So, this weekend I got myself my very first brand-spanking-new car, an '06 Mustang, and I want to get my iPod hooked into it. I know about all the various ways that this can be done, what I’m interested in is y’all’s personal experience with any of the methods. Any particular ones work smooth as silk? Any unexpected hiccups? Give me your anecdotes!
I use my iPod in my car with a Sony Discman cassette adapter ($20). No hiccups, no anecdotes, unless you want to hear about the weird guy in Target. Easy; cassette has a wire that extends out of the player, you plug into your iPod where the earbuds plug in. Turn on your cassette player, turn on your iPod and you’re good to go.
Unless…do new cars still have cassette players standard?
Oh, and congrats on the 'Stang. My hub is quite envious. You didn’t go for the four-banger though, right? That’s just a waste of sports-car body styling!
Believe it or not, the cassette player actually comes with the upgraded stereo system. My base model is CD only.
And I got the V6, they don’t come in 4 cylinder anymore. And since my last vehicle was a '77 Volkwagen van, the 6 is like a rocket. Plenty of git-up-and-go for me.
What RSSchen said. Gear: cheapass $9.99 cassette-to-CD adapter, iPod mini, Blaupunkt AM/FM/cassette, '99 VW Passat. Every so often the Blauper gets confused and tries to switch tape sides, but it’s a minor glitch.
As I said somewhere else, what I’ve done is a real kludge. I have an XM receiver in my car, which uses an in-dash FM transmitter. I Y-jack the iPod into the line-in on the XM’s car cradle, turn on the receiver, and mute it. I then use the iPod. If I know I don’t want to use the XM at all that trip, I can skip the Y-jack and plug the iPod directly into the line-in, as the receiver then displays an “antenna” error message and no muting is needed, as no signal is coming in from the antenna. In either case, the receiver must be in and powered up for the system to work.
I installed this on the factory stereo in my Pontiac Vibe. No wires hanging down, no hookups to do and undo, nothing. I just drop the iPod in the cradle I mounted and it plays and charges.
I found that FM transmitters suck and I didn’t have a tape player (and didn’t want the visible wires even if it did).
I use the Belkin auto adapter to power the iPod in my car. It provides power to the iPod, it has a line out connector, and it also pauses the iPod when you shut off the car.
For the connection to the stereo, I use a simple cassette adapter. Well, I used to. Last month someone broke into my car, stole the Sirius receiver, and yanked hard on the cassette adapter cable. Now the adapter is jammed in there at an angle, and the tape player is destroyed. (Who’d have thought that cable was so strong?)
I’ve previously experimented with an FM transmitter and found it unsatisfactory. There is no single frequency that’s free everywhere in the city, let alone for longer trips. I think I’ll be replacing my car stereo with one that has an AUX input connector on the front panel. The “iPod enabled” car stereos seem pretty expensive.
I have a pretty swank Sony MP3 CD deck and it has a set of auxilary-in jacks. So I bought a cable with a headphone jack on one end and a set of RCA jacks on the other.
I pulled my deck out, inserted the RCA’s and routed the other end out my dash. Pretty slick.
For Stainz’ Honda, I bought a FM modulator off of eBay (from Hong Kong, cost ~$13CAN after everything). Works not too bad.
MtM
I’m using a Dension iceLink in my car. It hooks into the back of my Scion xA’s Pioneer radio (the CD changer hookup to be precise) and the cradle loops down into my glove compartment. I toss the iPod in and control the major features via the radio console. So far the only complaint I have is that it’s rather slow in picking up the title and artist currently playing, but the sound is crystal clear and I never have to worry about battery life.
I just bought an '06 Pt Cruiser which has the inline-aux right in the radio as standard equipment. (I test drove an '06 Scion which had it right where the emergency brake handle is.)
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a 3’ cord to plug the iPod in. It’s either a too short 1 footer or a too long 6 footer.
I use this thingy from Monster to play my iPod Mini over my car stereo. Works great in my '04 Escape. In Cleveland. YMMV.
I’m using the same setup and I’m pretty satisfied. I’m not going to spend hundreds of dollars just to get rid of a couple of wires.
FM transmitters sound mediocre at best to me. I found mine pretty much unusable most of the time.
I finally gave up on the FM transmitter - there are exactly zero clear, open stations in NYC. I used a PIE adaptor that mimics an external CD changer and ran the wires myself. Total cost: ~$70.
I am currently using a portable speaker dock that is powered through the cigarette lighter because nothing else works. The FM modulators we tried were worthless, there is no tape deck, and to my knowledge no one makes an adaptor to use on a Subaru Forester. I just called up an automotive audio store and they flat out said that there is not a current way to do it. Damn.
Aux input cable ($30) plugged into the back of my car’s stock stereo.
Pros:
Cheap
No one can see that I might have an iPod in my car
Cons:
Doesn’t charge the iPod
Not a true line out (I’m just using a stereo headphone cable from Radio Shack, but I don’t usually play at really high volume, so it doesn’t sound too bad, IMO)
Can’t control the iPod through my steering wheel controls, (can do volume), but I get around this by making playlists so I don’t need to track forward very often.
OK, I found something despite what they said. Apparently a wired FM modulator is the way to go. Here is a powered wired modulator (with a separate on/off switch). The idea of a separate on/off switch is odd to me. I would have thought that it should sense when a signal is coming in through the iPod, power on the modulator, and cut transmission of the standard radio signal. Apparently it does none of this.
So, what I am now looking for:
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Wired (and powered) FM modulator that automatically turns on when there is a signal (cutting the antenna signal).
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Docking port/holder for the iPod that includes a line out to go to the modulator and a power connector to hook up to my car’s power (without going through the cigarette lighter.
I think I may be shooting a little high with this, but it is for my girlfriend. She loves the iPod and listens to audio books constantyly when driving. She has an irrational fear of using the cigarette lighter that I have only recently managed to overcome, so that is why I want to hook it into power behind the dash. Not to mention the lack of cables all over the place would be nice.
Here’s a wired FM modulator that senses when the iPod is connected. It uses the dock connector so it will charge the iPod, too.
I bought a headunit with a front AUX port and I use a $3.99 double male headphone jack cable to connect my iPod to my stereo.
I control the iPod as I would normally and I found that it’s a lot better than using the head unit for that. I was seriously considering buying an “iPod-Ready” head unit with a Usb port and everything but the only advantages are charging the iPod and seeing the Song information on the headunit. The controls tend to be a lot clunkier on head units (good luck fast forwarding 40 minutes if you’re listening to a badly spliced audiobook for instance. ).
I’m going to chime in. I used a tape adapter from the Smoke Nano kit from Circuit City and it was worthless. It sounded bad and cut it and out on the left. I got a Sony tape adapter and it’s better, but the bass isn’t great and I still have a bit of trouble getting the levels right.
One company make a tape that supposedly lets you use the car’s cassette controls to control the Ipod. They sell them at smalldog.com. That would be nice because the Ipod’s clickwheel doesn’t work so well when you can’t look at it.