MP3 FM transmitter advice

[lotus]

So we picked up the new used van for the woman last week and I will now inherit her old one. You know, the one with the A/C out and only a cassette player. I haven't decided if I will pull the old MP3/CD head unit from my truck since it would be a lot easier just to pick up a decent transmitter for my MP3 player.

I tried out a $30 one a few months back and it sucked. Didn't matter on what frequency I tried it, it just couldn't overpower the radio interference. Ended up taking it back. At any rate, I have a non-iPod music player and am looking for something of better quality to use so I don't have to pull and install stereos outside in January. For you southern boys and MTK, January is the time when it's cold everywhere else.

Do you guys have any recommendations for these? I want something like my old Sirius receiver, prior to them being nerfed. Seriously, I set that thing to broadcast on the most powerful hip-hop station in town and when I was at a red light you could hear my 80's hair bands being piped out of the rap-mobiles next to me. It was awesome.

[Clem]

Everyone I've tried has sucked. If you do stumble on to a good one, I'd love to hear about it.

[lotus]

Thinking about this one at the moment...

http://www.amazon.com/Soundfly-Player-T ... 877&sr=8-3

[JohnnyHustler]

Unfortunately, I've never found one as good as even today's Sirius/XM built in transmitters - post nerfing.

[rabb]

The Sirius XM one is the best I have ever had, the rest suck ass

[miketheknife]

I found that with these things expensive doesn't mean better. I had 2 or 3 that never worked, and then my wife ended up picking me up an el cheapo from Fry's Electronics that works better than the 40 dollar belkin I had with the Ipod.

Not sure what the brand name is but i'll check on it when i get a chance

[lotus]

I ordered that one I linked to. I will let you know how it works.

Unboxing?

[RayRay]

I'm not sure if there is anything like this for non-XM setup but I use (and highly recommend) the SureConnect that I had to splice into my existing wires. That way there is no question about signal-when the unit is on-it takes over.

http://shop.siriusxm.com/xm/ctl10600/cp ... ureconnect

If you can find something like that it would be perfect.

[lotus]

The whole idea here was to avoid wiring, though. If I'm going to get under the dash, I may as well take an hour and swap in the one from the truck.

This was the best reviewed wireless model on Amazon (and had over 700 reviews) so we'll see. I like that it also has USB and SD slots built right in. Fingers crossed that it works. Shipping was free, so I'm at least not out anything if it goes back.

[lotus]

This thing works really well, I am surprised to say. Haven't tried the USB slot because it would stick out really far but the SD card and MP3 player plugs work really well. The interface on it sucks as it's all a little tiny old-fashioned LCD clock sort of thing but there is not much to it, so it's not bad. The FM band is very crowded around here so I am pretty happy that it's doing so well. I got a tiny bit of static on it the other day on my way to work, but that is in a place that has three or four giant broadcast towers right on top of each other. Even my old Starmate couldn't handle that.

Anyway, for $35 this has my thumbs up, so far.

[Clem]

Any updates? You still just as happy with this thing?

[rabb]

Any updates? You still just as happy with this thing?

[lotus]

Yeah, I like it a lot. It's hard to say what the sound quality is really like since it is being piped through a POS factory Chrysler AM/FM/Cassette. It sounds OK to me, but I will probably try to get some slightly better speakers in there sometime soon. I will also probably end up pulling the head unit out of the truck once the weather warms up and just swapping it in after all, but I'll keep this thing just because it's so easy to keep a blue ton of stuff on it.

Still gets fuzzy in the same place every morning as I pass under all the towers, but otherwise it has been great.