Again, i know this has been beat to death, i am trying to hook up my IPOD to the MP3 jack so i can have some quality tunes and no CD skipping. I bought a male to male cable. One side going to the IPOD head phone jack and the other going to the MP3 jack, then switched it to AUX but i got nothing. What am i doing wrong??? I have the stock Sony Explode deck in my 05 VLX. Help...PLease...

Your deck should have an RCA level input on the back where the Auxilary (AUX) mode gets its input from. <BR> <BR>You should buy a "Y" cable that has the headphone jack on one end, and the RCA Male connnectors on the other end. <BR> <BR>You might have to turn the volume up on the IPOD to maximum when using it on the boat.

But what about the mp3 jack? I have an LSV and want to do the same thing. Isn't that what the mp3 input is for? <BR> <BR>

Make sure the Ipod is on.

The IPOD is on. May be just a dumb fireman, but i do know how to turn on the IPOD. LOL

Maybe you have a bad cable. I do exactly what you are doing with an iPod on my car units and it works just fine. I have had a bad cable before that didn't work. <BR> <BR>John, the MP3 input is a mini jack, not an RCA jack. Not a lot of decks have the front face inputs, which is a bit suprising because of the popularity of portable units.

If it's the same sony deck that I have, you are screwed. Mine says BUS AUX IN. Basically all it's good for is a cd changer. <BR> <BR>Circuit City has something I might try. It is an FM wired modulator. It plugs into the antenna input and cancels out all the radio stations except for 2 that you can use for the ipod frequency. It also has a toggle switch so when you want the radio on you simply flip the switch to "uncancel" everything.

You are better off getting the monster cable 2 into one and hooking up through the back of the stereo in the Aux input. My brother-in-law hooked it up on his boat to a Clarion Deck and it's worth the trouble. The sound is sweet. You can find the monster cable on ebay for around 18.00. I'm doing the install now on my boat with the monster ipod power cable as well. I highly recommend this, you can plug the 2-1 into the power cable which hooks up at the base of the ipod rather than the earphone jack. Do an ipod monster cable search on ebay....that should help you out

The FM modulator will work ok but the sound isnt great. We tried it once on my buddies LSV and with the volume up it was a bit static-ee. Sounds like your best bet is going through the back of the head unit like was suggested above. In fact, I should have a look at my friends HU to see if he has the aux plug in the back, I never even thought about that!

Brett, Sounds like it might be the cable or the mp3 jack. I bought a 1' cable from Radio Shack, plugged it into the IPOD and the mp3 jack and was good to go. Same boat, same setup, no problems.

Thanks bobby, i am in the process of trouble shooting this. I am tired of hearing CD's skip, and i have 3000+ songs on the IPOD.