November 16, 2004

FM transmitters for mp3 players- are there any that don't suck? The iTrip plugs into your ipod and transmits your music on the FM frequency of your choice. You tune your car radio to that frequency and listen to your ipod in your car without any wires. Trouble is, it's weak so it doesn't interfere with other people's radios, but so weak it doesn't even work in my own car. Same story with all the products like this from what I've heard.

So, does anyone know of a product that does this with a little more power? Or is there a site that tells me how to modify one of these devices to make it strong enough to be effective? Or a site that tells me how to build my own? What about AM transmitters? I'm looking for a portable solution. Preferably one that runs on batteries, but something that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket in my car to get more power would be fine as well. Most of all I'm looking for someone with a personal experience to verify that a certain product or mod to a product actually works well before I spend/waste more money on this.

posted by smallish bear 20 years ago
  • Well, the best FM modulators I've seen are the ones that hook directly to your car stereo (like the ones for car CD changers), which means they ain't portable. I believe iRiver has one for their players.
  • Aux inputs for various models of OEM radios: • http://www.blitzsafe.com/blitz_catalog/blitz_aux/blitz_aux.html Could be used with a RCA-to-1/8" converter from Radio Shack, with a nice clean cable layout to the iPod...
  • If you're handy with a soldergun, you might like to check out this little hack.
  • The old iRoc, which morphed to iTrip, was pretty good. Sure, you only had 3 stations to choose from, but the signal was so strong my friend could hear it while driving behind me.
  • Have you thought about connecting your iPod to your car stereo directly? I did this last summer and now I have a spiffy little setup. My stereo has an aux. jack in back and drilled a whole for the wire up through to the glove compartment. Now I have perfect sound, no interference, and it is not at all obvious that there is an ipod in the car. The whole thing cost me ten bucks and a half our of work.
  • I've got your solution, promise, no soldering. -buy this -then do this It's literally a little knob inside, I can't imagine why ccrane put it in there other than to let you make your own pirate radio station. Just a warning though, probably not legal in the U.S.
  • Addendum: it's always possible ccrane changed their hardware, if so, all bets are off. I can attest that it worked as of a year or so ago.
  • I've found the iTrip to be the best of the lot, actually. It's strong enough in my car to override the powerhouse local stations. However, I did read somewhere that certain kinds of windows can really screw up the reception. As an alternative, I second Jabberwock's recommendation. If you are in the market for a new stereo, Crutchfield has a decent search feature which includes aux inputs as a choice.
  • iRiver has a full-FM-band transmitter now, the AFT-100. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on Santa's list. I have an old Recoton full-band transmitter, but it's a weird thing with a click-switch between sections of the FM band and then a scroll wheel for fine-tuning. It's very touchy and kind of a pain to use. It's far better than my husband's iTrip, though, which doesn't have much in the way of band options, and seems to work very poorly if someone's in the passenger seat of the car. We're both looking forward to trying this one out. Just the digital selection has to be easier than scrolling.
  • I can't find where I found the hack right now, but if you buy a 6 foot audio extension cable (won't work with iTrip, but works with Belkin's), plug into the iPod and the FM transmitter, then the extension cable acts as an antenna, and boosts the signal. I can use it to tune my downstairs stereo to play what I'm listening to upstairs in my office. Cheap and easy.
  • Here are two links from BoingBoing about how to boost the signal on your iTrip.
  • Any FM transmitter device, no matter how expensive, will seriously diminish the quality of the music. This is because the music's dynamic range (the difference between the loudest sound it can produce and the quietest sound that can be distinguished from background noise) must be compressed in order for the modulated signal to fit within a standard FM channel. I would suggest a car stereo with an auxiliary input jack, as has been mentioned by other monkeys.