiring and just asked if they could use a POWERED FM MODULATOR, which they actually looked at each other and had a "light-bulb" moment over. They were like "damn, why didn't we think of that! That SHOULD work!!" So that's what they did, and it's probably what you should ask for up front, unless you want them pulling wire from the CD changer to the head unit. You can select a specific FM station on the Drive+Play in its settings (it doesn't change when you drive through areas of different transmissions) and it broadcasts on that frequency.
This does not degrade the sound though, as it is a powered FM modulator, unlike the iTrip and other such devices. Also, the signal is played through your speakers in a much, much clearer quality than any FM transmitter like the iTrip or even my $70.00 Monster Cable thing ever could. The sound SERIOUSLY SOUNDS LIKE A CD! The SID display just reads the radio station, not AUX or anything like that. That is the only thing I'd change-but the guy said that the $60 USA Spec part would only work on head units that could support it and that it would allow the display to show AUX or something other than radio. I've driven into areas where I would have had to change the FM frequency on an iTrip with the Drive+Play and have NOT had to change the station that it broadcasts on as it is a "closed loop" type set-up...I think, or at least that's my interpretation of what I perceive is happening!
I said it once and I'll say it again, this thing sounds like a CD, very clear, sounds very "digital" as opposed to listening to the radio, even though it's a powered FM modulator which in and of itself is a kind of radio. It works well and two people that have been in my car have asked me if it was a factory-option as the installation looks sooo clean (that I'll actually give the Circuit City guys for, really good job in that department.)
I know this is very, very long, but I just wanted to fully explain my experience with the Drive+Play.
Please feel free to e-mail me or post on here if you have a question,
Andrew In DE
posted by 151.197.24...
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