Hey everyone, I've been browsing MP3 players a little lately and I've decided to buy one but I need some advice. I know the iPod is the icon of MP3 players but I have been looking elsewhere because you can get bigger storage for less from other places. I initially liked some of the players from Creative Labs but I've read a lot of reviews that they don't last long and really fall apart after a few months. I've read good things about the Toshiba Gigabeat (MEG-F205) 20 GB but I'm looking for something to play in the car as well. I know iPod is very compatible with a car stereo but other brands don't seem to be as easy. What does everyone else have? What do you think about it? Do you use it in the car too? The car is a primary factor, if it can't go in the car I won't buy it. Thanks for any help.

-Tim

But from everything I've seen, you can only dual boot Linux on a iPod I've done it. Sweet, now I have Tetris, a voice recorder, and more goodies. Lol, people think I'm nuts when I'm talking into my iPod earphones until I explain that it was built with a mic and there was just no recording app in the Apple software

PSP!!! If you have a tape player or radio with a aux jack it wont mater what kind you get.

But you can't look all kewl and take voice memos with it!

FieroGT42 you have a PM.

-Tim

I made my own line-in jack on my bone stock Fiero AM/FM Cassette. It's unimaginably simple to do. If you still have your stock unit, it's a perfect solution.

quote Originally posted by Jax184: I made my own line-in jack on my bone stock Fiero AM/FM Cassette. It's unimaginably simple to do. If you still have your stock unit, it's a perfect solution.

Hmmm........and then ?

quote Originally posted by cliffw: Hmmm........and then ?

And then you plug a wire from the headphone jack of any MP3 player, CD player, etc into the stereo.

quote Originally posted by Jax184: I made my own line-in jack on my bone stock Fiero AM/FM Cassette. It's unimaginably simple to do.

Okay, we're listening. Pictures?

quote Originally posted by Jax184: I made my own line-in jack on my bone stock Fiero AM/FM Cassette. It's unimaginably simple to do. If you still have your stock unit, it's a perfect solution.

quote Originally posted by Jax184: And then you plug a wire from the headphone jack of any MP3 player, CD player, etc into the stereo.

Trying to follow you here. A "jack" would be a female plug to me. Do you mean you have a male end on a lead wire coming from the stock Fiero stereo ? As a CD player, MP3, etc, would have a female "jack".

quote Originally posted by Jax184: I made my own line-in jack on my bone stock Fiero AM/FM Cassette. It's unimaginably simple to do.

We're still listening...

quote Originally posted by Patrick: We're still listening...

Pardon me, if I had known how important you think you are, I wouldnt have considered making you wait. Obviously proving myself not to be blowing hot air to some random person with no reason to care is far more important than anything else in my life.

For the rest of you:
I took the headphone jack off of an old macintosh and drilled a small hole in the radio's front panel. There's a gap in the metal behind the front panel that makes a good spot for the jack.

From there I looked at the bundle of wires that connected the tape/radio board inside the unit to it's amplifier board. One wire was clearly marked "L" and another next to it "R." So I unsoldered these wires, connected them to the connect-if-nothing-is-plugged-into-the-jack contacts of the jack, and ran a pair of wires from the output pins of the jack to those connections on the board.

When nothing is in the jack, the radio/tape is plugged in as normal and works no differently. When something is in the jack, the jack disconnects the radio/tape and routes whatever's in the jack to the tuner board. Volume control, ballance, bass and trebel all operate properly as well.

Then I simply used a standard male to male wire like you buy at radio shack to go from the female jack of the radio to the female jack of the iPod.

This picture shows a 1/8th wire to RCA and then an RCA to 1/8th adapter as I couldnt find my 1/8th to 1/8th wire at the time.

And this shows my iPod connected to it.

As you can see, the jack does not look out of place with the wire disconnected. The radio still looks stock, and wont attract the attention of thieves.

Also may I suggest that you not buy those Belkin cigarette lighter iPod chargers. Every time I plugged the one there in, the radio began making terrible noises (even without the iPod plugged into it.) I ended up taking the charger apart and replacing the circuit inside with my own so it was filtering properly and not making so much interferance.

[This message has been edited by Jax184 (edited 02-06-2006).]

quote Originally posted by Jax184: Pardon me, if I had known how important you think you are, I wouldnt have considered making you wait. Obviously proving myself not to be blowing hot air to some random person with no reason to care is far more important than anything else in my life.

Do you have any idea how insecure those comments make you look?

By posting the second time, I was only demonstrating that there was a continued interest in what you had posted earlier. What's wrong with that? If you needed to wait before posting pictures etc, is there some reason why you couldn't have simply posted that you'd get back to us when you had more time? (Interestingly enough, you seemed to have had time to post in other threads.) Instead, you make yourself look like an ass. Thanks anyway.

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 02-06-2006).]

quote Originally posted by Patrick: Do you have any idea how insecure those comments make you look? By posting the second time, I was simply demonstrating that there was a continued interest in what you had posted earlier. What's wrong with that? If you needed to wait before posting pictures etc, is there some reason why you couldn't have posted that you'd get back to us when you had more time? (Interestingly enough, you seemed to have had time to post in other threads.) Instead, you make yourself look like an ass. Thanks anyway.

I wanted to make a nice writeup about how to do it, complete with diagrams and a picture of the inside. And since my entire life doent revolve around the forums, I wasnt devoting every second of my day to it, hence the wait. It seemed mighty rude to have someone breathing down my neck and trying to get me to hurry up when I was doing it as a favor. You didnt sound particularly nice in your intrest demonstration.

quote Originally posted by Jax184: It seemed mighty rude to have someone breathing down my neck and trying to get me to hurry up when I was doing it as a favor.

How was anyone even to know that you had seen the initial requests for more info? As you're aware, threads just disappear off the bottom of the page if no one responds.

quote Originally posted by Jax184: You didnt sound particularly nice in your intrest demonstration.

That was unfortunately your interpretation of my enthusiasm.

quote Originally posted by Jax184: I wanted to make a nice writeup about how to do it, complete with diagrams and a picture of the inside.

Despite your attitude, I appreciate your info. Thanks.

My wife just bought a 2 gig Sansa (by Sandisk.) You don't get a color screen (unless you consider monochrome blue a color screen,) but it plays MP3s, WMAs (which are smaller), and even records voices. The sound is great (as long as the MP3 has been created with enough quality to begin with). We use it in the car (the Civic, not the Fiero), and even cranked up it sounds like the CD. And it's cheaper than the Ipod. Plus Sandisk is a great flash memory manufacturer, at least in my experience.

Just thought I'd contribute.

- Flamberge

Well, I just got my Toshiba Gigabeat in the mail today. Really nice player. The software and player are pretty easy to use once you get used to them. (just like anything else) My cable and FM transmitter are not here yet so I can't report on the car aspect. I will say, since a majority of my songs are downloaded, the source files are not labelled correctly so when it transfers to the player you have a giant mess that will take hours to sort out I'm sure. This one sorts by artist or album for the most part and always want you to put in an album to keep those songs together, I don't want to do that so I'm trying to figure out a nice way to sort my songs so it makes sense and they aren't too hard to navigate through. This weekend I'll get some free time to really organize it. Just thought I would let people know how its going.

-Tim

FYI, Apple just dropped the price on their Shuffle. The 512 mb is now going to retail for $69.00, and the 1 gb will retail for $99.00. The will also be a 1gb Nano that will retail at $149.00.

read all about it here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060208/ap_on_hi_te/apple_ipod;_ylt=AskKshFQ2cK4Xuvx2s7i92us0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cjE0b2MwBHNlYwM3Mzg-

It's an Apple world when it comes to mp3 players. I'm not an Apple guy and I resisted for long time but in the end, they got it locked. 4gb nano here. Roughly 50+ full cd's on it. Not my entire cd collection, but enough to fit everything I listen to on a regular basis. Color display, album covers, lyrics.

Got it hooked up in the GT and my point A to point B car. Instantly movable between the 2, as well as in the pocket or plugged in to the home stereo any other time. Best $250 I ever spent for audio.

First of all, I agree with Jax.
Secondly I have never used an Ipod, but when I was in the MP3 player market I wanted one that played MP3 CDs. CD-Rs are dirt cheap so I bought one that would play CDs aswell and MP3 CDs. This is very convient as but size is a major drawback.
Third I like iRivers product line and they work great and have regular firmware updates

Finally, I dont use any MP3 player except my Treo650 and now my PPC6700. SD and MiniSD cards are relatively cheap. If I need more than a gig or two of music I will bring my laptop.

Having said that, Jax that is beautiful. Do you think I could do that with my factory stereo in my 2001 Prizm? It is a stock CD player, I use a line converrter for my sub but would love something like that to connect my notebook and phone to. Truley amazing right there. Linky That is the headunit that I have. Let me know what you think.

[This message has been edited by ls3mach (edited 02-08-2006).]

quote Originally posted by ls3mach: Do you think I could do that with my factory stereo in my 2001 Prizm? It is a stock CD player, I use a line converrter for my sub but would love something like that to connect my notebook and phone to. Truley amazing right there. Linky That is the headunit that I have. Let me know what you think.

Moderm CD players are far more complex inside than the AM/FM blob from 1984. I took apart the stock AM/FM CD from a 2001 Honda Accord, and found it was all but impossible to modify it the same way. These days the units are far less modular, and everything is controlled digitally. None the less you could take yours apart and try.

The Honda had what ammounted to a fully functional CD system seperate from the rest. The main board connected to it through a plug for power, analog audio, and basic track control. This would let you splice your front panel jack in, but the unit would only pass sound through when the CD was playing something. You'd have to trick the unit into thinking the CD was playing, or leave a CD in the unit and playing. This was a bit of a pain, but it worked.

I suggest you take a look in your unit to see if an easier solution is available.
Also, if you can snap a few *Clear* shots of the inside of your unit, I might be able to suggest a few methods.