turn the unit on without having to turn the ignition on first

The usual answer to achieve this is to hook up the ignition sense wire to 12V-permanent too. This will cause the player to 'think' the car is always running, so you can turn the player 'on' and 'off' at will.

Of course, there's no way the player can see you killing ignition, so you'd have to dutyfully turn off the player manually all the time and not forget this; penalty could well be that the amp completely drains the battery [grin].

I once suggested that the player have a 'max-time setting' that would make it turn-off itself when left alone for an extended period of time. This never made it to the list of enhancements, though. Your suggestion (the way VW has done this) is even better.

How about combining our wishes:
- player turns off when ignition killed
- player can be switched-on anytime
(time period within which it needs to be re-activated is set to 00 minutes?)
- player will switch-off when it is left un-touched (no commands received) for xx minutes (new emplode setting?

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6