Without spending a fortune, you can swap out your stock head unit for an aftermarket radio with Bluetooth audio capability, like Alpine’s CDE-133BT. It has what Alpine calls "Bluetooth Plus" features — that means it has both the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) spec to get your music wirelessly from your portable device to the head unit, and the Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) for controlling your portable via the CDE-133BT’s front panel instead of the device. The Alpine unit also incorporates the company’s DSP Sound Expansion processing to give compressed music files more muscle. On the phone side, the CDE-133BT can be connected to a car’s factory steering-wheel controls for true hands-free calling. If you prefer a direct connection to the music on your iPod or iPhone, the CDE-133BT lets you hook it up with the computer-sync cable that comes with the devices. It even has a Passenger Control Mode that allows those riding shotgun to take control of the tunage directly from an iPod or iPhone, while the driver still has sway over play/pause, track up/down, and volume from the CDE-133BT’s faceplate. When the driver wants to take back control, a one-second press of the volume knob switches control from the iPod back to the CDE-133BT’s menu.
