FM Transmitter to use portable devices in car

[Opus4]

We used to use a casette converter with a portable DVD player in the car for long trips to keep the kids distracted so we can stay sane, but with the new car we are looking at no longer having a casette player as an option, it looks like we need to find a new way to connect the DVD player's audio output.

Has anyone around here used an FM transmitter to pipe audio from a portable device into your car's radio? If so, how well do they work? Any suggestions on ones to use or stay away from?

I'm told I can have one hardwired to the radio's antenna, so that should work fairly decently, but I'm wondering whether a non-wired version would work well enough.

- Andy

[Enormous]

I have a couple of friends who use a product similar to this one from Monster (except their has the iPod connection).

The sound quality is pretty good as long as you pick a frequency in a fairly un-used portion of the spectrum.

[Opus4]

Thanks -- good to hear it actually seems to work OK!

I did a little more searching for such devices last night & found a few that had a large selection of available FM transmitting frequencies. It looks like that might be important, so you can make sure to use one that is not used locally.

- Andy

[Kanati]

I used one quite a while with an mp3 player... never had a problem with it and it was as good as any radio station I listened to.

[michelkenny]

You'll want to make sure that you have one that can choose between a lot of FM frequencies since you'll have to change every so often when you're travelling when new radio station pop up. When you pick a good frequency the quality is pretty good. As always, you get what you pay for; the first one I bought was a cheap one with only 4 frequencies and it broke a couple of months later. I now have a Belkin TuneCast II and it works like a charm!

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by michelkenny

I now have a Belkin TuneCast II and it works like a charm!

Great! That one looked interesting because it says it can use any frequency & has 4 presets... which could be nice for those repeat long trips through the same areas.

Of course, next I'll have to start adding up all those devices being run off the car's power socket & get another splitter.

- Andy

[michelkenny]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Great! That one looked interesting because it says it can use any frequency & has 4 presets...

It doesn't go over all frequencies; it goes on a range of something between 80 and 130 by .1 increments, which is still a lot

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by michelkenny

It doesn't go over all frequencies; it goes on a range of something between 80 and 130 by .1 increments, which is still a lot

heh, OK, so "any" isn't the proper term... I just meant that it could use all the frequencies my FM radio could tune to. I think its specs pretty much match US FM radio usage & the 0.1 increment also matches my car's radio.

I believe this is the one I'm going to try... much cheaper than approx $200 to have one hardwired into the car, which I wouldn't be able to use anywhere else.

(for anyone who hasn't looked into these devices, that compares to some w/only 4 available frequency settings, as michelkenny mentioned above)

- Andy

[waynedunham]

Opus,

I don't want to be the "Negative Nellie" here...... However, when I was looking for a way to get the sound out of my MP3 player into my vehicle for a trip I was taking up to Maine (choice of about 3 stations once you get into Maine) I bought both a cassette adapter and also a Belkin FM transmitter to try before the trip. I wasn't about to spend the $$ to experiment with the Tunecast II, so I bought the lower model which was about the same price as the cassette adapter.

The sound from the lower model Belkin was WAAAYYY worse than the cassette adapter. Kind of like the difference between listening to a quality cassette and listening to a poor FM station. By "quality" cassette I mean homemade from a CD, not the crap quality prerecorded junk you can buy in stores. Well I should say, at least not the crap quality prerecorded junk you could buy back in the early 80's which was the last prerecorded cassette I bought. After that I recorded my own after hearing the difference.

Anyway, maybe the "uber-expensive" ($50-55) Tunecast II is MUCH better than the plain old Tunecast, but if not you may not be all that pleased with the results. My other main gripe about it was the volume. I had to crank the MP3 players volume almost all the way up and still had to crank the radio volume up a bunch. Needless to say if you forgot to turn the radio volume down before you ejected the cassette you were in for some bloody eardrums.

Hopefully it will work well for you. For the $200 you were looking at to get one hard-wired you could probably go with an aftermarket in-dash radio/cd that has inputs for audio. Something like this.... Unit with both mini-jack and rca inputs That one's only $100 however you can go more expensive to get even more features and/or something that better fits the form factor of the factory unit.

[michelkenny]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

The sound from the lower model Belkin was WAAAYYY worse than the cassette adapter. Kind of like the difference between listening to a quality cassette and listening to a poor FM station.

I find the quality of the Belkin unit pretty good. In my old 1988 car it sounds a bit worse than in my newer car, probably because the antenna in it isn't as good. Since you're buying a new car that shouldn't be a problem. Also, which frequency you pick has a very big difference on quality. When I had the older model with only 4 frequencies, yes the quality wasn't as good since the 4 frequencies it tuned to had radio stations very near in the frequency range so there was quite a bit of interference. With the new Belkin model I can pretty much tune to whatever frequency I want, so I can always find something with no interference and it sounds pretty good. Granted it's probably not as good as listening straight from the mp3 player with speakers or headphones, but it's pretty close

My other main gripe about it was the volume. I had to crank the MP3 players volume almost all the way up and still had to crank the radio volume up a bunch.

I turn my mp3 player to 28 out of 30 for the volume and I can leave my radio at the normal listening volume and the volume of the mp3s are just right. It all depends again on the frequency of your transmitter, as well as the volume that your mp3s are recorded at.


The best thing would be to buy it at a store that has a 30 day to try it out and return it if you don't like it (provided it is in sellable condition) policy. If you find that it doesn't live up to your expectations you can just return it I know Best Buy has such a policy, at least here in Canada. More and more stores are starting to have a policy like this, which is great to try something. That way you know you won't be stuck with something that isn't any good.

[SHS]

If ask me I think the best option are Hardwire Car FM Modulator where you go Direct RCA to Direct FM coax. like Scosche FM-MOD01, Farenheit EFM-01, Pyle FM Modulator check out http://www.nextag.com/fm-modulator/search-html you find a lot more product name.
There are better option like with a Audio/Video Switcher, Audio Switcher or Audio/Video Controller if car your has an Ext Audio Amplifier.

[Opus4]

I know the best options would be to buy a replacement system or hardwire the FM transmitter... but I'm trying to go cheap w/something that doesn't require installation. However, I will be making sure to buy from a place where I can return the transmitter if it turns out not to work too well for me.

- Andy

[waynedunham]

SHS's post has me saying "hmmmm". I didn't find those hardwired FM Modulators when I was looking for my solution. Probably because I was looking in the wrong place and didn't have the right keywords for the search.

Very interesting. But then again if I'm going to spend near $50 for a decent direct connect FM modulator I probably should be looking to replace my factory radio and get something with CD and the inputs already there for my MP3 player and go a bit more on the $$

[SHS]

Andy keep in mind that any time you replacement a radio system it usely end up costing more in the long run becuase the custom mounting hardware, factory system adapters, custom radio face plate and is going require some installation which is not a pop out, pop in for the plug and play deal you never get that lucky and about 95% of the time some baics wiring need to done.
Factory radio usly never match the standard after market radio size unlike the old days radio system.
But now days you allmust have buy custom tools just get damm radio out some time good long very thin flat head screw driver work and hardwaire coat hanger depend on snap lock the factory used.

[Opus4]

As a follow up: we finally bought our car & the Belkin TuneCast II. The initial testing shows that it should work just fine, since the DVD sound came through good enough once I found a few mostly-free FM frequencies.

It was definitely a good idea to get the TuneCast II w/its ability to tune to any radio station freq... ever tried to find an unused FM frequency near New York City!?

- Andy

[mcaron1234]

Here is a link to a article that shows how to modify a itrip to increase the strength of the little antennae. I haven't tried it yet, but am planning on it for the GF's car.
http://www.surfbits.com/?p=526

I personally bought a this stereo:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-w2YrQ03...0&I=055CDCX304

for the front aux input. This is a cheap ~75$ solution and the stereo has been working and sounding great.

Hope this helps,

Matt