Audi also has CD changers that support (play) mp3 files – 6 CD at 700Mb and average of 4Mb per song, we can store about 1000 songs per changer. The cost for MP3 CD changer is about $400 vs this after market AMI supports iphone/ipod.
AMI = Audi Music Interface. My 08 Q7 has it built-in. This one allows you to connect an iPhone, ipod, ipod touch to the MMI (Multi Media Interface) and select songs to play beside the CD changer. This original AMI from Audi is a $300 option at the time of purchase, but if we want to add one, it does cost a pretty penny. If your car doesn’t have AMI, the chances are your MMI software version is below 3360 which is needed to use AMI. Before you jump the gun and go out to buy an AMI add-on for your MMI, check the software version first or you’re going in for more than you can handle.
This is software version 1190 on my 06 A8L before upgrade.
My Inexpensive Ipod Interface MMI 2G (3G starts from 2011+?)
These days, there are tons of ipods, ipod touches with dead battery that sell for a few bucks, I got a few myself to load the music and play on my Q7 AMI and this ipod music interface – The difference between this one and the OEM AMI is about $200-$250 and it doesn’t support iphones and USB hard drives, but I don’t have iphones, so I don’t worry about it.
We tested the unit outside and it worked before we installed it in the glove box.
The auxiliary box has a little round hole for cabling, but our cable connectors are bigger, so we had to drill a bigger hole – By the way, we took out the glove box to install our boxes for back up camera, but you don’t really have to remove the glove box to do this. We do need to remove the CD changer using radio removal tools. MOST cable (optical) is daisy chained and not parallel, so we have to hook it up correctly.
Now we have a nice original like Music player – it charges the ipod so we don’t worry about the dead battery – Now all we need is to put music to the ipod if we’re not ipod savvy.
- Wireless CarPlay and Backup Camera on A4 B8
- How To Modify MMI 3G AMI Cable For AUX Audio Inputs
- How To Restore Sounds From MMI 2G Component Protection (CP)