Alternative to iTrip

[H. Dewey Norton]

I bought an iTrip for my iPod and hoped to be able to broadcast music to my car's stereo. Sometimes, the iTrip works really well, but frequently, there are pops or other annoying noises so I find myself using it less and less. Three weeks ago, just before a road trip to Michigan, I went out to MicroCenter and bought MaCally's "Car Cassette Adapter" which looked like an audio cassette with a wire attached; you stick the cassette end into the cassette player in the car, the other end plugs into the iPod, and there's no more interference.

Well, that's what I had hoped. Turned out that sound only came out of the speakers on the right side of the car and there was a little bit of a hiss (although I could only be certain of that by turning the sound way up, while NOT playing any music on the iPod). I returned the adapter to Micro Center yesterday so at least I got my money back.

I noticed that the plug of the adapter was divided by some insulating material into three segments. The plug on the iTrip is divided into 4 separate parts (and also has four little metal contact points in an oblong male end that also plugs into the iPod; that gives 8 contact points total for the iTrip [although I have no idea if they're all being used] vs. 3 for the MaCally cassette adapter). The iTrip DOES give normal stereo sound, but there are all those damn pops and other strange noises. Does anyone know of a different manufacturer's cassette adapter that DOES make true stereo sound possible?

[Michael Martin]

I can tell you that my expereince with an iTrip parallels yours -- it's a great device and solves the "Ipod to car stereo" problem, but only when there's not a better solution out there.  My "better solution" consists of the Belkin kits.

Belkin makes one part that is the cassette adapter (probably the same thing you got at Microcenter) -- a false cassette body with a wire coming out that has 3 connections (L/R/Gnd-Common) out of it that can go into the headphone jack of an ipod.

Depending on your model of iPod, the second part Belkin makes is the power adapter.  The one feature I **REALLY** like on the belkin model is that in the part that plugs into the cigarette lighter, there's an amplifier on the bottom end of it -- this is where you plug in your casette adapter (as opposed to the headphone jack of the ipod.  This is a cleaner way of bringing audio out of the ipod -- there's only one cable that uses the iPod universal (??) connector that supplies  power and pulls audio.  The Amplifier then takes the audio and boosts it very well into the cassette adapter.

If you're lucky enough to have a car stereo that has a LINE-IN you can bypass the cassette adapter and go straight from the amplifier port into the RCA L/R connectors on your stereo head end line in .. (then there's Alpine, Kenwood, and others that are putting iPod "inputs" directly into the head end..)

Also -- a side comment about only getting one speaker of audio out of your casette adapter.  I would think that either the plug end wasnt put into the iPod's jack as tight as it needed to be, or the adapter had extra plastic on the plug causing it not to seat all the way, or there's a tracking issue between the cassette adapter and  your tape unit in your car.  I dont think that I've ever seen a cassette adapter that was DOA like that, but I'm sure it happens.

Good luck, hope this helps.

Mike

[H. Dewey Norton]

Thanks, Mike. Last fall, I read a posting about some manufacturer's gizmo (it was probably Belkin's) that would charge the iPod's battery AND provide a decent sound connection to the car's stereo, but forgot to print it out at the time. When I went out to Micro Center a few weeks ago and bought the cassette adapter, I also got a charger (probably also from MaCally, but I don't have it in front of me) which DOES charge the battery, but that's all it does (and I threw away all the packaging and don't feel that I can return it now). I had thought of trying to remove the side panels around the car's center console to see if the radio has jacks in the back that would allow a direct connection, but hoped that cassette adapter would be an easier way of getting decent sound.

Now that we're back from that trip (in my father's car, which was so noisy that I didn't even bother trying to use the iPod), I'll just live with the iTrip (or simply use the radio) for the time being. I'm a little preoccupied with other things, but may eventually try the line-in option.

[Charlotte Ford]

Hi.

Last year, I wanted to get an FM Transmitter for my 4 G iPod. I researched out FM transmitters on a number of sites. At the time, there were quite a few available, including the best selling one, iTrip. But, on just about every message board I came across, people were raving about si-link's FM transmitter. People said that it transmitted much more clearly than iTrip and could be had for a quarter of the price. Finding it on sale at Target ($14.99) I bought two of them. And they have been great ever since!
It's a small FM Transmitter that is powered by two AAA batteries. It has a single connection to the ipod and that is to the headphone port, so it works on any of the ipod generations from the shuffle to the nano, including my new 5 G ipod video. Glad I got two! The sound is quite clear and, of course, in stereo. The radios in both our cars have one of the pre-sets set to 87.9, so it's a snap to attach the fm transmitter to the ipod, turn the radio on and press the pre-set button. There is a dial on the transmitter so it's easy to get just the right frequency. Most people can't tell that it's coming from the ipod, but think it's a radio station, it is so clear. Now that said.. occassionally there is some static. I discovered that if I cover the transmitter, like leaving it in the wallet that I store it in, while it is connected to the ipod, the sound cleans up very nicely. This is probably because the transmitter is experiencing some interference from the engine or other devices in the immediate area, and covering it helps block some of this interference.
I wasn't going to post this unless I could find this transmitter available somewhere. Apparently the manufacturer doesn't exist anymore but I did find several of these si-link fm transmitters available on ebay, just this evening. One for $5.00 so far. Check it out. Hope this helps. -Charlotte