Alpine’s iDA-X001 ($450 list, much cheaper on the street) is an award-winning Alpine car stereo head unit that’s marks a serious effort to make the ease and functionality of an iPod work while you’re winging down the highway at 100 miles an hour and just have to hear “More Than a Feeling.” While they sent it to us in this completely hilarious “car-stereo-in-a-box” case with a power plug out in the back and speakers mounted inside we promptly decamped to our palatial 1985 Dodge Caravan and blasted it like it was meant to be blasted while doing donuts in an empty parking lot.

Car stereo in a box? Oh yeah...

Nice. Also comes with Bluetooth so now your car stereo acts like iPod AND your phone, Knightrider. It’s also got all digital radio and comes satellite radio ready.

Which is cool. However, my biggest beef with these things has to be how they ruin the line of your dashboard with all these extra-goose neck mounted holders for your iPod. However, with a rear cable out in the iDA-X001 that easily traverses the space behind the dash to the small slot into my glove box I imagine this problem is solved. Mostly because at this point you’re using the Alpine unit as a controller for the iPod instead of the other way around and this is all the difference in the world and reflects a certain sensitive level of understanding regarding how people who like to drive and listen, well, drive and listen.

We likes.

And we'll have a complete review of the Alpine iDA-X001 in an upcoming issue of Mac|Life and on MacLife.com, as soon as I get it mounted in my 1965 Chevy Chevelle.