Gudlyf's World

If you’ve seen the inside of a Mazda RX-8, you’ve surely seen the audio system. You’ve also likely realized there’s no way you can replace the radio with something else. So really, if you own an 8 (we owners of these cars call them “eights”), you’re stuck with what you get.

My car didn’t come with a tape deck, which I figured was OK because, really, what the hell would I need a tape deck for? It was when I tried to find a way to play my iPod in my car that I realized I was screwed. I had no place to plug it in, whereas in the past I would use one of those tape-deck converter thingies. So I shelled out the coin for an iTrip radio transmitter, which worked but sounded like shit.

I lurked around the RX-8 Club message boards hoping for an answer, and as it turned out I wasn’t alone. Then came along one guy who decided to take matters into his own hands and make a device to allow for an aux-in audio jack for the RX-8 radio. I was lucky enough to get myself on the waiting list for it early, only after waiting for over a year for it to be developed.

It’s called the AuxMod, and it attaches where a tape deck or mini-disc player would attach on the stock radio. It’s a pretty simple looking device, but it really works like a champ. Taking the head-unit out of the car for installation wasn’t as bad as I thought, and installation was even easier. I was able to put the whole thing back together with my five-month-old sitting on my lap.

I won’t bore you with too many other installation details — you can read about plenty of them on those message boards. If you’re desperate for the same thing in your RX-8 radio and don’t want to spring for the more expensive PIE or IceLink adapters, go for the $50 (as priced now) AuxMod. Or, if you want to wait longer for the advanced version, the next step up will cost $100 when it comes out and will allow you to attach a PC or iPod directly to the unit, allowing you to control music through your radio and steering wheel controls.