Just installed one of these units on Tuesday, and the best thing about it is that, um, it works! The tuner itself is pretty small (about the size of an Alpine KCA-420i iPod interface) and includes an Ai-Net pass-through for connecting an iPod or a changer easily. The iPod adapter worked flawlessly, as did the Sirius, with the only aberration being that I had to make sure the Alpine head unit’s tuner was set to Area 1 (this can be found in the setup menu) to make it recognize the Sirius tuner. The only other issue I had with the SIR-ALP1 at all is that it is not powered by the Ai-Net buss, requiring a hard connection to memory power …

While the iPod docks seem to get the most attention around here, and I’m really enjoying making them fit in everything from old Mercedes to new Porsche Turbos, there’s another neat little integration idea that I had a couple of years back and do a lot of as well. Some of you may have seen these before, but here it is for newer visitors that may not have…the Escort Passport SR-7 display in the rearview mirror.
I did one of these in my own car about three years ago and had no idea how much my customers would like the idea. I have since done about forty of these in various BMWs, Mercedes, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Porsches, Range Rovers, Audis, VWs, …