Grom AUDU3 FLAC player for RNS-D

[27litres]

Hi guys,

I've just bought and fitted a Grom AUDU3 unit to the S8, and I have to say I'm very impressed.

I wanted a CD replacement solution without replacing the factory RNS-D. I don't like lossy music formats (MP3, AAC, WMA etc) as under decent amplification they become flat and lifeless, lacking depth and clarity. So I wanted something that could play FLAC.
I also wanted Bluetooth.
The Grom is the only one of these units to play FLAC and having installed it, I would rate the sound quality from the unit as excellent - easily as good or better than a CD player, especially as there's no problems with track skipping.

All the solutions I initially looked at a few years back (Dension, Yatour, XCarLink, and Grom (at the time)) didn't play FLAC, so I figured keep the CD player, and find a Bluetooth solution. The only unit to offer the ability to switch between it and the CD player was XCarLink, so that's what I bought.

Then I discovered the PhatBox! This unit was truly ahead of its time (early 2000's). It is a largish unit which replaces the CD player in the boot, uses a small hard drive (60Gb max) and can play just about any music format you care to mention (including FLAC).
As my CD player didn't work, I abandoned any attempts to repair or replace that and started looking for a PhatBox instead!
Found one in New York, and had it sent over... to this day it is still sitting on a shelf above my desk, having never been fitted!
(Well, my daughter was born and I lost my spare time for a couple of years!)

I did write to XCarLink at one point and suggest that FLAC support was a good idea and had no licensing fees, but that fell on deaf ears...
After finding out that Grom units now play FLAC, I thought "bugger the XCarLink and PhatBox, I'll have one of these"!

https://gromaudio.com/store/all-aud.html