# Are there car stereos which can play RealAudio files?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-car-stereos-which-can-play-realaudio-files/290473>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 17, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-car-stereos-which-can-play-realaudio-files/290473 "2005-02-17T03:34:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-car-stereos-which-can-play-realaudio-files/290473/1 "2005-02-17T03:34:20Z")

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Do such exist? I haven’t been able to find any with a brief search, but there are a lot of false positives using these search terms.

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**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-car-stereos-which-can-play-realaudio-files/290473/2 "2005-02-17T03:49:44Z")

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I don’t think there is such a thing, although you can use Streambox Ripper to convert RealAudio to MP3.

[http://streamboxripper.cjb.net/](http://streamboxripper.cjb.net/)

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**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-car-stereos-which-can-play-realaudio-files/290473/3 "2005-02-17T04:09:45Z")

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Where’d you get that link? It doesn’t work for me.

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**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-car-stereos-which-can-play-realaudio-files/290473/4 "2005-02-17T04:35:17Z")

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Weird. The link worked when I checked it before posting. I could email a copy if you want.

(Mods, the program is freeware so there’s nothing untoward happening.)

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**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2005, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-car-stereos-which-can-play-realaudio-files/290473/5 "2005-02-17T06:53:34Z")

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Ok, this might be off topic for GQ, but why in the name of all that is holy would anybody want such a device? Even if the need ever came to play real audio files, it would probably be easier to convert them to mp3/wma. The format as itself offers no advantages, hence I doubt any manufacturers used it.