Greetings all.
I have recently reconnected the Premium Audio amp on my 97 XK8 and have fitted an AJ-9850R Head Unit. I purchased an Alpine CH-S634 CD changer to go in the boot as both the HU & CDC use the AI-NET cable. However, the HU does not control the Alpine CDC. There is power to the CDC as the CD magazine can be inserted and removed but it will not play. I remember reading in much earlier posts that there was an issue controlling Alpine CD changers that were not supplied with the Jag logo. Does anyone have an update / solution for this? Many thanks!

 

Did you ever solve this problem? I'm interested in possibly getting a newer CD changer to hook to my 2003 XKR w/premium sound system, and AINet cable.Find it hard to believe that Alpine would not use the same CD changer for many different cars at that time, and possibly have the same interface to newer players, such as the CHA-S634 which also plays MP3 files. A 6 disk changer with MP3 would be awesome.

Bill

 

Unfortunately non Jaguar branded Alpine components aren't compatible. The data packets that the AINET uses are slightly different (two bits on two of the header bytes are set on the Alpine versions and are zero on the Jaguar version) so they won't work with each other. 20 years ago Jaguar would rather sell us the $1800 Jaguar premium sound system option than let us buy an aftermarket Alpine system without the markup. The navigation system was a $2,400 option.

These days most people just fit a cheap bluetooth device so that they can stream from their phones - mine is wired into the CD changer audio cables, others use the cassette slot or an FM transmitter, or a more expensive box that plugs into the CD AINET cable, getting rid of physical media completely.

 

Thank you sir. Saved me many hours of research (even though I've done a couple already).