psyToy

Last week I became the proud owner of a 2005 Mazda 3 SP23, including the leather seats and Bose sound system with 6 CD changer.

Sadly, I soon discovered it doesn’t support MP3 playback. A huge oversight by Mazda as far as I’m concerned, considering the car is targeted at a younger market.

Enter the XCarLink - this little black box essentially emulates a CD changer and plugs directly into the back of the factory head unit (stock or Bose). Once installed, you plug USB sticks or SD-cards into it and your stereo system then handles the music as though you had an external CD changer installed.

XCarLink photogallery

Here is the XCarLink (with a 4GB USB stick inserted) installed inside the glove box.	The cable snakes between the glove box door hinge and disappears into the center column trim.
Still plenty of room left inside.	Underneath the glovebox - the cable exits from the glovebox hinge and snakes into the center column. It is invisible from the passenger's view.
I added some extra foam around the cable to cushion it against general movement.	Head unit display: CD Folder 1, track 3, 17 seconds into the current song.

Installation was trivial. I mounted mine in the glovebox as the cable isn’t quite long enough to reach the center bin. Didn’t need to drill any holes either as the cable snaked in reasonably well between the hinge of the glove box door.

On the USB stick / SD card, your MP3 files are placed in folders labelled CD01, CD02, CD03, etc up to CD06 (each folder effectively becoming a CD as far as the head unit is concerned). Each folder may contain up to 99 files. This equates to approx. 36 albums on a 4GB USB stick.

A few additional points:

• The XCarLink doesn’t disable the normal CD changer - Press the CD button to toggle between the two.
• In addition to the USB and SD card inputs, there is also a 3.5mm auxillary jack which allows you to plug in other audio devices.
• Console and steering wheel controls work! You can change tracks, switch between the MP3 folders, play, pause,mute, etc. You can’t however seek forward/backward within a track.
• The display does not show MP3/ID3 information (song name, etc). It does display folder number, track number and song playhead position. Not surprising, considering it is emulating a CD changer.
• Compatible with standard SD cards, not SD-HC cards.
• XCarLink also make a similar device for iPods and bluetooth.

Overall, I’m a pretty happy camper. To summarise:

• Quick and easy to install, no need to cut holes in your precious vehicle
• Build quality appears excellent
• Well priced - If you’re in Oz, consider purchasing from the XCarLink group buy for $115, postage included