I just took a minor road trip to Phoenix. (howdy digiZoid). My car stereo has an aux jack so I thought I would try the ZO in that configuration. Here's what I tried.
- Flatten all the EQ settings and other sound adjustments on my car stereo and turn it off.
- Set the ZO to high gain mode and turn it off
- Connect the ZO to the aux jack.
- Connect the iPod to the ZO via patch cable.
- Power on the ZO, the iPod, and the stereo.
- Set the car stereo to the normal level I listen to it at.
- Adjust the volume of the iPod so that the music is a normal level.
This produced a very thin, weak sound, so I started turning up the contour adjustment. This produced pronounced distortion, so I turned the volume down on the iPod. This took care of the distortion, but there was still no body to the sound. I tried upping the contour level, but it wasn't producing much of a change.
I decided to try low gain mode, with a LOD going to the iPod. This was, of course, even more quiet and did not improve anything about the sound.
In the end, I put the ZO away and just used the LOD going directly to the aux port. It was much louder. However, it still sounded thin.
It's entirely possible my car's stereo just has a crappy aux input. It also has a iPod connector that sounds great, vastly better than the aux. The aux channel seems to be pretty weak in comparison. I have a Scion XB with a stock stereo.