OK, I stopped by my local car audio installer today to get an estimate on installing my new Eclipse AVN7000 and he tells me that he's going to have rewire all of the audio on my car to install the aftermarket head unit. He says that Mercedes used fiber optic links between the factory head and amp and that the Eclipse can't be hooked up to the amp. So I can either wire directly from the head to the speakers, or put in a new amp.

Now, I'm no dummy. I did read up on this in this very forum, but I never saw anyone mentioning fiber optics. Is this true? Or is this guy giving me a line of crap?

I remember people talking about using the factory amp with aftermarket head units ... Or am I not understanding what the stereo wizards here are saying?

TIA,
Tom