Portable Music Storage for Your Car? 79
Randy J. Parker asks: "Why don't cars provide input jacks for devices like MP3 players? My car has spectacular audio quality, but forces me to feed it with a handful of CDs. Unless you have a 'CD Text' supporting CD player and a fairly recent CD from the right company, once the CDs disappear into the changer, they become anonymous numbers: 'Disk 1', 'Disk 2', and so on. Devices like the iPod solve the problem of locating and feeding music, but can't be hitched to the car. Is there an after-market solution that doesn't sacrifice as much fidelity as a crappy cassette emulator or FM near-casting? Are there some cars with input jacks? What mechanisms are available to lobby for audio input jacks? Car manufacturers could even sell detachable storage as part of the car, at a huge margin, just like they do with radios and CD changers. This enables customers to finance the purchase of the portable storage device along with the car, opening up another demographic segment of buyers. I don't really want permanent music storage built into the car, since that would just be another device to synchronize. Ideally, I'd just carry my device, and attach it to speakers at my house, my friend's house, or the car I'm in."
Uh, yeah. (Score:4, Interesting)
There are loads of car stereos with an input jack for your MP3 player. Some of them call this feature "MP3 ready" or some misleading thing like that, but that's what you want, so head down to your local car stereo store and go for it!
Re:Uh, yeah. (Score:2)
Re:Uh, yeah. (Score:1)
my car (Score:1)
Re:my car (Score:2)
Every so often, one of those "kids" knows his shit.
Re:my car (Score:1, Troll)
:-)
It's okay, it's been a good 30 minutes since one of these guys has gone by, so I can laugh about it at the moment. Just don't ask 30 minutes from now, by which time another one
Head units with inputs availible (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Head units with inputs availible (Score:1)
Re:Head units with inputs availible (Score:2, Informative)
We just drove 1000 miles and never heard the same song twice. No fumbling with CDs, no nauseating ClearChannel.
Plus you can get all kinds of stuff with your favorite P2P app -- audio books, Feynman lectures, old radio shows, etc.
Re:Head units with inputs availible (Score:1, Insightful)
Look for cars marketed at a younger crowd... (Score:1)
Oterwise you will need to go out and buy a new head unit.
For the Civic Hybrid, made a simple holder for my Ipod in the civic in dash storage and picked up an iTrip (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/itrip/
Re:Try looking into NeoJukebox (Score:2)
1. It's really difficult to find a HDD it likes. You can only use 5200 RPM drives which are increasingly difficult to find, and certain brands apparently work better than others. I had six old drives laying around, and I could only use two of them in the player. One has died, and the other is in my wife's truck, so the player in my truck doesn't work right now. Sucks.
2. I had to send one unit back repeatedly for repa
Pioneer (Score:4, Informative)
-Peapod
My setup (Score:4, Interesting)
I tried a cassette adapter and FM broadcaster but they didn't sound too great and were a pain to deal with while driving. My situation was also special because I have a jeep CJ7 with a soft top (ie no door locks) and live in the city so I needed to have a theft-resistance system which meant not leaving random electronic components laying around.
My solution was to ditch the in-dash unit altogether and install a cheap amp under the center console. I then ran a 1/8"-to-RCA jack directly to the pre-amp input of the amplifier.
Now I can just jump in the car, plug the jack into the iPod and hit the road. It has great sound since the music goes straight from the iPod into the amp, and it is as theft-proof as you can get since the amp is tucked away and bolted down. If I want to play a CD (I never do), I can just take along an old discman and plug the line-out into the jack.
Re:My setup (Score:1)
Re:iPod (or other) (Score:2)
He wants something that doesn't sacrifice as much fidelity as a crappy cassette emulator or FM near-casting (emphasis mine).
Re:iPod (or other) (Score:2)
What I want too. Go to radio shack, get a clamp-down style cell phone holder. Get one of those FM modulators. Pipes directly into the antenna via wire. Or grab one of their head-end cd changer emulator units. Either should work. iPod heaven. :)
What hacks me off is the fact that the new iPod has a proprietary plug at the bottom now. :( In order to fully integrate the thing into my car I'll have to hack an iPod dock, or make a plug. Me hates it. Hates i
I have an input jack :) (Score:2)
I just connect the ipod to it, and play away for hours as i drive
My GF's Holden Commodore VX S-Pack has an Cdplayer in her car, and no line-input
Why don't car manufactures make line-input standard???
D.
Re:I have an input jack :) (Score:1)
Why don't car manufactures make line-input standard???
Because car manufacturers are brain-dead? At least Holden has a clue.
Now I want a Monaro :(
Re:I have an input jack :) (Score:1)
Very slick.
Car radio theft insurance (Score:3, Insightful)
ask your car insurance people about radio theft.
Sometimes you can get coverage for players
by telling them in advance that you use it.
Cheers, Joel
Re:Car radio theft insurance (Score:1)
Got a stereo in 1999... (Score:3, Funny)
Now I just have to get around to buying an MP3 jukebox...};^)
It won't happen because... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It won't happen because... (Score:1)
People, I was joking! The parent post is not insightful, it's [-1, Sarcastic]. I'm making fun of all the conspiracy theorists!
(This posting should be modded [-1, Redundant]. Any other modding will result in further criticism.)
Re:It won't happen because... (Score:2)
phatnoise jukebox (now kenwood music keg) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:phatnoise jukebox (now kenwood music keg) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:phatnoise jukebox (now kenwood music keg) (Score:2)
It's a pretty nice unit, though. I only had minor problems which a BIOS upgrade fixed, and as long as you do your homework and pick a decent head unit, it works very transparently and does
phatbox stereo support (Score:2)
volkswagen and audi (at least in the US) now sell phatboxes in their dealerships as dealer-installed options. you can get them for bmw's, fords, toyota, nissan, honda, as well as kenwood and sony, and some others. check out their list of compatible products [phatnoise.com].
i have one and it totally kicks ass. haven't had to listen to clearchannel radio in over a year.
You want the PhatBox (Score:1)
Get a stereo with an aux jack (Score:1)
Just get an mp3 car unit... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just get an mp3 car unit
I bought a Pioneer DEH-7400MP [pioneerelectronics.com] MP3 CD player and I love it. It was about $300 and had free installation. It's a no-brainer to burn a ton of MP3 music onto a CD-R. I usually use fairly large VBR files and I can fit 100 tracks on a CD no sweat. It has an organic EL display with interesting little canned videos, but of more practical importance, it can display the directory name, file name, ID3 track or artist name in ascii.
I bought it about a year ago. Now the units are getting cheaper. Browse through crutchfield [crutchfield.com] because you can easily see what is available and what it costs. Look under:
Car Audio and Video CD, MP3 & DVD Receivers CD/MP3 Receivers
You can probably get something installed in your car for under $200. You might want to double check that the unit you buy shows the id3 information because some don't.
Oh yeah, if your friend likes the music you're playing, you can just give away the CD and burn another one later.
Re:Just get an mp3 car unit... (Score:2)
Can it do Audible.com [audible.com] audio books? If not, then it's not sufficient for my needs.
Nothing fills that long commute better than listening to a book. Hey, if you join up, make sure you use me as a referral. :)
RCA input for factory head units (Score:5, Informative)
If you're lucky you'll have a late-model car that has the ability to plug in one of these adapters. It seems they plug into the wiring harness of factory units that have an option to add an OEM cd changer.
Re:RCA input for factory head units (Score:2)
However, if it does have to emulate a "changer", I can see where the cost...*gulp*... might be justified...
On the other hand, if I was building an MP3 player for the car, the stock head unit probably wouldn't have the amount of power I'd want... I like my music lou
Re:RCA input for factory head units (Score:1)
Re:RCA input for factory head units (Score:1)
Seriously, if you had your radio professionally installed and it doesn't turn off with the car, they screwed up!
Re:RCA input for factory head units (Score:2)
Not anymore. Newer cars don't have leads to the radio that are key controlled. The radio is being integrated more and more into the rest of the system. GM, for instance, has a lot of cars that have the radio have power at all times. When it's time to shut the radio off, the Body Control Module sends a command over the Class 2 Serial Network (J1850 VPW in GM's case) to shut off the radio.
One easy way
Re:RCA input for factory head units (Score:1)
There's more available! (Score:3, Informative)
Pacific Accessory Corporation [go2pac.com] makes several different adapters, as does Precision Interface Electronics [pie.net].
Note that some of these require that you have a CD Changer or some other form of accessory slave device (like a factory XM receiever, perhaps) already in the vehicle. For an example, the Chevy Impala has the capability to have a CD Changer and the newer Impala's have the built in XM slave device. T
Re:There's more available! (Score:2)
Too bad, nobody makes an adaptor for Nissan.
Nissan (Score:2)
Re:There's more available! (Score:2)
Re:There's more available! (Score:1)
Re:There's more available! (Score:2)
However, the 12 pin connector I was describing isn't a "J1850 connector" as such. J1850 VPW is a one line serial protocol. Meaning it needs only one (sometimes two) wire(s) to do it's business. The audio inputs to the unit are decidedly not RCA, they are in that 12 pin connector.
That 12 pin connector is not a standard, as such. Well, standard to the cars that have it, I suppose. I guess you could think of it as the radio accessory con
Re:RCA input for factory head units (Score:2)
PhatBox, baby! (Score:2)
The solution need not be the head unit (Score:4, Informative)
I kinda just went through this. I have two cars -- one is a 1999 Grand Am, and the other a stock 1969 Cadillac convertible. For a rather looong road trip I was taking, I recently purchased an Archos 20GB MP3 Jukebox. It has a few quirks, but it's a nice unit.
For the Cadillac, I bought Cendyne's Gruv-X wireless FM transmitter. The Caddy's still got the stock radio, and I do *not* want to rip it out. The Gruv-X was the perfect way to go. It was about $25 (Slightly higher at ThinkGeek.com.), runs off of one AAA battery for about 8 hours. Works well. I can tune it to any frequency, and play my tunes.
For the Grand Am, I kinda lucked out. I dropped a pretty nice stereo system when I bought it, including an in-dash EQ that has *two* sets of stereo RCA inputs. (I wish I could remember the make/model, but I don't, and it's raining, so I'm not running out to the car.
And, of course, the optional accessories, like a portable power invertor for the car, so that I can recharge the player on those loooooooooong road trips, like this last one. All in all, not a bad set-up.
Re:The solution need not be the head unit (Score:1)
--RJ
Re:The solution need not be the head unit (Score:2)
try the back | integration (Score:1)
the newer/more expensive one should have too
front inputs rare.
audio-cassette converters also of course
but why should they bother when you can charge $£xxx for integration?
Neo Car Player (Score:2)
Anyway, I ended up getting a Neo car jukebox [ssiamerica.com]. It mounts on your desktop computer as a hard disk, then you unplug it and plug it into yout car. The nifty thing is that they have adapter units for various head units to fool them into thinking it's a CD changer.
Empeg (Score:1)
Re:Empeg (Score:2)
The company name was the same as the product name: Empeg. The were bought by Rio who was later bought by SONIC|blue.
While I agree it is a very cool device, the problem with it is that if you replace your stock radio with it, then you have no radio since the Empeg unit didn't have a radio tuner (AFAIK).
Why are you telling me? I'm not in the market for such a device. You probably meant to reply to the original questione
Re:Neo Car Player (Score:2)
two Questions for you, what is the "management software" does it run on linux ? (if you not sure thats cool, what i really wanna know is if it is written in something like java or C, then it should work.) and have you had any HDD issues with it?
Re:Neo Car Player (Score:2)
Neuros HD 20GB MP3 (ogg/linux friendly) (Score:1)
Re:Neuros HD 20GB MP3 (ogg/linux friendly) (Score:1)
The FM transmitter is built in to the Neuros and has no analog conversion until the end of the trip to the transmitter. Most (if not all) crappy FM add-ons take analog input and then convert that to the FM signal. The Neuros' FM transmitter gets a digital signal that is digitally filtered to convert well to the FM signal.
When the unit was f
yup (Score:1)
Hmmm...aftermarket? (Score:1)
DIY (Score:1)
So, I rang the manufacturer, who was kind enough to post me the wiring diagrams, bought a cable with a headphone plug on one end, and a DIN plug, and soldered them together. Now I can connect whatever I want (cd, mp3, anything) to my speakers without having to buy a separate car unit, and without having something in the dash that just scre
Line Input -- why not standard? (Score:1)
The question to me really is not how to do it -- the poster just got a new car with a good audio system -- he doesn't want to throw away his radio and buy a new head unit. The question I would like to see answered is why in the heck is some kind of mini-jack line input not supplied by at least luxury car makers? It seems such a trivial addition to a car that would allow people to use alternate audio devices -- whatever the device is. They can take their favorite MP3 player or whatever with them in the ca
USB? (Score:1)
VW/Audi sell the PhatBox (Score:1)
Open Source projects available! (Score:2, Interesting)
The one that I'm involved with is for Sony headunits, can be found here:
http://gnunilink.sourceforge.net
This little hardware dongle fools the headunit into believing there is a CD changer attached and can be interfaced with a PC or other MP3 player to put track/disk names onto the headunit's display.
Simon.
The ideal device (Score:1)
1) A holding mechanism for the player. In my view, this part is the bottleneck for the development process: There are lots of MP3 players on the market; aside from the iPod, none has the market size that would justify creating such a device. And you can't create a universal one, because no two MP3 devices have even remotely the same shape/size.
2) A method of transmitting sound to your car speakers. This could go through the radio/changer, e
something for everybody (Score:1)