Ipod Car Adapter

get the one that docks into the lighter/power supply. Works great and charges the ipod at the same time but it cost more than the others $80-90

 

if you get a wireless fm tuner with the batteries- be warned the batteries drain fast. its real annoying. sometimes the signal fades also.

 

FM tuners are worthless in my opinion. There's not enough open spectrum in a city like Houston, with dozens of radio stations.

For your wife's tape deck, just get a cassette adapter. They're not very sexy, but they give you reliable hard connection to the stereo. There will be a noticeable drop off in volume, but you can easily compensate by turning the stereo up a little more. There will be a very small drop in sound quality when you go through the tape deck, but it will still sound 100 times better than a FM tuner.

For your truck, you might want to just get a new stereo - one with an auxiliary line-in port, so you can plug the Ipod directly into it. I got a nice one at Best Buy for $110 plus about $20 in parts - instillation was free because the stereo was over $100. That may sound like a lot of money, but I found that it was worth it. If you search around, you'll find that there are a lot more expensive options out there.

 

I have the iMonster FM adapter (which appeared to be the best one at the time) or whatever it's called which I purchased after looking at my options four or five months ago.

It's ok, but the signal gets a lot of interference even on the cleanest channel. I'm having trouble with my cd player anyway, so I'm about to go the rout Furious Jam mentioned above. What cd player did you pick up Furious?

 

check out www.iloungue.com

http://ilounge.com/

 

Here it is: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat03066&id=1118845473839

Only $99, maybe another $20 for parts, free install at Best Buy. It won't play CDs with mp3s on them, but I don't need that with my Ipod anyway. And you can get the mp3 version for $20 more if you really want it.

I put my Ipod in a cup-holder, jack it into the player, and I have a little Griffin wireless remote control strapped to my wheel - tunes to go. Hard to imagine life before, when I had to pick and choose which CDs to put into my changer.

 

Totally agree with this. The FM things suck, and I had a Monster, which is supposed to be one of the best. My problem with replacing my stereo in my Honda Odyssey is that I had a factory installed DVD system for my kids. It's all part of the stereo, and I have no idea how I could replace that from something at Best Buy, etc. It even has an odd shape, to fit what would have been the navigation system, if I'd sprung for one.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

i'm not tech savvy but can you explain how that thing works with an IPod?

 

For Hondas, you can get a kit like this that turns your CD changer port into an auxillary input. Never used one, but the results should be good.

 

Thanks! The $40 buck job at the bottom is exactly what I need!

 

I have the $40 FM tuner which I got to replace the tape deck one (new car has no tape deck). The reception is lousy (yes I've fiddled with finding a good station), the only plus is that I can charge the ipod in the car.

It's some variation of this:


I It does the job, just not very well, kind of like Juwan Howard (no offense to his character). I prefer my old $5 tape deck.

 

wow man i just installed the mp3 version in my car a couple days ago. i bought it from circuitcity and aleady had the harness and wires from my old aftermarket stereo, so figured they could just use those, and i wouldn't have to pay anything with the free installation offer. they wanted to charge me 20 bucks to use my old equipment because then "everything would be free." i was like yeah that's the idea. i gave up and just put it in myself.

anyways for someone who asked you can go here: cd players with auxillary input

any of those has an aux input on the front or back and all you have to get is a little stereo mini jack for like 2 bucks and run it from your mp3 player headphone input to the aux input. sounds as good as a cd. don't settle for a a sh!tty transmitter.

 

How do the ones with the aux input in the back work? I was looking at those online the other day and was wondering where exactly the aux input is for the ones that don't have them in the faceplate.

 

Simply put, some stereos have an input jack. My model has it in the front on the lower, right-hand side. Others have them in the back, which means you have to do a little wiring. But either way, instead of plugging headphones into your Ipod, you just plug one end of an audio cable into the Ipod's headphone (output) jack and then plug the other end of the cable into the stereo's input jack. If you're an audio geek like me, you have dozens of audio cables lying around the house. Otherwise, you can pick one up at Radio Shack for $2 or $3.

Now, you won't be able to control the Ipod through the stereo by this method. There are systems that allow such control through the stereo, but they are a lot more expensive than what I use. My way, you control your Ipod like always, but it plays through the stereo (as supposed to headphones). Like I said, I have a little wireless remote for my Ipod that I keep on my wheel, so I don't have to reach down and fiddle with my Ipod while I'm driving - safety first!

 

Well i have had an FM adapter ( called an 'itrip') for about a year now and have had no problems with it at all. love it

 

I don't live in Houston , but I used the i-trip and could only get good reception sometimes. It was annoyance. I traded it in, and got the cassette adapter. It works pretty well. There is a drop in volume, but I think I fixed that by accident. Instead of the tape plaing forward I hit the reverse button and got a huge boost in volume. Now I use it that way, and it works great.

Seriously, if anyone has a tape player with auto-reverse, try playing the tape player the other way.

 

With respect to using the cassette adapters, I bought a pretty good one at Best Buy that allows you to control the iPod from your cassette buttons. You can skip for ward a song by pressing the FF button and skip backwaord by pressing reverse. Also, if you turn off the stereo you will pause the iPod which is a great feature if you listen to audiobooks.

Here is a URL about it:

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/smartdeck/

 

So if the Aux input's in the back of the stero, you have to wire it out somehow?