Orion_240

You know how people are complaining about how the new 2010 isn't very different from the 2005-2009's? Well the SYNC system is totally different! You will have so many more features with that, and a lot of fun, that you won't with the Shaker 1000. The 1000 also means you loose valuable trunk space and gain a lot of weight from that sub.

I was told the Sync system needs to be loaded in the car, that you can't just upload all your music into it at your computer. If that is true that could be a bummer, as who wants to upload all their CDs and mps one at a time? Was the salesman blowing smoke?

Rollin Thunder

Im not real worried about truck space, I have a yukon xl when I need space. This is just Daily driver to get to work and hop in my work truck. Right now im leaning more toward getting the GPS and just adding a 12" sub or somthing. Depends on how it sounds. As I think the screen looks soooooo cool and the buttons look bland. Again It really depends on the sound quality of both. I never knew the GPS had all those cool features (thanks to Ford-E) so that is swaying my decision towards the GPS. I also see the dealers have more GPS ones than shaker 1000. I cant find one with a shaker 1000 in my area. I would have to drive a couple hours.

fakesnake

hello FORDENGINEER,
So before I take my mustang to some stereo wiz kid, is it possible to get my shaker 1000 sub to work now that I have replaced the head unit with a Ford Nav unit. As I said in my original post, the guy I bought the NAV unit from said to pair up a row of PIN connections in the back of the NAV unit. I would like to know before I pay them to blow up my unit

FordEngineer

That's actually the jukebox feature of the NGN (GPS) system (another feature that I forgot to mention, Rollin Thunder). Here's the difference between that and SYNC:

The Jukebox:
You have a 10 GB hard drive that comes with your NGN (it's actually 40 GB, but 30 GB is filled with the ENTIRE gracenote database, so you get album art, etc, for any song or CD you play). With the blank 10 GB available to you, you can 'rip' music to the car from your CDs, essentially building a digital music library in your vehicle. This works in a similar way to the 'rip' feature in Windows Media Player, but it takes a little longer to do, IMO. You can then use that media library to play music in your vehicle without the CD, and without downloading the MP3 from your favorite 'location'.

SYNC:
*I'm only going to discuss the media player functionality of SYNC here. It does a lot more than play music by voice command, but for the sake of brevity, we'll only discuss that part of it.
SYNC lets you bring in music (MP3, WMA, etc) from outside the vehicle, and unlike the jukebox, you don't have to load it on anything--it plays right from your USB-capable device (or bluetooth device (e.g. cell phone) or line-in, but you don't have the same level of voice control with those). Let's focus on just USB: You plug in your iPod, Zune, or other MP3 player with the USB cable to the USB port of the vehicle (usually located inside the center console so you can keep your MP3 player out of view when you leave the car). It actually powers/charges your MP3 player while it plays as well, so batteries aren't a concern. You can also load a ton of MP3s/playlists/etc on a basic USB thumb drive (that's what I do 'cuz it's rediculously cheap) and plug that into the USB port--it'll work just the same.

Anyhoo, all you then have to do is press the voice button on the steering wheel and say "USB" to tell SYNC that you want to play music from the USB port. SYNC will take a few seconds to index the music on your device (depending on how much is on there), and then you can give voice commands like "play all", "play track [song name]", "play artist [artist name]", "play genre [music type]", "play list [playlist name], "similar music", "what's playing", and so on (the full list of audio commands is in the manual, or at www.syncmyride.com). SYNC does *not* let you voice control your regular radio/Sirius Radio, climate control, and so on--that's NGN, and you can only do that if you get nav.

Here's the kicker though--You get SYNC with any of the 'premium' Mustang packages, as an option on the 'regular' packages, and it comes with the NGN (GPS) system. SYNC works with the Shaker 500 and 1000 systems as well. A lot of people (including Orion 240's dealer, from what it sounds like) think SYNC is the same thing as Nav, and vice versa, because all the SYNC ads always showed the nav screen. That is incorrect (although the new version of SYNC coming out does do turn-by-turn directions, it's not a navigation system). You can get SYNC without nav (e.g. on regular radios), but you can't get nav without SYNC. Nav comes with the 10 GB jukebox you can rip music to, SYNC does not (you need to bring in your own device, and even though that device is indexed by SYNC, the MP3s are not 'ripped' to the car, and the indexing only takes a few seconds, unless you have a bazillon songs on it).

So, in reality, you can play media in your new 'stang from any of the following sources:

Ground Radio Stations (AM/FM)
Satellite Radio
CD (Audio)
DVD (Movies) **
Bluetooth Audio (cell phone) *
USB (iPod, Zune, USB Thumb Drive, etc) *
Line In (you name it) *
10 GB Jukebox **

* = Requires SYNC
** = Requires Nav

Rollin Thunder, have I made your decision harder yet?

FordEngineer

Eesh, this gets into the wiring harness, which isn't what I work on. I will say that I'd be leery of any advice that involves changing or modifying the pins on the harness connector.

Here's the other reason why I'd be leery: I'm assuming that the nav head unit you have is an all-in-one unit that is essentially a big brick when you pull it out of the dash, extending back about 6 inches into the dash when it's installed. I'm guessing you replaced an ACM Type 2 radio (black finish, ugly one-line green display) with the nav head. The problem is that there are 2 nav heads that fit this mounting scheme--ACM type 3 and type 6. Type 3 is the "old school" Ford nav, with the blue-and-gray color scheme and graphics that look like they came out of an old 8-bit video game. Type 6 is the newer, Next-Gen nav. Problem is, types 3 and 6 are made by different manufacturers, have different Audio Control Modules (ACMs) in them, and both ACMs are different from the one in your Type 2 radio. That means that there may not be the right code in the new ACM to drive your subwoofer, and unfortunately, I'm not the right person to ask about that--I don't know with certainty if that's going to work. I *do* know that if you start screwing with the pins of the wiring harness, you can physically short out things, and that will cause irrepairable damage in some instances. However, if you have those pins all mapped out and know what you are doing, there may be a work-around that involved modding the pins. But like I said, since I don't work with the wiring harnesses, I don't have those mappings, and I can't say with certainty what would happen. So, it appears as if I'm pretty useless in this instance. My apologies. Hopefully the information I was able to provide can help you with your decision, but I'm afraid I can't answer your question the way you're looking for it to be answered.

Rollin Thunder

Naw you just confirmed my decision to get the nav system. It sounds way too cool to pass up and its cheaper than the nav system on my yukon so what the hell.

FordEngineer

Great! Now when you get it, you've gotta tell me what you like and what you don't, as that's something I *can* influence.

Legion5

aftermarket nav is nicer and has more features.

wilkinda

The 2010 Nav system is pretty damn awesome..even better compared to my current aftermarket nav

Legion5

It's definitly an improvement but I'm using the highest end nav unit there is and the feature that would never make me switch to anything else is the ability to play dvd's.