Going back to the original question about iPod in car, if you're feeling adventurous try adding an auxillary jack to your existing car radio:

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000220046664/

Speaking of auxillary jacks in car stereo's I was shocked to see a friend of mine's, bottom of the range Goodmans car stereo had an aux jack! Its shocking the thing doesn't even have skip protection, something I'm sure you'd agree is fairly important in a car stereo.

This has got to be a good thing and hopefully points towards the future for car stereo's.

Have a look at this device here.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=44128&TabID=1&source=27&doy=search

I've not tired one, but it looks interesting and is legal!

I agree the device is interesting but come on! It's just a downright pain in the a***. This thing doesn’t turn your mp3 player audio out into an FM transmitter like for example an iTrip. Instead of sending your music over the air, the device piggybacks the FM-in directly on your head end, and modulates the signals to FM. The advantage is to cut fm signal noise and as such improve quality, but whats the point after all that mucking about you still only get fm sound quality. Most car radio's have line in now anyway so why not just do that?

Whats the point? - because not all car radios don't have a line ins!

Or put another way - if your head unit doesn't have a line in then you don't care what most cars have - you need to deal with your own situation. Which either means buy a completely new head unit, or install this device...

Anyway, I just point out it exists and is legal..

Maybe I still think it's a bit of a waste of time a normal fm transmitter would be much easier and only give a slightly inferior sound. It is illegal, sure, but I don't think you'd even get arrested for using one let alone fined. Live life on the edge :op

Just seen this new iTripLCD which looks like it's going to be an even better in car solution than the original iTrip. Maybe even more interesting is the BTI Tunestir a jack of all trades device which is an inline remote, an fm reciever and an fm transmitter.

geez louiz (sp Mr. Brown?) just keep it simple and how do I here my opod through my car stereo? is it difficult or can I just plug it into my cig lighter and hang trinkets on it to give the plug some charachter, maybe support my stupid hulking Nextel from/on it. I'm mechanical, but not inclined to it. And what's "impedence" .....or is that 'nother site...........smiles

Erm, I don't really think I understand what you're saying but I'll take a guess that you just want to know how to link an iPod to the car. Here's my top 3 ways to do so (in no particular order):

1. Buy an iTrip - this will transmit a radio signal from your iPod which can be picked up on any radio in roughly a 10 metre area and therefore your car. Sound quality is amazing but it is acceptable.

2. A tape adapter - if your car has a tape deck then this may be the best solution. A lead runs from the headphone jack to a cassette which is put into the deck of the car, the sound quality is good.

3. If you have an aux input just buy a 3.5 to phono cable and voila.

All are available from here

I've been waiting for the day when we would be able to utilise our MP3s in cars and other options so was real pleased to hear about the itrip/BTI tunestir etc. Sadly I'm a dunce when it comes to all this highly technical talk but can keep up with the assessments.

Now I'm stuck 'cos my MP3 is not a fancy iPod, just your average HDD070 from Phillips so will these transmitters fit your basic bit o' kit as well as it does the iPod??? Do tell.

iTrip only works with iPod as it needs to access the menu on the iPods screen. However any other fm transmitter should be fully compatible with any mp3 player, or indeed any device with a headphone socket!

There's an example here. Basically it plugs into the headphone socket and the device itself has a small display on it. All you have to do is choose a frequency on the display, e.g. 90fm, then tune your radio to 90fm and all things being equal you should be rocking and rolling.

And am I right in thinking these devices are still illegal or have things changes recently?

They are still technically illegal but not morally, nothing to worry about really.

Thanks Euler ~ I'm all fired up now & on the hunt for the best price. Currently it seems to be around £28-£30, so I'll do some more searching.

The iTrip-like devices depend upon you finding an unused frequency on your car FM. So, not easy in/around London... and the transmitter and receiver frequencies need to be changed if you drive into a zone that has a conflicting radio station transmission. In my opinion, this sort of messing about whilst driving is dangerous. Rather hit and miss - and there is a quality penalty as the output is converted to FM, transmitted/received/decoded, etc...

An alternative is to get a good car head unit with a front mounted aux input... a really neat one is the JVC KD-G611 (Halfords offer at £150 with free fitting)... but you can get for £110 with a 'free' pair of car door speakers (plus p&p?) from :-
http://www.lowcostcaraudio.co.uk/shop.php?category=/cd+tuners/
The JVC KD-G611 plays mp3 CDs, ISO fixing, has remote control, etc and sounds much better than similarly priced rivals to my ears (I had a listen last Saturday!).



Or get a car head unit with an iPod connector, the guys at :- http://digitalsounddirect.co.uk/shop/home.html
have a Sony CDX-F5550 complete with ipod adapter for £150 (plus p&p?).

Or don't worry about connecting your iPod and just get a car head unit that plays DVDs of mp3s, (each DVD can hold about 1000 songs!), such as the Sony MEX-R1 which can be found for about £220 and later (after winning the lottery!) with the addition of a screen can play in-car video DVDs too!!

And finally, remember that if a thief sees a mounting adapter (for sat-nav, pocket pc or iPod, etc.) in your car, even if empty, he/she will still break in to the car to see if the unit is 'hidden' in the glove box...

Hope these comments/ideas help - have a nice day.

Another alternative for hardwired connection for head units that don't have a front-mounted line-in is available. Some units have a connector for a remote CD-changer at the back. You can use this.

In this case and if you don't have a remote multi-CD changer, then one can buy a lead with mini-jack on one end for the ipod, and a special connector on the other end, e.g. "mini-blue" on Blaupunkt. Just got one from ebay for my Blaupunkt Casablanca CD50 for about £8.