I think I'll finally buy me an iPod tomorrow. I've been waiting for what seems like years for the prices to drop and they dont seem to be budging much.

I'll probably go with a 4GB iPod Nano. I don't want an iPod for photos or video, just music. 4GB is plenty (my Windows media Players counts 3.5GB of music on my computer. Of course there's stuff I still haven't downloaded, but then there's stuff on there I dont even listen to anymore).

Specifically, I'm mainly getting one to play through my car stereo. I'm tired of burning new CDs every week and switching CDs in and out while driving. Satellite/XM radio doesn't interest me.

So I have two questions. Any recommendations on the best/most cost effective route to go for playing the iPod through your car speakers? I'm looking for an option that won't cost me more than ~50 bucks. Most of my friends use FM transmitters. One of my friends uses the iRiver one, and when we tried it in my car it worked pretty good but it would occasionally cut out for awhile. He claimed it was my Cig Lighter and not hsi transmitter, and he was probably right, my cig lighter was in bad shape and as far as I knew it didn't even work. He paid 50 bucks for it. Another friends said he got a wireless FM transmitter that works good in his car for 20 bucks. I gotta ask him what brand it is.

Second, is there maybe a better/cheaper chocie for me out there besides the iPod? Most people seem to like the iPod Nano over cheaper products because of its size and weight, I guess because they excercise a lot with it. Size and weight do play a factor in my decision, but it's not my major concern since I plan to use it mostly in the car. What I like about it is the scrollable wheel thingy and the screen. But I don't know if it's worth 100 dollars, if I can find a cheaper audio player for my car.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum6/HTML/041425.html

http://www.jax184.com/pictures/car/IMGP2918.jpg
http://www.jax184.com/pictures/car/IMGP2917.jpg
That's my home grown stock stereo hack. Works with the iPod or any other audio device with a standard headphone connection.
It's almost trivial to do, sounds far cleaner than any FM transmitter, and costs about a buck.

Also, I discovered that the Griffin iPod car charger is useless. Plug it into my cigarette lighter (even without an iPod connected to it) and the radio would begin emitting a ton of static. I gutted the little charger and built my own in the case, which gave much more stable voltage to the iPod and eleminated the radio noise. With that in mind, I have to blame the unit more than the Fiero...

[This message has been edited by Jax184 (edited 04-28-2006).]

OK Jax184, how dare you show something so great and not tell us how to do it.

I have wondered if that was possible and now I see you've done it, can you do a write up on how to do this?

Or... how much would you charge to do it if I send you the whole radio, I pay shipping both ways of course.

On the old Delco radios, this is a very easy mod. All you need is a bypass style 1/8th inch audio jack, some wire, and a soldering iron.
The same idea will work with most radios, though modern ones are more difficult, if not impossible.

If you don't feel comfortable taking apart your radio and working with electronics, I'd be happy to do the modification myself. I couldn't ask much money for the work, though I'd want a little more for newer/aftermarket radios. And I can't be sure that I'll be able to modify an aftermarket one until I see it in person. No charge if I can't do it.

In the case of the Fiero's, the radio inside is devided up into 3 parts. The tape mechanism, the tuner board, and the amp board. The tape board plugs into the tuner, and the tuner into the amp. Now the tuner handles what station is being played at any given moment and what the tape mechanism is up to, but in the end it's output is still nice simple analog lines to the amp board.

I found the two wires marked L and R at the amp board, unsoldered them, and hooked them to the bypass lines of a 1/8th inch audio jack. Then I ran two new wires from the jack to the amp board. There's a nice gap behind the front panel, which is where I put the jack. The front panel hole was easily drilled, and the jack itsself was salvaged from an old mac motherboard.

In the end, when there's no iPod connected the unit operates exactly like stock. But when you plug something into the jack, the radio/tape is cut out and whatever is plugged in will play through. Volume, ballance, EQ, etc all operate just fine with the new input.

[This message has been edited by Jax184 (edited 04-28-2006).]

I, too, have been looking into the whole iPod vs. the rest of the MP3 player world. I am also getting tired of changing CDs every so often and things like that.

To me, the only reason to buy an iPod is if you have iTunes, since iTunes has its own .m4p format and other MP3 players will not work (at least it used to be that way). If you don't use iTunes, I would NOT buy an iPod because they are so expensive and "trendy" and all that jazz. I personally feel there are much better choices based on what you are/aren't going to use it for.

As far as the car goes, I know iPod can use a transmitter called the iTrip; the only problem people have is when the FM frequency is bothered by a similar local station broadcast, but I have never heard of it cutting out completely.

For my sake, all of my purchased music is on iTunes, so I have to get an iPod unless other MP3 players eventually work with iTunes. I don't need video or gadgetry, either, so I don't really want to drop a load of money on stuff I don't need.

I'm surprised by how easy it was to get my iPod going. I never used iTunes before, all of my music is either downloaded illegally (whoops) with Soulseek or they're CDs that I copied onto my comptuer with Windows Media Player (so they're in .wma format). I didn't read on the box that iPods could play WMAs so I was a little skeptical at first. I installed the iTunes software that came with my iPod, and the first thing it wanted to do was convert all of my WMAs into a format that the iPod could play (AAC or something?), so I clicked Yes. In a matter of minutes it was done, all 30 or so CDs that I had copied onto my computer in WMA format could now be played on iPod. Second thing it wanted to do was automatically copy my music library on my computer to my iPod, so I let it. This took a bit, but it was still pretty quick and automatic. The only thing that sucked was a lot of artists werent showing up on my iPod, and some were showing up 2 or 3 times. I went into iTunes and found that a lot of my songs ahd artists that were mislabeled or not labeled at all, so I had to go through each song that was incorrect or blank and manually fill them out. I'm guessing thats the downside to downloading illegally :\

Within 30 or so mins of bringing it home, I had the iTunes software figured out and 720 songs on my iPod. I'm predicting it'll hold about 800 songs, whereas they advertise 1000. .3GBs are used up by the OS and extra stuff that comes on the iPod. So you've got 3.7GBs for music and images/other files. It's plenty enough room for me, especially since I only plan to use it for music.

For my car, I went with DLO's TransPod or something. It was one of the most expensive FM transmitters Best Buy had to offer, but I wanted to make sure I got the best of the bunch since playing in my car was really the only reason I wanted an iPod. It would have defeated the purpose of buying an iPod if I wasn't satisfied with the car hook-up.

I have friends that use the little iRiver and Griffin's iTrip FM transmitters, and they work, but they're not best in sound quality, and they're a little static-y, especially inbetween tracks. These are also just FM Transmitters, they don't charge your iPod and they dont have a mount/cradle to hold it. I first bought Griffin's RoadTrip, it's like the iTrip except it also charges your iPod and had it a little mount to hold it. I fooled around with it for an hour or so and couldn't get it to work. I took it back and exchanged it for DLO's version of the same thing. It was 7 dolalrs more but what the heck. I got it to work within 10mins. I havent done any long distance driving or downtown driving with it yet, but it sounds good so far. The only the complaint I have is that I like to listen to my music loud in the car, and I have to turn the car's radio volume all the way to max to get it at a good volume. And then if I ever switch back to regular radio or CD Player, I have to remember to turn it back down, or I'll blow my ear drums.