Advice Please, fabulous prizes to be won.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Also posted this in the music forum, but since I figure more people read this, I might snag some knowledgeable individuals.

I have aquired an MP3 (more specifically, an iRiver 5gb h10) player for use in my vehicle. However, wearing headphones while driving around does not seem to be the most intelligent thing in the world given my already ample handicap of being oblivious to the world around me, so I went to the local Wal-Mart and tried to pick up a FM transmitter.

However, both of the available ones were pieces of shit. (both Belkin products, I should have known better after that piece of crap headset I got last year) and have since been returned. (Tried multiple frequences, all I got was extreme static though it was obvious it was 'working'.)

If anybody has any suggestions for an affordable (IE: max of 60 dollars, any more then that and I'll just take the risk of not hearing a semi heading straight for me and go with the $6 headphones) solution, I would love to hear it.

Right now I'm thinking of raiding a junkyard for a tape deck and using a tape adapter, but before I go about pretending I know what I'm doing, I'd like to see if anybody else can offer me pearls of wisdom.

[Blaezenfury]

http://www.griffintechnology.com/pro...deck/index.php

i dont know about this specific one, but i know thease ''tape adepter'' things are pretty awesome, i used one for my sony atrac mp3 discman or whatever the shit its called, it can hold up to 490 songs on one CD.

[Samus Aran]

BLAEZENADVICE

But seriously...you linked an iPod accessory when he said he has an iriver.

Vhex I sent you a message on irc but you didn't respond, so I might as well post it here.

link

It's another FM transmitter, but it is from the official iriver site, so it might have better results than the Belkin shit.

Now where is my mofuckin' prize?

[Zehn - Vhex]

Thanks for the link, if I go the way of a cassette solution (I don't really want to give up the CD player because I still have use for it, but if I must, then I must). That actually sounds worth the extra 30 dollars over ganking one from the junkyard and grabbing the 8 dollar tape adapter from radioshack.

Some people have also linked me

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...41404?v=glance

but none have personally used it. If anybody has and has a positive experience, I'd probably go that route.

An FM tuner would be ideal, but it seems the majority of them have the major static problems. It's hard to discern between people who have experienced a generally shitty product, and retards who just can't figure out that if there's not enough volume coming from the ipod, most won't transmit.

[Vorph]

Griffin Technology only makes ipod accessories (note the gay Apple plug on that one you linked).

Tape adapters do suck less than FM transmitters though, assuming your tape deck is decent. If you have to use FM, get a direct connect modulator rather than a broadcast one. It's similar to what people use to connect satellite radio to factory stereos. http://www.crutchfield.com/S-ArhN17R...0&I=142FMMOD01 for example.


The best possible solution is if your car had a cd changer option for the stereo which you didn't buy, so you can just hook up the mp3 player to that.

[Samus Aran]

Also, I might as well point this out too:

When I got my dad an FM transmitter for his iPod, it took us a little bit to get the thing to work. It was odd because it wouldn't work on the stations we were trying, and then all of a sudden we found one that worked. My suggestion would be to just try the shit from Walmart again (you mentioned you tried multiple frequencies, but I'm not sure if that meant 2-3 or 10+).

I'm not audiophile by any means, but from what I've heard off my friend's FM transmitter, it sounded CD quality. So once you get it working, it's a really good product.

[Bralkan]

The main thing is you need to get one of those transmitters with more than 4 stations pre-programmed. You need to find a frequency that has a buffer .2mhz each way.

Also, try removing your antenna when you are going to use the transmitter. It will remove a lot of interference.

As mentioned, the tape adapters > FM transmitter.

But the best, like someone alluded to, is if your head unit has stero inputs in the back (the RCA red/white stereo plugs). Then you can buy a 3.5mm headphone jack to RCA stereo cord and get the best quality. You can buy these for liek $6 at radio shack. Even cheaper online.

[Darus Grey]

Most everyone else has given decent advice, my only advice is wearing headphones well driving is a good way to get a policeman's attention in most states, and its illegal in many areas.

[Hateyou]

My advice is to buy an MP3 CD player for your car and use acoustica or whatever to burn MP3 CD's. I've got 600+ albums worth of music in my 64 CD case in my car. There is barely any loss of sound quality, if any at all (I can't tell a difference at all, but I've read that MP3s lose some quality).

My friend has one of those FM tuners and honestly it sounds like pure shit. I don't know how anyone who cares about sound quality can use one, I'm appalled by them. If you don't mind the shitty quality then ignore this.

[Zistrix]

Get any deck with RCA ins and get the proper cables

[agris]

Not only do the do FM transmitters get interferred with by other signals, they cutoff the music above 18khz I believe. not that it really matters since they're all mp3s, but whatever.

[Zehn - Vhex]

The whole idea is to reduce the amount of CD's I need to carry around and avoid spending alot of money. My current CD-player doesn't have a line-in. Gonna go to Wal-Mart tomorrow and see if they have any players with a line in for less then 50 bucks, otherwise I'm going to go with the wired FM modulator.

From what I'm reading, those are ideal because then you can hook up laptops and dvd players to your car audio as well.

[Kilivek]

on my xm radio i get static but only when it begins to pick up another radio station, i change the frequency and it's fine.

[Eomer]

Personally I loved my mp3 deck. I had all my CD's, 200 plus, on two dozen CD-R's organized alphabetically. Unfortunately, my car got broken into and the stereo stolen along with the CD-R's. However, it was much better having the CD-R's stolen than 200+ CD's at 15 bucks a pop. The sound quality (in my hawt Ford Probe GT) was pretty much the same as a CD, really. If you've got a nice sound system there may be a noticeable difference, but if it's just your car's standard stereo I doubt you'll notice any difference.

[Dis]

edit: gdit wrong thread