Meet the USA SPEC PA11-GM (yes, it is all caps).
This nifty little box, no bigger than the palm of my hand ties directly into the harness of a factory GM radio with no splicing save one wire. Power is drawn directly from the wire harness so no running of a power line to the battery or fuse box. The unit allows one to simultaneously charge their iPod/Phone/Touch while playing music and controlling the Apple product via the controls in the vehicle. Yes, your steering wheel controls (if you are lucky enough to have them, I don't) and buttons on the radio will control play, pause, next, previous, fast forward, rewind, and change play lists all from the factory controls. As a bonus, this box has an additional RCA-In for non-Apple products as well, so I can tie in my non-GM XM radio player into the system.
For about $150 plus shipping, I ordered my PA11 through Crutchfield and the service was very good. Initially they did not have any in stock and I would have to wait for about a week according to the notice on the product page. However, a day later I received an e-mail notification that they were back in stock and I promptly ordered mine. I was in a bit of a hurry...I was going home to visit my parents that next weekend and wanted to get the thing installed for the 4-hour drive. The review on the Crutchfield page were quite helpful in anticipating any problems I might run into and I would encourage any potential buyers to read them to forsee any problems with your individual install. They also send a master install sheet which gives tips and tricks to getting behind the dash and other parts of the vehicle that have audio and audio accessories (such as speakers).
SO, I started to pull the trim from the dash and get behind the radio to see the wiring harness. As I mentioned earlier, my Chevy didn't come equipped with an XM radio installed but was XM-ready. This is of importance because vehicles that do come with and XM radio module require more modification than my system did. Pulling the trim off, a simple plug into the factory wiring harness to the PA11, and reconnecting to the radio took all of 20 minutes to accomplish. Reconnecting the battery and powering on the radio for a quick check showed it in working order. Connecting my 5th generation iPod showed that it did in fact connect and the sound quality was O U T S T A N D I N G. However, the hard part came next.
Upon trying to slide the radio back into the factory mount, the additional cabling from the wiring harness addition kept getting stuck behind the radio keeping it from seating properly. Eventually I had to run the cable connecting the harness to the PA11 box behind the dash and out the bottom to place tension on the harness, keeping the bundle out from behind the radio. Initially I though there was enough cable to locate the PA11 box underneath the dash next to the steering column but the lack of attachment points made this problematic. I spent two hours trying to find a good place to mount the PA11 box and then where to run the connector cables to the iPod and headphone-out/RCA-in line and eventually had to give up.
The next day, I explored options to the passenger side of the radio. Several people made mention of placing the interface box in the location where the XM radio interface goes behind the glove box. As my Chevy didn't come with this interface, I had no clue where it might go. Eventually, I did find a support pillar that ran behind the dash and there was enough clearance between it and the storage box on the dash. After another 2 hours of removing the radio, pulling the inteface wires, and messing with zip ties and velcro tape, I finally gave up and just left the box sitting free against the inside of the dash, propped up by the support pillar. There was also some issue with the iPod/aux cables and how I was going to route those and I nearly bent one of the connection pins inside the iPod 8-pin Mini-DIN cable (think Apple serial port) trying to get it around a zip-tie and into the socket. Leaving the interface box loose made it easier to connect the cables and route them through the bottom of the dash between the air plenum and dash. I was worried about rattling but on-road use shows this to be of little concern for me.
SO, after two days and probably about 6 total hours I had the system installed and was ready to road test it. Again, the sound quality from the iPod is excellent with great frequency range response. The PREV, NEXT, FWD, and REV buttons did in fact control the iPod as advertised There is also a way to set up GM-specific playlists in iTunes which will allow the DISC button on the radio to switch between the various playlists but I did not have time to set this up before hitting the road. Unfortuantely I wasn't able to connect the XM radio data link in which would send song title/artitst information to the radio display either as I didn't have the factory module (which DOES involve splicing into a wire) but this really is a non-issue. Switching between XM/CD/AM/FM works well and the iPod will automatically pause when I do this and restart where I left off when going back to XM.
One issue I did experience is electrical noise on the RCA-in when I hooked in my XM-radio, likely from the cigarette power adapter or a missing RF-choke. This was a problem with in my Exploder but not to the extent I have in my Chevy. The only other complaint I have is the iPod display is not showing "GM" when connected to indicate external control as indicated in the manual but this is not a problem. When plugged in for the first time on any trip, the iPod does appear to run through some configuration issues as the screen will blink several times but again, it is a non-issue.
If you do in fact have an older vehicle that does not come equipped with an iPod interface, I would highly recommend giving USA SPEC a visit to see if you too can get an interface for your radio. They manufacture units to interface with many vehicle brands and years so give it a try. I wasn't disappointed and hopefully neither will you.
David Crowder Band never sounded so good driving down the road at 70 MPH...
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