Pioneer iPod Cables Purchased On eBay

[VBLUE42]

There have been numerous redundant post on this forum of people buying iPod cables on ebay in an attempt to save some money. This forum is riddled with these redundant post and unfortunately the answer is almost always the same. The first thing you should do is pull your parking brake or perform the bypass on the unit to remove the motion lockout for video. Please search the Hacks & Mods section of this forum for the bypass instructions. If that doesn't work your problem is almost guaranteed to be the cable you have purchased. The fact is, most cables bought on ebay are not authentic Pioneer iPod cables but are cheap, counterfeit, knock offs shipped from China. These cables range in price from 1 dollar to about 80% of what the authentic cable would cost you if you bought it in the first place. These cables also often claim to be authentic Pioneer cables but the reality is that they are actually counterfeit and simply do not fully work as intended and there is no way to tell that by looking at them. Often you don't know you have been had until you have bought the cable and it does not work. The biggest problems with these cables are when trying to use them to play iPod video. The quickest way you can tell is if you can acquire an authentic cable and try it. If the problem you are having goes away then you know you have a knockoff cable. This thread is being created to reduce the amount of frustration it causes the senior members of this forum to keep having to provide the same answer over and over again when new members come to this forum for help after making this mistake. From now on, if a new thread is created involving this problem, a link to this thread will be the response. The cable you need for the Z110/120 is the Pioneer CD-IU50V. The only way to be sure to get an authentic Pioneer cable is to purchase it from an authorized dealer or a dealer you trust and have done business with before.

[rrolff]

My thoughts (which differ) are you can use a reputable 'dealer'. My cable came from Arizona, was pre-tested, and has what I would call good workmanship. The cost was like $10 delivered, which is a far cry form the exorbitant prices for a branded product.

 

Just a different take...

[quarky42]

My thought is to just educate people on EXACTLY what the cable should look like.

 

http://www.bustedchain.com/a/CD-iU50V_next_to_Cd-iU50_Cable.jpg

 

The one on the left is a real Pioneer brand CD-iU50V cable and the one on the right is one of the many sellers on eBay that doesn't understand the difference between the CD-iU50V and the CD-iU50 cable.

 

Now, if you search ebay for the CD-iU50V, you can find a cable that has the 4 total connections on the phono connector....3 rings and 1 tip. Even this may not be a 100% guarantee that your eBay cable will work, but I can guarantee that any cable with 2 rings + 1 tip will definitely NOT do video!!

[CaptainInsaneO]

My thought is to just educate people on EXACTLY what the cable should look like.

 

http://www.bustedchain.com/a/CD-iU50V_next_to_Cd-iU50_Cable.jpg

 

The one on the left is a real Pioneer brand CD-iU50V cable and the one on the right is one of the many sellers on eBay that doesn't understand the difference between the CD-iU50V and the CD-iU50 cable.

 

Now, if you search ebay for the CD-iU50V, you can find a cable that has the 4 total connections on the phono connector....3 rings and 1 tip. Even this may not be a 100% guarantee that your eBay cable will work, but I can guarantee that any cable with 2 rings + 1 tip will definitely NOT do video!!

 

Dude you won the internets.

 

Great find.

[quarky42]

My thought is to just educate people on EXACTLY what the cable should look like.

 

http://www.bustedchain.com/a/CD-iU50V_next_to_Cd-iU50_Cable.jpg

 

[...]

 

Dude you won the internets.

 

Great find.

 

 

Glad I could help. I didn't really find it so much as just take a picture of it. Hopefully people can look carefully at the picture on the eBay listings and buy one that has the correct number of connections. Even then there might be a problem with knock-off cable, but I'm willing to risk $10 to save $20 or $30. If I knew then what I know now, I would have spent $20 on a cable that has the correct connector in the picture.

[aero_eng16]

I purchased a cable from eBay and it matches the following picture identically. Obviously, it's a knock-off but it does have the 3 rings so it ought to do video. However, I'm actually having a problem getting it to play audio. Do you guys have any thoughts on why that may be?

 

 

 

Thomas

[VBLUE42]

Because you bought it on eBay. Get the real cable and you likely won't have problems. 

 

Ok guys here comes a huge rant! To those that have contributed to this thread to offer their opinions or differences of opinion on their acceptance of eBay or garbage Chinese knock off cables, this thread is not a debate. I did not create this so someone could come on hear and tell us all about the one or two success they had with a piece of eBay garbage when the reality is most people won't have success with these cables. This thread was created so I or other senior members of this forum could essentially stop having to answer the same damn question over again a hundred times. Now I have people that are posting on here what to look for when buying garbage and that it will work as long as you buy high quality garbage. The bottom line is it's still garbage and still likely won't work. So now I have this guy that didn't pay attention to the first post but just paid attention to the next guy that told him to follow some other advice on how to buy garbage. Well what do you know, IT DOESN'T WORK. So now I have had to answer the same question again in the very thread I created so I wouldn't have to answer this damn question again. So I will say it one more time for all of you. eBay cables are garbage and they will likely always be garbage because you don't really know what you are getting. Regardless of how many damn rings are on the cable. It's probably still not going to work. Is it really worth the trouble to cheap out on the cable for 10, 20, or even 30 dollars to then have it not work and have to go and buy the real cable anyway? After paying upwards of 800-1000+ on the unit you cheap out on the one cable that is required to make it work as it is suppose to. If you guys are really that damn poor that you can't invest another 50 bucks then you probably should not be buying this unit. From now on this thread is about, "stay the he'll away from eBay cables" not, "hey I found an eBay cable that will work because-" If you guys want to discuss a difference of opinion then please create another thread of the eBay merchants you bought from and you trust. Any further post on this thread that contridict what I am trying to convey here will be considered off topic and deleted.

[aero_eng16]

VBLUE42,

 

I appreciate all you do for this forum, but after that I don't think I'll be posting here again.

 

Your rant has made it more that obvious that you're not interested in the opinions of the less senior members of the forum and that it's only your opinion that matters. I posted to this thread thinking that you may have a good suggestion, but just stating that I should have purchased an authentic Pioneer cable is what I would expect from Pioneer, not a group of enthusiasts as yourselves.

 

I suppose I'll be contacting the seller and requesting a replacement, but perhaps some of the other members who have had good luck with knock-offs could post where they purchased theirs from so that those of us who don't want to pay a ridiculous amount for a simple cable can attempt to do so.

 

Have a wonderful day.

 

Thomas

[VBLUE42]

Again I don't have a problem with a different opinion just not in a thread that I created so I don't have to keep repeating myself. I can understand why you may feel the way you do but I ask you to just place yourself in mine or others shoes in this instance. When you are the providing 90% of the correct answers to questions on this forum, and you keep having to do it over and over again, it get frustrating. So I try and provide solutions to everyone before the question arises based on the last twenty times I provided a solution to the same question. Then to have opinions posted that refute what you are trying to convey that are only based on one or two instances. The problem is people don't really understand sometimes which advice is based on experience (mine) and which is based on these one or two instances that convey that their advice is the one to follow. So I ask, if you come to a thread that gives good advice to avoid a problem, then a few post down it says something completely different, where does that put you? How are we then providing good info in an easy to understand form? Sure you can find a few of these cables that might work, but then one instance gets posted on a warning thread like this and its like everyone forgets that this is only based on one isolate case and completely forgets about the problem. Then when it doesn't work, they ask why. In the same thread that told them not to make that mistake. Weather it appears so or not, I am actually trying to prevent as many issues for people as possible. This forum is so damn big now that unfortunately maybe this is the way some things need to be handled. maybe I good have worded this a little differently but my intensions were certainly just. Also my intensions were also not meant to point any one specific person out. My wording was generally speaking. Certainly don't decide not to post on the forum again because of my feelings on this. I hope all of you understand my stance in this thread. If not, I sincerely apologize for not being able to convey my point in a way that all could understand my intensions.

[IdentityWithheld]

I know this thread has been dead for a lttle while but I feel this is the perfect thread to throw in my 2 cents.

 

Because I read about how short the CD-IU50V cable is, I purchased a $20 CD-IU200V cable from EBAY (yes it is a knock off) and had it installed some time back in January 2010. Since the install, I had issues with the screen flickering when running video from my iPod Touch 1st gen. I also had MAJOR audio noise when switching to iPod video. There was a loud high-pitched squeal coming from ALL my seakers. I had the same trouble when I tried 4 other iPods. I came to the conclusion it was the CD-IU200V cable that was producing the image noise on my system. I recently bought a genuine Pioneer CD-IU50V cable from BestBuy ($50) and the image noise went away.

 

Now, there are two possible reasons why the noise no longer exists in my system:

 

1) Going from a 2 meter cable to a 0.5 meter cable shortend the distance the signal has to travel

2) The genuine Pioneer cable is of higher quality

 

Even though there could be a combination of both arguments going on, I've concluded the cable quality is the main factor in signal noise. What do I base my decision on? Well, when I compare the 3-ring, 1-tip plug (see image), the genuine Pioneer's cable is more than twice the thickness; this indicates heavy shielding on the cable to block external noise. I noticed the size difference IMMEDIATELY. I paid more than twice for a shorter cable but I'm OK with that, my system is now noise-free.

 

In conclusion, the old proverb, "You get what you pay for" is so true in this case. I suggest everyone to stay way from those Ebay cables, they are cheap for a reason. It is a crapshoot as to what you will receive and it is not worth the time or money.

 

Anyone wants to buy a slightly used CD-IU200V cable?

I'm selling it half-off. (hahaha)

 

[Spice06GTO]

Just figured I would add my two cents. I ordered an official pioneer cd-iu50v. Buy when my order came in I received PAC's version of the cable. I didn't freak out and return it because the cable was longer and I received a discount. I used or should I say I tried to use this cable for the last couple months. Sometimes I would have problems connecting other times I wouldn't. It seemed to get worse the longer I had it. Very hit or miss and sometimes the left channel would cut out. Strange part was I never had a problem connecting to watch Netflix but connecting to pandora was a nightmare. Well I went to best buy and bought the official cable for 31$. It's now discontinued so it cheaper. Which is less than I paid for the PAC cable. Now that I have had the cable for about a month. I haven't had one problem connecting to pandora or anything else. Just figured I would share my experience for anyone wanting to cheap out.

[kick_ass_a_tron]

I got me a new hammer! Thought I would try it out by re-beating this dead horse! VBlue42 is right about the cheapo cables not working, but I found an alternative that does and it works everytime. The Kenwood cable is way cheaper and has the same functionality and connections. It's about half of the Pioneer cable. Just an FYI