--- In honda-insight@yahoogroups.com, "ngparob" <gparob@...> wrote:
>
> Hey, all! I just bought a 2000 Insight, and couldn't be happier.

Congratulations! I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine.

> [...] [I] wanted to ask if anyone's installed a newer radio in an
> insight. [...]

Yes. I moved up from the Honda-branded, dealer-fit CD to a JVC
DAB/FM/AM CD/MP3/WMA radio. To feed the DAB tuner I use a dipole wire
aerial, included in the kit: it sticks neatly along the top of the
windscreen. The existing factory-fit aerial is fine for FM and AM. The
unit fits nicely in the slot. There's a removable faceplate.

Performance is good, and there are two clever tricks. One is that the
unit uses the DAB and RDS datastreams to identify stations, so if a
DAB station drops out it can swap to the same station on FM, or vice
versa if the DAB quality recovers (if the same station has both DAB
and FM transmissions). Another is that when listening to the DAB tuner
(or MP3s), the RDS datastream is still monitored on FM, so if I've
selected Traffic Advice, it'll retune to the pertinent FM station for
the duration of the traffic bulletin.

The improvement in sound quality was enough to make me postpone _sine
die_ my plan to upgrade the door speakers and install the bulkhead
speakers.

I don't know how DAB and XM relate to each other, so some of the above
may not be outstandingly useful, but if I were to move to an XM area,
I'd certainly be looking out to see if there's an XM variant of my
radio. It's the JVC KD-DB711, and it cost me a little under £150 GBP
including the aerial and fitting.

HTH.

Martin
Insight 004