QuestionI am not sure if you are the one to ask. I have picked out songs from my CD's and copied to another CD so that all the favorite songs are together...but I still have a lot of CD to shuffle through. I don't want to carry the CDs.
I want to know if there is some small portable mp player that I can copies all my music (using itunes) to and plug it into and play them (either serially or if I can skip or goto a particular song is better) my car stereo system (one car only has radio & cassette and my second car has radio & CD player). If a power plug is nearby (my second car..a van... has some in the back) I want to use the car's power as well.
Questions:
Is there a mp player that does what I want and what other accessories or wires do I need to connect them and get going?
Thanks a bunch :)
AnswerHi Teresa,
Sorry about the delay in answering your question.
I'm probably not the best person to ask about portable MP3 players. Most of the players on the market will work for your needs, but none of them will include the accessories you'll need to play them through your stock radio(s). I'm not very familiar with portable music players, as I don't use them myself; but I can assist you with integrating them into your car.
Just about any MP3 player will allow you to store the music and play it back. The basic players work pretty much like a computer hard drive, as far as the way that you store the tracks and the way you find them again for playback: ie, folders and track names. If you're organized about the way you store the music on the player, you'll have an easier time finding the songs you want. More sophisticated players (like the iPod) allow you to categorize music according to artist's name, album name, create playlists, and so on.
The one thing each of these players will have in common is a headphone jack. To use your player with the factory radio, you'll need an accessory that will plug into the headphone jack and convert the audio to a format that your factory radio can use.
In the car with the cassette player, your best option is probably a cassette adapter. These were very common ten or fifteen years ago, when most cars had cassette players and portable CD players were coming on the market; but they're still around, and they'll work perfectly well with an MP3 player. The cassette adapter looks like a cassette tape with a cord coming out of it; the other end of the cord plugs into your player's headphone jack. Short of replacing your factory radio, a cassette adapter is your best option for sound quality if you have a cassette player.
The vehicle with the CD player is a little trickier. In this case, you'll probably need some sort of FM transmitter device to use with your MP3 player. An FM transmitter connects to the headphone jack, and converts the audio signal to an FM radio broadcast. You then tune it in like an FM radio station.
There are two types of FM transmitters: wireless and wired. A wireless FM transmitter is the simplest; you just plug it into your car's cigarette lighter, plug the cord into your MP3 player's headphone jack, and select a frequency. However, FM transmitter performance is very spotty; sometimes they work fairly well, but sometimes they're very staticky. They're also prone to interference from regular radio stations--if you have a clear signal, but drive across the state, you might find a radio station in the new area interfering with your transmitter's signal.
The second type of FM transmitter, wired, is much more reliable in performance. This connects directly to your car radio's antenna plug, so that it feeds the audio from the MP3 directly into the radio, while cutting off the regular antenna signal. However, a wired FM transmitter is much more difficult to install, because you usually need to remove the radio to make the FM connection at the back. Also, the power generally needs to be hardwired, instead of plugged into your cigarette lighter; and there's often a power switch that needs to be mounted somewhere. Some vehicles will also require special adapters to make the connections to the antenna plug.
Any store that sells and installs car audio equipment should be able to give you several options for using your MP3 player with your car radio.
Hope this helps!
Brian
