Adding IPOD capability to a 99 Riv

So, Aaron, you found a $20.00 solution.

Back when I bought it, it was 3x that price!

ibmoses wrote:

GMFreak8 wrote:

Just stick with CDs and the stock player. Or get a CD changer. Compact Discs sound better, include album art, and don't require batteries. Plus you don't have to mess around with organizing your MP3 collection on your computer, plus your ipod, plus actually find the time to download everything. The last ipod I bought was in 2003. I used it for a few months, and it's been sitting in my drawer since. It's practically brand new. I went out and bought a 12 disc CD changer for my car, and just load my CDs that way. When a friend plays his ipod on my car stereo system it makes my ears bleed. The sound quality just isn't there. Sadly your average person is now perfectly fine with paying 99 cents to 1.99 for a compressed audio file that doesn't include any album art, and sounds like crap. You can typically go out and find a CD with album art and actually the full quality song on it for a cheaper price. And of course sadly, I'm in the minority and most people think I'm crazy when I actually suggest that someone should go out and actually *gasp* buy a CD.

The ipod nano I am just learning to use finds the album covers and shows them, I like that. So far I have bought about 20 songs from itunes. The rest I have loaded from CD's that I own and have borrowed.

Right now(when I get back to it) I am working in the living room on a project and I have the ipod plugged into my surround sound system, listening to Eddie Money at this second...just changed to Rupert Holmes(Pina Colada song)...

I hope to borrow CD's from people and get a huge # of songs but will probably spend a couple of hundred bucks at least on itunes.

Bert

Yeah. The album art is a hit or miss for me. A lot of my music isn't available on itunes, so the album art doesn't appear. I find the ID3 tags aren't always very accurate either. So I spend hours editing everything and loading album art into it manually. I just find it to be such a pain in the butt. I still have $30 in my itunes account I've had since itunes first launched.

I just prefer buying the physical media. I don't like just having a soft copy.

AA wrote:

I bought one like this for my wife. She uses it in the car, and we also use it around the house sometimes. Comes with a radio freq remote, works alright for the price. No cords, powered from the iPod: Link

Thats a lot less than the unit Apple sells and the Apple unit does not have a remote. That remote would come in handy. I have a portable sound system that I can hook the ipod too and use outdoors.

As far a buying CD's...I have made it this long and only own approx. 20 CD's between myself and my wife. I doubt we will buy very many more in the future, That format is dying quickly, or so it seems to me.

Heck I have not even bought a DVD player, we bought a PVR when they launched and use it for all our TV.

So I guess I can justify spending a couple of hundred dollars on itune's music since I have not spent thousands on CD's and DVD's.

Bert

I want to save up for an ipod and transfer all my CD's to it and then be able to hook it up to my head unit in the future.
I think it will be much more convenient. I'm finding i don't play CD's as much in the car because of the hassle.

I don't have that many CDs, and I still have all the tapes from my 'youth'... So, I keep discs in that nice holder they put in the dash, and some tapes in the console. I do have a couple thousand songs in the computer, though, that I put into my cell phone to play when I'm working in the yard, like having a transistor radio in your shirt pocket in the olden days.

Forget the iPod, though. I paid less for my Nokia 6131 than an iPod costs, and it plays through earphones and through the loudspeaker (surprisingly loud & clear, too.) Hell, it even uses the earphone wires for an antenna and gets FM radio!


Snowdog gave us the link to this site, so for 8 lousy bucks I ordered one of these the other day




After you transfer your CDs into the computer and convert them to MP3, just load a bunch onto an SD card and pop this thing into the lighter or even the Power Port - with the IR remote, you don't even have to lean over to push the buttons!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11218

I don't know how they can make a penny at this price, but the customer reviews are amazing...

http://www.techforless.com/cgi-bin/tech4less/009-3033?mv_pc=AID=106797_ship&id=xc5rDzvS&noreset=1

17.49 for an ipod fm transmitter and will charge it at the same time. good dealll

Eldo wrote:

I don't have that many CDs, and I still have all the tapes from my 'youth'... So, I keep discs in that nice holder they put in the dash, and some tapes in the console. I do have a couple thousand songs in the computer, though, that I put into my cell phone to play when I'm working in the yard, like having a transistor radio in your shirt pocket in the olden days.

Forget the iPod, though. I paid less for my Nokia 6131 than an iPod costs, and it plays through earphones and through the loudspeaker (surprisingly loud & clear, too.) Hell, it even uses the earphone wires for an antenna and gets FM radio!


Snowdog gave us the link to this site, so for 8 lousy bucks I ordered one of these the other day




After you transfer your CDs into the computer and convert them to MP3, just load a bunch onto an SD card and pop this thing into the lighter or even the Power Port - with the IR remote, you don't even have to lean over to push the buttons!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11218

I don't know how they can make a penny at this price, but the customer reviews are amazing...

What is your review of the product.
Have you had a chance to use it yet.
Sounds too cheap not to try it out.

My general problem with FM transmitters is the lack of enough free frequencies in a urban area. The few stations I found acceptable, well a lot of other people use them too, so I would frequently pick up somebody else's FM transmitter.

Rick: No, I just ordered it a few days ago... It's probably coming from Hong Kong, so it'll take a while to get here. When it arrives, it'll only take 10 minutes to try it out with the memory card from my phone.

Derek: I agree in theory, just like Billy Mays' Jupiter Jack, but did you go to the site? You can set it on any frequency in the FM band, including the even tenths (.2, .4, etc) if you have a radio that doesn't skip them... On the photo above, you can just make out the first function: 206 Preset FM Channels, and that's what the top 2 buttons on the remote are for.

Until you mentioned your phone having music capabilities i never even thought to look at my phone.
Well it has a whole section in it for a music library that i didn't know about. Have only had the phone for 2 1/2 years. I did add a larger capacity micro SD card when i bought it thinking i would use the camera function, but haven't even done that.
I'm going to have to upload some music from my computer and see how this works as a MP3 player.
This was the "Free" phone offered when we re-signed our last contract. As a matter of fact they keep reminding us we are eligible for 2 free phones if we just go in and re-sign for another 2 years. We plan on keeping the service so I think I'll stop in and see what they have for "Free" again.
What a dummy i am, all I have ever used the phone for was making phone calls and have never bothered to look at the other features.

I recently sold my 8gb Ipod Touch when I picked up my new Droid. It came preloaded with a 16gb micro-sd card. It's not too bad at all for a phone. Currently I am using a tape adapter until I get my new Pioneer dvd player in. I've never had any luck with fm modulators, aside from the ones that go inline with the antenna. I'm currently using one of those for my Sirius, it's not bad, but the radios volume needs to be set a little higher.

Well, the i-mobile FM modulator (see top of page) arrived exactly as expected, 10 days from Hong Kong.

It is definitely worth $8... It came with a battery in the remote, a spare fuse for the cigar lighter plug, and a little adapter wire for changing the size of the stereo input plug. It has that jack, a USB jack, and the SD card slot... Minor problems were figuring out which way the SD car goes in, and finding a frequency that doesn't have traffic on the immediate adjacent stations here in the Bay Area. I ended up using the bottom of the dial, 87.7MHz.

My only complaint would be that the modulation itself is kind of low, you have to crank up the volume on the radio. But the remote works well, even with the unit down in the Power Port, it scans quickly through the FM channels, and it even has its own volume control and an EQ like the Tone button on our factory radios, with 6 settings.

Eldo wrote:

I ended up using the bottom of the dial, 87.7MHz.

That's the big answer I was looking for, it's range. I can use this if it hits 87.7. Does it go to 87.5?

deekster_caddy wrote:

Eldo wrote:

I ended up using the bottom of the dial, 87.7MHz.

That's the big answer I was looking for, it's range. I can use this if it hits 87.7. Does it go to 87.5?

Yes it does... I hadn't noticed because the factory radio only goes to 87.7, but the modulator goes from 87.5 to 108.0, in increments of 0.1

great, thanks for the info.

I have never liked FM Modulated devices.
Generally they sound muddy, and I have tried at least a half dozen different ones.
For now, I am sticking with my 50 CD case that I keep in the car.
When I upgrade my head unit I'll get one that has a USB interface and put my ipod in the car.
I feel the stock head unit sounds ok... but not great, reducing the quality with an FM modulator is just not for me.
Just my 2 cents...