wave files in mobile?
Herb Asherton
I can burn a CD, but looking for something simpler, a thumb drive/ memory
stick, etc that's cheap. recommendations? thank you
Don Pearce
Any of those will do, but make the files MP3, not wav. The memory will
be about ten times as cheap that way (price per stored tune).
d
Laurence Payne
What input options does your car audio system offer?
Herb Asherton
news:l1s9i5tmmgqpdrc45...@4ax.com...
cassette
Richard Crowley
> "Laurence Payne" wrote ...
>> "Herb Asherton" wrote:
>>>I want to play wave files from the PC in the car on my way to work. I
>>>know
>>>I can burn a CD, but looking for something simpler, a thumb drive/ memory
>>>stick, etc that's cheap. recommendations? thank you
>>
>> What input options does your car audio system offer?
>
> cassette
Write MP3 files to a cheap player and use a "cassette adapter".
Unless you have golden ears and an unusually quiet vehicle, you
won't appreciate the difference between WAV and MP3.
Mentalguy2k8
"Richard Crowley" <rcro...@xp7rt.net> wrote in message
news:7okbaaF...@mid.individual.net...
Or buy a cheap FM transmitter, plug it into your MP3 player or phone and
listen to the music through your car radio.
Mike Rivers
> I want to play wave files from the PC in the car on my way to work.
> I know
> I can burn a CD, but looking for something simpler
I've seen a couple of new cars that have a USB connector on the
radio just for that purpose - to play MP3 files from a thumb drive
through the car radio system. But since your car doesn't have one,
you can't do that.
Some cars from as far as 10 years back have an 1/8" mini jack that's
usualy called an "iPod input." If you have one of those (some of them
are really well hidden - it took me two days of driving a rental Camry
before I found it) you can plug an MP3 player into that.
If your radio doesn't have an analog audio jack, you can use a cassette
adapter, a thing that looks like a cassette that has a cable with an 1/8"
plug attached. Plug that into a player and you can play the audio through
the cassette. You can get a simple MP3 player that looks like a thumb
drive for as little as $10 (the cassette adapter will cost more than that
unless you can find a giveaway that's no longer needed) or a little fancier
player with a display so you can see what's playing for $15-20 and more.
Jay Ts
> "Richard Crowley" <rcro...@xp7rt.net> wrote
>> "Herb Asherton" wrote...
>>> "Laurence Payne" wrote ...
>>>> "Herb Asherton" wrote:
>>>>>I want to play wave files from the PC in the car on my way to work.
>>>>>I know
>>>>>I can burn a CD, but looking for something simpler, a thumb drive/
>>>>>memory stick, etc that's cheap. recommendations? thank you
>>>>
>>>> What input options does your car audio system offer?
>>>
>>> cassette
>>
>> Write MP3 files to a cheap player and use a "cassette adapter". Unless
>> you have golden ears and an unusually quiet vehicle, you won't
>> appreciate the difference between WAV and MP3.
>
> Or buy a cheap FM transmitter, plug it into your MP3 player or phone and
> listen to the music through your car radio.
I've tried both the cassette adapter and FM transmitter, and I
found the FM transmitter a much nicer solution. But eventually
I decided I wanted to plug my mp3 player into the stereo, so
I pulled the stereo out and added a 1/8" input. This will not
work with all stereos, and also requires skills in electronics.
Fortunately, it's possible to replace the stereo, and last
time I checked, there were many available with mp3 player inputs
for around $100.
Now about the ultra-cheap MP3 player that you think will be "simpler",
be careful to spend what you need to spend to get one that does what
you need it to do.
Recently I picked up one of the least expensive models, and
although the flash drive holds 2 GB of .mp3 and/or .wma files,
the poor little thing's software is horribly inadequate. It
takes a miniumum of 11 button clicks with no fewer than 3
buttons just to change from one album to another. If you're
in a car, you are MUCH better off having to change a CD. (Because
you'll still be alive afterwards.)
So select a model that has a good-sized screen, and try to check
it to try out the mp3 player software that it runs. Avoid bottom
feeders for now.
If you really need to play .wav files, look for a model that
can do that. There are some. Again, not the cheapest models.
If I missed something and there's a decent cheap MP3 player,
I'd also like to know about it. ;)
Jay Ts
--
To contact me, use this web page:
http://www.jayts.com/contact.php
Mike Rivers
> I've tried both the cassette adapter and FM transmitter, and I
> found the FM transmitter a much nicer solution.
Maybe I had a crummier FM transmitter and a better cassette adapter
than you did, but I find the cassette to be far more satisfactory. The
transmitter I have has five preset frequencies and I've been places
where none of them were clear - maybe nominally clear, but the car
radio had enough front end bandwidth so that there was some interference.
Also, when on a road trip, I'd occasionally pass through an area where
another station would come in over the little transmitter, not enough to be
heard, but enough to be annoying. Also, the transmitter requires power,
either plugging into a cigarette lighter socket (it came with that adapter)
or a AAA battery. And on top of all that, it just didn't sound very good.
Maybe that's all you get for $12. I bought it while on a trip when I had
a rental car that I thought had an audio input jack (I always travel with
a cable since those jacks became common) and picked up a cheap
FM adapter at a Fry's store. The cassette adapter that I have came with
a Sony portable CD player I bought many years ago. It has a little
thumbwheel that adjusts the head position so you can match it up
a little closer with the player.
> But eventually
> I decided I wanted to plug my mp3 player into the stereo, so
> I pulled the stereo out and added a 1/8" input. This will not
> work with all stereos, and also requires skills in electronics.
You're a better contortionist than I am, Jay. Mine has parts
spread all over the car and not even the local car stereo shop
knew how to add a jack to it. Someone pointed me to a company
that made a kit for my radio but it was a very complicated installation
and cost a lot of money, over $100 as I recall.
> Fortunately, it's possible to replace the stereo, and last
> time I checked, there were many available with mp3 player inputs
> for around $100.
Not for a Lexus. :)
> Now about the ultra-cheap MP3 player that you think will be "simpler",
> be careful to spend what you need to spend to get one that does what
> you need it to do.
Yup. I load mine up with 2 or 3 hour radio programs so I can just let it
run and I don't bother to choose which one I'm listening to. I have one
that looks like a thumb drive (no display) that requires that you do
everything
with a couple of buttons and it's hard to remember what to do other than to
press the Play button. Fortunately that's all I need to do most of the
time. This
was another "emergency-on-a-trip" buy and its audio output was quite low. I
had to turn the radio volume up nearly all the way to get it up to a
reasonable
listening volume at highway speed, and it was pretty noisy. The Fwd/Rew
buttons
also serve as the volume control but I couldn't get them to work. Turned
out
(after taking the manual in with me when I stopped for lunch) that you
can't
adjust the volume with the music playing, you have to pause it. Dumb!!!!!!
I just picked up one at Staples on sale last week for $15. It's only 2 GB
but it has a clear display and pretty straightforward controls, but there's
still a menu so I don't fool with it much while I'm driving, I just let
it play.
Curiously, the manual tells you to only use the supplied earbuds because
the amplifier is optimized for their impedance. That's a polite way of
saying
"this player may not get very loud with your own earphones" and indeed
it doesn't. I need to run it with its volume control up full most of the
time. That
might be how they get 10 hours out of its rechargeable built-in battery
(which
is a good feature). It's a TrekStor i.Beat emo, and, yeah, I broke my
rule about
not buying "i" stuff - I didn't know. The ad only had the model number.
> If you really need to play .wav files, look for a model that
> can do that. There are some. Again, not the cheapest models.
This one can, as well as WMA files, and some video format that apparently
these things all use. It comes with a CD with a program to convert the more
conventional video formats to play on this little barely 1 square inch
screen.
No thanks. I never even tried it.
Richard Crowley
> This one can, as well as WMA files, and some video format that apparently
> these things all use. It comes with a CD with a program to convert the
> more
> conventional video formats to play on this little barely 1 square inch
> screen.
> No thanks. I never even tried it.
Those things are like those ultrasonic ringtones.
Made for users 1/3 (or maybe 1/4) our ages.
Mark
one important feature for a car MP3 player is that it should REMEMBER
where you stopped playing last so it can start there at then next
power up. That way, when you stop the car and go into the store, and
come out, the MP3 player sill pick up where it left off without you
having to hunt through directories.
Mark
nebulax
You could get something like an iPod Nano, install Rockbox (
http://www.rockbox.org/ ) on it, and you'd be able to play WAV, FLAC,
WMA, and lots of other codecs.
-Neb
Herb Asherton
TH1702-A at the local Target. It actually allows more adjustment than I
thought it would, so I think it will do nicely with the car cassette
adapter. Only one drawback I've found: although it acknowledges and plays
wave files when I drag and drop them onto the drive, I seem to only be able
to use one wave file and the rest have to be in MP3. The other wave does
show up on the PC, but not on the unit's menu. Not sure why this occurs, so
I just converted the other file to MP3 and it then shows up. Why one wave
file and not the other beats me.
Herb
"Herb Asherton" <j@.net> wrote in message
news:hg2q49$dk0$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Jay Ts
> You could get something like an iPod Nano, install Rockbox (
> http://www.rockbox.org/ ) on it, and you'd be able to play WAV, FLAC,
> WMA, and lots of other codecs.
Thanks for that. It won't run on my ultra-cheap player,
but its poorly-designed firmware got me thinking
that if the hardware were open, then I could have installed
open source firmware and been very happy with it. So it's
good to see this project exists.
Mike Rivers
> one important feature for a car MP3 player is that it should REMEMBER
> where you stopped playing last so it can start there at then next
> power up.
Yes, that's a very handy feature. They're self-powered, so unlike the car
radio, they don't turn off when you turn off the car's ignition, so you
have to
remember to turn it off. I bought a different one before I bought the
current
one and discovered that it didn't "resume" after powering off. I e-mailed
the manufacturer's tech suppot to ask if there was a setup option that
made that work, and was told "no, not on that model." So it went back
to the store the next day.
Just when you think they're all alike, you find that they aren't.