Section 90. Listen to Your iPod in the Car


90. Listen to Your iPod in the Car

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

46 Find and Play Music on the iPod


SEE ALSO

89 Use Your iPod as an Alarm Clock

91 Turn Your iPod into a Boom Box with Remote Control


Perhaps more so than any other place, people want to listen to their iPod music in their cars . It's an obvious place for itgiving you far more music capacity than MP3 CDs and far more personalized content than even satellite radio. Having an iPod in the car puts your time in the car back on your own terms, even when you're stuck in traffic.

Many automakers, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Mini, have committed to integrating iPod connectivity into their cars. However, the solutions presented by these cars are a little less than ideal, and those of us without such privileged vehicles have to get by using one of the time-honored car-adapter technologies that are being made more and more iPod-friendly every day. This task looks at a few of the most popular configurations for hooking up your iPod to your car's audio system.

1.
Use a Tape Adapter and Car Charger

Perhaps the most inexpensive solution for iPod-enabled motoring is a tape adapter. This device, sold by any of several companies (such as Monster and Sony) for $20 to $25, connects your iPod's headphone jack to your car's cassette tape deck.

Short of a direct stereo cable connection to your in-dash unit, this solution has the best audio quality available. However, there are plenty of drawbacks: There's an ungainly cord leading from your tape deck to the iPod. The iPod itself needs a separate charger, or at least some kind of protective case so that it doesn't get scratched as it sits in your car's center console. Most cars' tape decks have a tendency to noisily auto-reverse in between songs when they detect silence, interrupting the music. It's a hassle plugging in the dangling cable every time you get into the car. And many cars don't even have tape decks anymore.

NOTE

If possible, disable your car stereo's auto-reverse feature while your iPod is connected; doing so prevents the tape deck from flipping the read head back and forth in between songs.

TIP

Set your iPod to about 7580% volume and control the volume of the music using the dash unit's volume control. Setting the iPod to this volume level is usually enough to drown out the inevitable hiss of the tape's motors and dirt on the pickups, and yet it's not high enough to cause clipping or distortion in the audio system. (The volume level is also low enough that you won't totally blow out your eardrums when you take your iPod out of the car and plug in your headphones without adjusting the volume first.)

90. Listen to Your iPod in the Car


You'll need a separate car power adapter to keep your iPod charged from the center console's cigarette lighter or power outlet while you listen to your music. Good choices include the XtremeMac Car Charger ($19.95) or the Belkin Auto Kit ($39.95), which includes an audio out jack for an FM transmitter.

2.
Use an FM Transmitter and Car Charger

A somewhat more elegant solution than a tape adapter, yet one with some drawbacks of its own, is an FM transmitter. This device connects either to the headphone jack or the Dock connector of your iPod and broadcasts the audio output on a specified FM frequency that isn't used by a local radio station; just tune your car stereo to that frequency to pick up the iPod's signal. An inexpensive and popular example is the Griffin iTrip ($39.95). Some more complex FM transmitters even have integrated power adapters, such as the Sonnet PodFreq ($99.95) for full- size iPods and the Belkin TuneBase FM ($79.95) for the iPod mini.

Drawbacks of FM transmitters mostly have to do with signal strength and frequency response. As with any FM transmission, music sent from your iPod to your radio is subject to atmospheric interference, even if it's only inches away from the antenna or head unit; this can lead to static and broken sound, particularly in the higher registers. Furthermore, FM music by its nature has poor sound response in the upper frequency regions , meaning that your music will sound muted and dull, and instruments such as drums and vocals will be hard to hear properly. Finally (as though all this weren't enough), the iPod's Sound Check feature (see 40 Auto-Level Song Volumes ) is only in effect when music is played through the headphone jack; if your FM transmitter connects to the Dock connector, Sound Check is not applied, and your music may vary greatly in its output volume from one track to the next .

TIP

Some integrated FM adapters, such as the DLO TransPod ($99.00) and Griffin RoadTrip ($79.00), feature rigid, adjustable stalks connecting the iPod in a cradle to the power outlet. This might suit your needs in getting unwanted cables out of the way; but also be sure to consider the value of having the iPod's cradle on a flexible cord so that you can pull it close to you to navigate or control your music. Remember, safety firstdon't go for a solution that causes you to squirm around in your seat or peer away from the road for extended periods while you're barreling along at highway speeds!

3.
Use a Direct Wired Connection

The most ideal solution, if you're lucky enough to have it, is a line-in jack in the in-dash unit itself. Just plug one end of a standard 1/8-inch stereo cable into the iPod's headphone jack, and the other end into the car unit's jack, and you'll be able to play your music without regard to frequency degradation or the idiosyncrasies of cassette tape adapters. However, you'll still have to deal with the dangling cords, both to carry the music to the car stereo, and to power the iPod through the charger.

The solutions put forth by automakers such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz tend to involve a Dock connector in the glove compartment , which conveys the playlist and song information to readouts on the dashboard and allows you to control playback using the buttons integrated with the steering wheel. Yet even these solutions aren't perfectyou get only very limited control over the iPod's navigation, song information displayed in the dash readouts is sparse at best, and the solution uses the Dock connector (which has no Sound Check leveling).

TIP

If you're the adventuresome type, you can wire a standard 1/8-inch audio cable directly into your car stereo's plug behind the head unit, which usually takes the place of a trunk-mounted CD changer in the input selection. This solution is only for experts, thoughcheck the enthusiast sites for your car make and model to see if anyone in the ubiquitous discussion forums has advice for you. Chances are that someone will have tried hooking up an iPod to your car model!

Perhaps until Apple itself brings out its own custom-designed iPod-docking in-dash stereo unit, there will never be a perfect solution for listening to your iPod music on the road. Yet until that day comes, we have plenty of solutions that get the job done well enough for most of our needs.



iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap
iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0672328992
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 152
Authors: Brian Tiemann

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net