Anyone use an FM transmitter for their mp3 player to transmit to a car radio? How is the quality? What’s the range? What frequency does it transmit at?
Hmmm, I never used one with an MP3 player but my brother bought me one once for my CD walkman. (I couldn’t use the tape adapters because my car tape player stopped working) It had different frequencies you coudl select to try to find the best reception in your area. However, the “best” reception you could get was still pretty bad. Plus, we were usign for a long road trip so we kept having to adjust it. It was such a pain and had such bad soudn quality, I stopped using it…
I bought one before Xmas and it’s complete and utter crap. To get a decent signal you need a perfectly clean FM channel as anything broadcasting on your channel will cause static. The problem is that you can never find a perfect FM channel as there is always some junk from a distant station or FM harmonics.
The end result is a transmitter that may work fine (fine being low static and you can recognize the song), until you go around a corner or up a hill and you pick up channel noise. Then you need to retune to another station. Repeat until you get tired of the POS device and turn it off, never to be used again.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to return this pile of crap tomorrow. Then I’m looking for a car stereo with a line-in jack.
I have one, a CenDyne “Gruv X”, connected to my iPod.
It works pretty well for me. Though it won’t overpower a commercial station if it’s on the same frequency, it can handle being on a channel near other stations even if there’s some bleed over. It can be set on any channel in the FM band. I’ve gone on long trips with it, and had to set it to avoid stations from time to time, but I’ve never had to do it very often. The secret was finding a place to put it where the radio picks up the signal best. I put velcro on it and next to the radio, and stick it there.
The main problem I have with it is that it won’t turn off automatically even if the source has been turned off. Since it runs off a AAA battery, forgetting about it and leaving it in the car overnight means I have to replace the battery. I’ve just gotten good at remembering that it’s there.
Sound quality is far superior to cassette adapters.
I built one from a kit a while back and hooked it up to my portable CD/mp3 player. The quality was at least as good as regular FM if I was no further than, say, 50 feet from the player. Worked great for playing mp3s in the car.
Since then, though, I found that a regular car-kit for the CD player worked just as fine and didn’t require an extra battery like the transmitter did.
I bought one at Radio Shack that works just fine. It broadcasts at 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, or 88.7. I occasionally have to check two or three of those options out to find one that’s clear, but I’ve never been unable to find a good one. Quality is better than regular FM radio, but not as good as CD.
The quality of these things varies considerably.
I use a cassette adapter with my MP3 player in the car, and it works pretty well. It’s at least FM quality for sound. Turn up the volume on the MP3 player as high as you can without clipping, and you’ll get the best signal to noise ratio and dynamic range. I’m happy enough with it.
Tried three and returned them all. They all broadcast on four frequencies between 88.1 and 88.7 FM. The community station, broadcasting on 88.5 from four blocks away wins.
Thanks for the info - I guess the quality depends on whether there’s a local station overpowering it. I’ll have to see if that applies here.
Anecdote: For a while, I worked in field service where myself and the other field technicians would be dispatched to calls while driving the company vans. The vans, having only AM/FM, would get a little dull after a while until I discovered the FM transmitter. Within a week, all the other techs had bought themselves transmitters and most still use them daily for CDs and MP3s.
The one I have has given mixed results. I never figured out the pattern but sometimes, I would have to hold it in my hand and constantly make tiny, easy-to-overshoot adjustments to the super miniature tuning wheel just to get static-y hash while other times, I could get great signal several rooms away for hours at a time.
Once, when I was playing in a band, we had a 3 car convoy on our way to a gig and we could all listen to the thing reliably, even 6-8 carlengths away.
When it works, its great. Really nice sound quality. The one I have is tunable from 87-108MHz. Also, the batteries last and last. Like for days and nights at a time.
Some are digitally tunable. While significantly more expensive, I always wanted to see if they were any better.