Thanks for the review, seems like the XTRONS units are popular.

 

Stealth69, have you checked the rear speakers? how is the volume of them?

 

Stealth69, have you checked the rear speakers? how is the volume of them?

It's ok, first thing I did after reading reviews on the older version is check that, the car fills with sound, I'm not sure it has the depth in frequency the standard unit had, I think I'm missing some bass but I can't be 100% sure as only now had the car a week before changing the headunit and only drove it twice lol

 

Deezer on the unit

xtron 5.1 sound

 

Is the sound of the XTRON really that bad? I've heard the sound using the standard (non-bose) amp isn't good but I'll be upgrading to aftermarket amps & speakers etc...

 

Nope the sounds really isn't all that bad to be fair to the unit!

 

I've just recieved my unit today so will be installing it later..I have RNS-E+Bose+Sub Will be interesting to see how it sounds. I had a quick look in the box and the unit looks quite good and really mirrors the RNS-E original unit but the screen is slightly larger as doesn't need the rotating bezel etc. A couple of guys here where I work have just bought them for other cars and have been impressed...

 

I've just recieved my unit today so will be installing it later..I have RNS-E+Bose+Sub Will be interesting to see how it sounds. I had a quick look in the box and the unit looks quite good and really mirrors the RNS-E original unit but the screen is slightly larger as doesn't need the rotating bezel etc. A couple of guys here where I work have just bought them for other cars and have been impressed...

Be interesting to see your thoughts of what it sounds like with bose installed. On a Sony head unit I had there was a constant hummm and it didn't sound great but might pull the trigger if this one's decent enough.

 

Hi - I'm interested too as wife's TT none Bose is terrible and looks even worse!

Been thinking of RNS-E but is Xtron better?....Which model for year 2013 S-Line TT?

 

So I just did a temporary install of the Xtron unit in my TTS which has RNS-E + Bose Plus I fitted a removable sub some years ago I have a control for it upfront so I can fine tune the gain, cut off frequency & phase. I've had the TTS for over 5 years so I'm well used to the sound. I was disappointed after I bought the car as I thought that the Bose system lacked really low bass hence why I fitted the sub...
I've only had a quick play so will just summarise my initial thoughts:-
Pros
> The unit looks good both when its on and Off and looks very similar to the RNS-E unit
> The installation was very simple just a case of removing the old unit and connecting up the loom.
> It is very customisable as it runs android. Lots of settings to tweak.
> Lots of connections options, Wifi, Bluetooth (Phone & music streaming),DVD, Aux in, Camera Inputs etc.
> Cheap (£300) compared to RNS-E (£1,800 option).
> Use whatever Sat nav app you like.

Cons
> The sound quality is not as good as the original unit, Its not as rich, less dynamic range especially at the low end. I can tweak it to some extent with the built in equaliser plus my sub controls but I think without a sub the sound would be fairly tinny, fine if you are not into punchy bass but I am
> The Micro SD cards are only SDHC compatible - max of 32GB and won't play SDXC cards. I believe the same is true for the USB but have't tested yet.
> The unit take about 1 minute to boot however there are setting to prevent it from shutting down fully so it comes on straight away if you make a quick stop (programmable up to 2 hours).
> Although supplied with a gps antenna, it would have been good to have been supplied with an adapter to plug the roof one in for better reception.

I plan to fit the unit properly at the weekend so will update after that...I guess my initial thoughts are good however there is a sacrifice on sound quality to have an massive improvement in functionality and features....

 

My Bluetooth drops to the phone, not sure why...... may be a distance thing, will try closer...... it never loses connection to the obd2 connector so it's not the unit itself.

Had something odd today in that i was steaming over a2dp then switched to deezer (installed on unit) when I used the steering wheel to ch age track it skipped track on deezer and a2dp and started playing both........ what a freaking noise that was lol

 

I can't seem to turn the unit on when the ignition is off, I had a look for a setting but can't find it even in the factory settings section. is there a wiring change that I need to do?

 

Not sure if mine does or doesn't, will check when I get back to the car this avo........

 

I'm also having an issue whee if I start the unit up with the engine off and say start music playing with a 3rd party app when I start the engine the unit goes blank for a short while and comes back on but the playback doesn't resume..I have to start it manually....I hope I don't need to resort to putting a big capacitor on the power input!

 

I took delivery of a 2011 TT last week and have been heavily researching options for replacing the Symphony headunit that came in the car. It has no BT or USB, just an aux jack.

So I thought I would do a quick summary of the options that have left me quite unsure of what to pick:

RNS-E
Obviously stock Audi would be nice, the price vs features however is hard to justify as is the additional expense of the maps which I would have to get separately as I would need them for South Africa. Would need to borrow a Vagcom to get everything setup correctly but that shouldnt be too much hassle.

Double Din
I looked at the Pioneer App Radio options. Aesthetically the worst look in my opinion. CarPlay is nice but app support is very restricted. Pioneer Apps available in addition to CarPlay for things like Waze however this requires changing a setting and using a different USB cable every time you swap. Requires Connect2 kit which adds another 100 quid (with shipping) over the cost of the unit.

MTCD Units
Aliexpress Android based units, cheap, have a very stock look with the physical buttons and come as an all in 1 package. The main reason that these concern me is boot speed issues. To me 30s+ sounds like a hell of a long time to wait every time you start your car perhaps people with any of these android units could clarify exactly how long they take to boot and any steps taken to mitigate it. I understand the standby can be set to 2 hours but in my daily use this would not make much difference. Other than that its a lot more fiddly than other solutions however I could live with most of that, have spent a lot of time installing custom roms and tweaking android phones in the past.

Only other real dislike is the poor DIS interface that seems to get confused and print weird symbols onto your center display. If its not fixable then would really prefer if this could be turned off / disabled. Probably the simplest solution would be to just use the Speedo screen instead so you dont see that info text.

Nexus Install
Not 100% sold on the look of some of the nexus installs, again having physical buttons helps a unit look stock and makes it more user friendly. Still a full nexus tablet is attractive as an option and potentially solves the boot issues of the MTCD units. Still requires a headunit & a Connect2 cable to get the steering integration etc. and is a fiddly setup to get all the power, usb host, usb hubs and other bits and pieces connected. Will also require DIY to get the unit neatly mounted into a double din facia that comes with the connect2 kit or ebay.

Anyway, that's my very brief summary of the different options that are available. If there are ways to mitigate the boot time issues I would probably be going for a MTCD type unit. It does seem that there will be some new ones being released next month with 2Gb ram, not sure how much that will speed things up though.

 

I wonder why the Chinese Android units are slow to boot in the Audi's, My friend has one in his mk5 R32 and it is up and running almost instantly when the car is started?

 

Troopa

NO audi oem stereo for the tt has Bluetooth !! Not even the rns-e

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I wonder why the Chinese Android units are slow to boot in the Audi's, My friend has one in his mk5 R32 and it is up and running almost instantly when the car is started?

There's a setting to keep the unit in standby mode so that if you stop for a while the unit will come on straight away on my Xtron this can be set for a maximum of 2 hours before the unit shuts down and has to boot up fully after that...

 

I wonder why the Chinese Android units are slow to boot in the Audi's, My friend has one in his mk5 R32 and it is up and running almost instantly when the car is started?

There's a setting to keep the unit in standby mode so that if you stop for a while the unit will come on straight away on my Xtron this can be set for a maximum of 2 hours before the unit shuts down and has to boot up fully after that...

Interesting, I wonder if my friends unit is draining the battery slowly then to enable it to 'fast boot' every time? I mean Xtrons must have a 2 hour limit for a reason? I think I would rather wait a few seconds for the unit to boot than to potentially have a non starting car due to flat battery!

 

MTCD Units
Aliexpress Android based units, cheap, have a very stock look with the physical buttons and come as an all in 1 package. The main reason that these concern me is boot speed issues. To me 30s+ sounds like a hell of a long time to wait every time you start your car perhaps people with any of these android units could clarify exactly how long they take to boot and any steps taken to mitigate it. I understand the standby can be set to 2 hours but in my daily use this would not make much difference. Other than that its a lot more fiddly than other solutions however I could live with most of that, have spent a lot of time installing custom roms and tweaking android phones in the past.

Only other real dislike is the poor DIS interface that seems to get confused and print weird symbols onto your center display. If its not fixable then would really prefer if this could be turned off / disabled. Probably the simplest solution would be to just use the Speedo screen instead so you dont see that info text.

I have an AllWinner R16 based unit (page 10 on this thread - viewtopic.php?f=19&t=870465&start=120) and boot time is about 30-seconds, never actually timed it but that feels about right (I'll time it next time I get in the car). I am not too bothered about the boot up time to be honest?

The DIS integration is a royal pain and the main reason I kept putting the RNS-E back in. However there is a workaround with my unit by changing the Car Model in the advanced menu. In the Extra Settings menu there is an option called 'Model choose' and mine is set to 'A3(5.3.15, CONFIG, RDS, TDA7719, TEF662X)' - I assume A3. If I change this to anything other than A3 the DIS (and steering wheel controls unfortunately) are disabled. This is how I currently have it set.
This is obvioulsy just a software/firmware issue with the MCU/CANBUS adapter, however I see no way of solving it without help from the manufacturers.

Andy

 

So today I've been thinking of how I could improve the sound coming out of the Xtrons unit, I initially thought about changing the internal DACs but that obviously has risk and warranty issues. Then I had a brainwave about using an external USB sound card/DAC but wasn't sure if the drivers would be supported by Android. A quick Google and it looks like Lollipop does have native support for these device I read a few articles. So it might be possible to add one of these devices to the USB and so bypasses the poor internal circuitry.. The one drawback is that I think the support for fading will probably be lost? but that's no big deal. It should be possible to connect the RCAs in the wiring loom to DAC/Soundcard instead of the unit (via loom/connector)...I think I'll buy a cheap one to test it...

Here a link to an interesting article:-

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Andr.../news/Android-5.0-Lollipop-supports-USB-DAC-audio-devices-we-go-ears-on_id66399

The DAC in the article is a bit pricey (£139) to experiment with (see below) but there's plenty of cheap ones on Amazon..

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8...mdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046111&hvtargid=kwd-46241616209&ref=pd_sl_8isx3xo1ga_b

 

Anyone mentioned this already:

http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/audi ... /spc-400tt

not a head unit, but perhaps good fun to install. No hands on experience here...

 

Looking at the ISO connector that came with mine it will be easy enough to bypass the internal amp with a decent external amp to sort the sound out possibly...... if the sound quality is that shit I will be trying that approach lol

Looking at how my loom is wired is uses the RCA outputs from the Xtron unit - it comes out of the HU then into a transition board which is encased in heat shrink then then goes to a load of RCA connections which then have mating connectors which interface to the Audi wiring look (to amps). The sound is still disappointing - I have Bose!

I did improve things a little bu going in the factory settings and adjusting the levels under VOICE menu. I turned the system up to max (20) then allows the unit to reboot...

I also tried connecting a USB soundcard which is supposed to be natively supported by Lollipop (works fine on my phone via OTG adapter) but no output from Xtron??? I can only assume they stripped out a load of functionality for this car version??? Shame as this would have been a great sound improvement option....

 

Some photos of Xtrons unit and comparing to RNS-E in my TTS

 

Looking at the ISO connector that came with mine it will be easy enough to bypass the internal amp with a decent external amp to sort the sound out possibly...... if the sound quality is that shit I will be trying that approach lol

Looking at how my loom is wired is uses the RCA outputs from the Xtron unit - it comes out of the HU then into a transition board which is encased in heat shrink then then goes to a load of RCA connections which then have mating connectors which interface to the Audi wiring look (to amps). The sound is still disappointing - I have Bose!

I did improve things a little bu going in the factory settings and adjusting the levels under VOICE menu. I turned the system up to max (20) then allows the unit to reboot...

I also tried connecting a USB soundcard which is supposed to be natively supported by Lollipop (works fine on my phone via OTG adapter) but no output from Xtron??? I can only assume they stripped out a load of functionality for this car version??? Shame as this would have been a great sound improvement option....

On the xda developers website they have custom builds for these headunits, I'm thinking of trying one of these for shits and giggles, not because I feel I need to but because I can't help but play. I wander if one of these custom ROMS would have the drivers back in them to run the external card?!