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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 1, 2007 - 01:38am PT
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sorry this is somewhat off topic...
...need your good knowledge and experience regarding what automotive audio works well with an iPod...
Gary's got an FM transmitter rig, I was looking to buy a new receiver/cd&mp3-player I can plug my iPod in directly and have it charge, and play.... don't care to control the iPod from the front panel, but I don't like the mass of wires and the weirdness of the FM...
anyone do this? Road trip coming up and it would be nice to simplify by just having the pod
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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I got a $29.99 fm/charger gizmo frome rite aid and the sound is suboptimal, but the car stereo is 17 yrs old (though high end-ish in it's day)
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno, CA
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I'd have to agree with khanom, Ed. I went that route, as well.
Whatever you do, don't waste your $$$ on the FM transmitter. ANY of them. The sound quality is total crap on all of them. Don't believe me? Get hold of one and also get hold of a tape adapter. Listen to the two of them. The $10 tape adapter blows the transmitters away.
Regardless, since you're starting from scratch and looking for a new head unit, go with a unit which has the capabilty to add the cable. You'll thank us when you do.
Cheers!
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DonC
climber
CA
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My FM transmitter provides a much cleaner sound than the tape adapter I used previously.
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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I have the second fm unit pictured. Plugging into the cigarette lighter blows. The unit's inertia is too high to maintain a good electrical connection. Also it can be a pain since you may pick up weak signals that will interfere.
That said, the ipod human interface is very poor for safe driving. you really need a passenger to control the whole thing easily. It is too distracting and also hard to manage the wheel motion in a moving vehicle (even for the passenger).
To drive safely (without passenger), you probably have to set up a play list and start it before putting the car in drive. Manipulating and reading text is much more mentally intensive than dialing an old analog radio or even pressing a button until a know digital frequency appears.
My 0.02. I will be watching this thread for better solutions though!
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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My new car's radio had no tape deck, no minijack input, was crappy to begin with, and I heard the FM transmitters sucked.
So I upraded to this deck for $180 including ipod adapter from crutchfield.com
iPod control from the deck is great, and a safety issue as TIG pointed out. My deck won't do all the iPod functions (e.g. scrolling thru long lists sucks) but one of these days I'll make lot's of playlists, so I can easily find what I want.
It came with a little remote control, I thought I'd never use, but I like it. I just rest my arm on the armrest and can control the deck without thinking about it.
I also upgraded the 4 speakers for another $100. Well worth it.
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davidji
Social climber
CA
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Ed:
Since your a climber I guess that means you drive a Tacoma or a Subaru :)
If the latter, you're in luck:
http://www.jazzyengineering.com/
the Fet:
I don't think FM transmitters suck, but they work better in some applications than others. Mine works great in my Subaru, if I attach it near the radio antenna. So I velcroed it on next to a rear window, and ran a wire back (the stuff Ed was complaining about). I loaned it to someone who had a rental Avalon, and in that car it worked fine from the console. The kind of FM transmitter that also powers your ipod only really works at the console or dashboard, and might not work at all in some cars.
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susan peplow
climber
www.joshuatreevacationhomes.com
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Keep these answers coming. I've been struggling with this for many years now. My truck's stock stereo has a CD only, NO Tape, NO input. I drive about 35,000 a year and listen to audio book religiously!
I would absolutely love to listen to my books via an ipod vs. paying for them on CD.
As it is, the FM interface transmitter works for crap in major cities or where my primary commute is. I'm not too thrilled in putting in a different deck that provides an input but I'm taking serious note to the recommendations made here. The way I figure it, the cost of a new deck could be offset by not buying books on CD pretty damn quick.
Keep the info coming,
Susan
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davidji
Social climber
CA
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"To drive safely (without passenger), you probably have to set up a play list and start it before putting the car in drive."
I use playlists. Since my ipod is set to shuffle playlists, I don't have to actually set anything up for a specific trip. In additional to a few smaller lists, I have nearly all my songs in one main list. I just start the playlist (usually the main one) and let it serve up the music in random order. If I don't want to hear the current selection, I click the forward button.
It would be nice to be able to see what's playing on the head unit display though.
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wydra
Social climber
Utah
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look into getting an Alpine reciever. It will make everything sound better and it works the best I believe with an apple iPod.
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davidji
Social climber
CA
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"As it is, the FM interface transmitter works for crap in major cities or where my primary commute is. "
None of the frequencies of your transmitter work?
I've never had a problem. It might work much better if you placed the FM transmitter near the antenna. My antenna is in a rear window, and my FM transmitter is only a few cm away. Sounds like crap if I try to use it in the console, but works great mounted by the antenna.
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno, CA
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DonC - You must have had a worn out tape adapter, or something else going wrong with it.
It's pretty common knowledge that the FM transmitters put out crappy, low-quality output. If that's the only option you have, then it works. And I'm not talking static, although that's part of it. The sound quality is just plain bad.
But since Ed is already looking to get a new deck, his best option, period, is to get a deck with ipod control built in. It will deliver the best sound quality, and he won't have to screw around with the ipod interface, as others have said. Not to mention it's the cleanest choice.
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Sooze - my buddy Mike, who lives up north of town and commutes an hour each way to work every day - says he just goes to the library and checks out books on CDs. Might be a pain to have to do the library trip, but just mentioning it as another option to buying.
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susan peplow
climber
www.joshuatreevacationhomes.com
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David Ji- yup my that's right, the FM transmitter works for crap almost all the time. It's a giant hassle to have to constantly be re-tuning the transmitter looking for a sweetspot that works pseudo OK. Remember, I'm listening to a story, moving the damn receiver wheel around looking for a clear signal is not what I'm looking for. I'm a sorta plug and play kinda girl.
Monkey - Years ago I used to go to the library and get the books to check out. Yes, they are free but what you find is that the CD's that the publishing houses use are made to listen to only a few times. All those check in/out at a library make the CD's extremely scratchy and often just skip through chapters. Again, this is no fun and after about the 50th time I called bs on the plan and stopped checking them out. It sucks to be 5 hours into a book and at the crux of the story have it skip 2 chapters or stop playing all together.
Current plan, purchase used audiobooks >listen > ebay. On average I probably get 80-90% return on the investment.
~Susan
Anybody want to start a audio-book Club?
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Phil_B
Social climber
Hercules, CA
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If you're going to be doing the install yourself, Crutchfield is a great resource. Their prices were a little higher, but I got free phone support when I was pulling the dash of my truck off. Good instructions included with the systems too. The support more than made up for the coupla bucks I could've saved going somewhere else.
Susan, I actually broke down and bought one of those silly looking CD/DVD cleaners. Amazingly, the dang thing works. I was too cheap to buy a powered one, so we occasionally have to crank it up. The worst are those scratches that are parallel to the direction of spin. That's why you're supposed to clean discs from the inside out.
Books on tape only work for me on road trips though. I think I still have some of the stories I copied for the last one I did.
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davidji
Social climber
CA
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"David Ji- yup my that's right, the FM transmitter works for crap almost all the time. It's a giant hassle to have to constantly be re-tuning the transmitter looking for a sweetspot that works pseudo OK."
Hi Susan,
There's another signal my radio can pick up on the same frequency I use for my FM modulator, but when it is mounted very near to my antenna, all my radio gets is my iPod, and I've never had to change frequency. When someone borrowed it and used it at their console, they had to change frequency several times.
Can you mount yours near your antenna?
My only problem with it is sometimes I forget to turn it off--it's not like it anywhere near me.
A jack into the head unit is better, and I might switch to that.
David G
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 10, 2007 - 12:17am PT
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ok, so here is my solution...
Alpine CDE-9870 (~$120) CD-MP3-iPod
Alpine KCE-422i (~$30) iPod cable
required a VW cable connector adapter...
this works fine, actually quite nice as it plugs into my iPod and the tunes are selected from the front of the unit on the dash.
The MP3 player is also cool, as you can put tons of tracks on a CD in folders, then search around on the folders... there are some hitches here and there (mostly having to do with file titles it seems) but this is only after the first hour of having it installed.
It all works kinda nice so far... an unplanned road trip to LA this weekend will have me testing it intensively.
Thanks all for the input!
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murcy
climber
San Fran Cisco
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Mar 10, 2007 - 11:38am PT
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Cool. Question: can you use the ipod's own controls with that set-up, or do you have to use the unit's controls?
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