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Geek Culture / choosing a car mp3 player

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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 28th Jun 2006 02:05
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Finally got myself insured on my mums car , and the first thing i'm gonna do is throw out the crappy cassette player and replace it with an mp3 player, the thing is, to me, an mp3 player is something that plays mp3s, unlike for example, RAM, which is FSB and overclock-ability and latency etc, not just extra memory.

So i need to know, what things should i be looking for when choosing an MP3 player? Are there any brands/models you'd recommend. another thing is: how hard/costly is it to fit player controls to the steering-wheel area?

I dont get it, its a fairly new car, but such old technology :S

anyways... first up mp3 player, and then some neons... j/k

so yeh, what should i be looking for excactly, when choosing a car mp3 player?

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indi
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Posted: 28th Jun 2006 02:24
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i would install a dvd player with mp3 abilities, you can then load 5 - 9 gigs of mp3s and with a mini screen also gain the benefit of in car movies when you park.

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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 28th Jun 2006 12:33
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but then that means having to fit screens to watch the dvd's with :s

no thanks

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Fallout
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 00:25
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Tis not the head unit, young jedi. Tis the speakers that maketh the sound system. I would recommand finding the cheapest piece of tat CD-R playing MP3 head unit (around £80 worth), and spending the rest of the money on an amplifier and subwoofer that will take up the entire boot of your car, and thus reduce it's ability to transport luggage by about 90%.

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Xander
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 00:35
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Quote: "Tis not the head unit, young jedi. Tis the speakers that maketh the sound system."


Eh, I beg to differ, sort of. It's a combonation of both. If you get a head unit with a low signal to noise ratio, and a low output voltage, then it's going to sound like crap, no matter what amps or speakers you have. But the other way around is also true: if your speakers have foam surrounds and flimsy cones, then they won't be able to push the decibals at clear levels like decent speakers.

I would suggest buying a CD/MP3 player. You can get what you need for about $150. If you want to play your MP3's from a player, rather than the CD, then you need to make sure that the head unit has an auxilary input. And the signal to noise ratio should be over 90 dB to make sure that the signal to the speakers is clear...and the output voltage should be as high as possible. 2 volts is sort of low...4 is good, but hard to find on cheaper models.

I don't know if you want to buy new speakers, but I'd highly suggest it. If you need any more advice, I'd be glad to help. I live for this stuff.

Xander Moser - Bolt Software - Firewall
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Phaelax
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 00:56 Edited at: 29th Jun 2006 00:58
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Quote: "i would install a dvd player with mp3 abilities, you can then load 5 - 9 gigs of mp3s and with a mini screen also gain the benefit of in car movies when you park."


That's exactly what I have actually.

Quote: "but then that means having to fit screens to watch the dvd's with :s"


Not so, my Clarion unit has the monitor slide out of the deck then turn upwards.


Quote: "spending the rest of the money on an amplifier and subwoofer that will take up the entire boot of your car, and thus reduce it's ability to transport luggage by about 90%"


Would this qualify? (saw it on pimp my ride)
http://www.cardomain.com/item/MTXT992244


Here's what I got and it works pretty well. There's also a picture on the link that'll show ya how the monitor extends out like I described above. It's got an ipod interface built-in, if you have one to use.
http://www.cardomain.com/item/CLAVRX755VD

As for the steering wheel controls, I have no idea if there are any kits to add them. My car has the controls built in from the factory, but I still need to get a new adapter to make them work with the Clarion model.


Sony has a new model out where the face plate of the deck acts as a 2gb flash drive. Uses a usb cable to connect to a PC and you can load it full of mp3's which the stereo will recognize and play. I think its only about $300.


Quote: "Eh, I beg to differ, sort of. It's a combonation of both."

I agree. My alpine speakers sounded like crap until I hooked up the new deck.

"Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy" - Rob Pike
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Fallout
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 01:32
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Oh I agree totally that you need a nice head unit to get a nice sound, but I would still say speakers and amps are more important. A lower quality loud sound is better than a high quality sound being forced through tinny standard tweeters. There aren't many head units that are so awful that you can hear noise over the sound of the engine (in my experience anyway). Mind you, my previous post was basically just a sarcastic ramble. When I decked out my cars I went for medium quality head unit, low end sub, medium end amp, high end co-axials.

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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 21:47
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ok thanks guys.

one last thing: doesnt altering your speakers count as moddding the car, hence also your insurance?

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indi
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 02:30
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depends on your providers tiny print, usually a standard system replacing the old i would say no but modification to the structural chassi, yes.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 07:10
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I kept my old stuff. If I ever get rid of the car, I'm keeping my clarion and alpines!

"Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy" - Rob Pike
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Benji
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 01:21
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One of my brothers has made a voice actvated music player that runs off of a laptop installed in the car. It plays off of millions of songs on the internet.

Off course its not free...

My Specs: Geforce 6200 128 MB.,3.0 GHZ Pentium 4 Processer, 512 MB Ram.
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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 16:46
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my friends got something, cant remember what its called.. it basically plugs into an iPod and broadcasts it on fm. he then tunes his car radio into this frequency. normally when we go out in a convoy of cars, or go out for a day kitesurfing, on the way he'll turn it on, and everyone else will tune in aswell, although due to the dopler effect, you have to be going at the exact same speed as him and preferably infront too.

he uses the lowest freqency possible since it uses less power, and it just so happens to be the same as radio 2's, and every time he speeds up away from us, it goes wiiiiiiiiiiiiiirh for some time and then switch to radio2. hence i feel sorry for everyone on the roads listening to terry wogan as we go past playing pendulum or SOAD.

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adr
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 16:52
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What's the sound quality like on that fm tuner thing Goorf? (One branded solution is called an iTrip).

I've heard the range is pretty crap - in terms of sound quality that is.

[center]
But you see, I have the will of the warrior. Therefore, the battle is already over. The winner? Me!
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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 18:28 Edited at: 7th Jul 2006 18:29
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range is pretty poor, we normally have to be driving pretty close. once you find a point of maximum around the hosts car (look up wave super-position in physics), and manage to stay in it at the right speed etc, the sound qualities the same as if you were listening to normal radio.

width-wise, on the motorway, we havent managed to get in a lane far enough away to pick it up, so you can basically pick it up from 2 or 3 lanes away. from behind you have to be almost tailgating unless you can meet the speed and find a maximum then you can get about 2 car length away. infront of the car is best, you can go quite a range infront, we've never actually gone out of range from being too far infront, but that said we never really go that far ahead of each other anyway.

its fun for when we're doing long distance travel for a grand weekend out. we take it in turns to pre-record a relevant radio show the night before ie "kiteboarders fm". adr appears in the latest radio show, though he may not realise it, but thats what he gets for haxoring our teamspeak server

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adr
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 19:19
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Quote: "my mate played some metalica song that swears a lot and is about murder and rape in asda "


You two sound like quite the comedy duo.

Someone like myself can't listen to their inoffensive music because a fat Daily Mail reading mum heard that an iTrip was responsible for offending her ears, and kicked up a storm. So, childish pranks like that will keep localised fm broadcasting devices illegal in this country.

Quote: "range is pretty poor, we normally have to be driving pretty close."

I meant the frequency response - as in sound quality. I suppose it's quite obviously restricted to a narrow band because of how radio works...

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indi
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Posted: 9th Jul 2006 03:48
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the belkin fm transmitter is bad as its frequency is limited and its huge.
the itrip is better in functionality and size
i have the itrip with a 5th gen ipod

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Phaelax
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Posted: 9th Jul 2006 08:32
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I got an iTrip(brand new) from a thrift store for $5, its sound quality is crap, not worth it if you ask me.

Quote: "my mate played some metalica song that swears a lot and is about murder and rape in asda"

If that's the song from Garage Days, its a cover. Motorhead perhaps, but I can't really remember.

"Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy" - Rob Pike
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indi
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Posted: 9th Jul 2006 10:04
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you have to tune it into a frequency where there is no radio station.
sounds like yours is damaged,mines fine

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Phaelax
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Posted: 9th Jul 2006 19:32
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Its ok as long as you're not more than 2ft away and the device is pointed straight at the antenna. But I have a few friends who've tried them too and they didn't care for the quality either.

Personally, I'd use it with a boosted signal so next time I get stuck in traffic near a "homie" blazing his rap music, I can tune it to his station and play some danny osmond!

"Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy" - Rob Pike
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