I want to use my iPod in my car, but for some reason the tape adapters are not working, so I was going to purchase an iTrip. I've heard that they have horrible sound quality. Is this true?
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iTrip Sound Quality
- Thread starter believo
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believo said:
They can be as great as the best radio station you've ever heard, and as bad as the worst radio station you've ever heard.
Why are your tape adapters not working? If you have a tape adapter already, I highly recommend that you stick with that. FM transmitters are sticky, and you don't get as great sound quality as with a wired transmission.
for some reason the tape spits itself back out, i've tried multiple tape adapters, none seem to work.
believo said:
Some car tape players have that quirkiness. Play your iPod if the car can't sense audio (if it is silent or too quiet), it will eject the tape, thinking that the tape is over or blank.
So, play your iPod, keep the volume audible on the iPod, and pop the tape in. It shouldn't eject if your iPod is playing. If you mute the iPod for too long, or pause it for too long, it will eject the tape again.
Hope this solves your problem. If you still have troubles, then I'll give you my opinion on which FM transmitter to buy.
Mine didn't work so well, but then I fixed it.
You can build a booster so loud it'll usurp other radio stations in the immediate area. Great for silencing gangsta rap in the car next to you.
With erecting the antenna alone, I was able to amplify the signal to more than useable, however I had to "modify" the enclosure.
[EDIT
The iTrip's antenna should be extended to be 69-85cm for optimal performance.
Your iTrip wont work so well if your windows have a certain kind of aftermarket tint that contains a metal, or if your antenna is tuned a certain way
I got a lot of info from here:
http://www.ipodding.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=2149}
[EDIT 2
yet even more info here
some great itrip mods
http://ipodding.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1176]
You can build a booster so loud it'll usurp other radio stations in the immediate area. Great for silencing gangsta rap in the car next to you.
With erecting the antenna alone, I was able to amplify the signal to more than useable, however I had to "modify" the enclosure.
[EDIT
The iTrip's antenna should be extended to be 69-85cm for optimal performance.
Your iTrip wont work so well if your windows have a certain kind of aftermarket tint that contains a metal, or if your antenna is tuned a certain way
I got a lot of info from here:
http://www.ipodding.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=2149}
[EDIT 2
yet even more info here
some great itrip mods
http://ipodding.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1176]
would the itrip be ok for spoken words e.g. audio book's ?? i downloaded all five harry potter books to my itunes and want to listen to it in the car, unfortunately its a single cd head (no cassette adaptor) and my car (Ford Fiesta 2003 53 Reg) has a built in head unit thats split in 3 so i can't replace it damn ford i hate you! 
garybUK said:would the itrip be ok for spoken words e.g. audio book's ?? i downloaded all five harry potter books to my itunes and want to listen to it in the car, unfortunately its a single cd head (no cassette adaptor) and my car (Ford Fiesta 2003 53 Reg) has a built in head unit thats split in 3 so i can't replace it damn ford i hate you!
hp (harry potter not hewlett packard) fan..nice...
i donno
but the quality is not that bad. As someone said earlier it can have the quality of the best radio station you will ever receive. I bought mine two months ago and it works alright. I have to turn up my volume of the radio a lot and when I unplug it I have to turn the volume of the stereo down very quickly. The main problem with the itrip to me is thta its just a pain to get it started. I use it only for the days when I know I will be in the car for some time. Everytime I take the itrip in the car I have to run the station I chose, so the ipod finds the radio, and then go back to playlist to chose the song. It does not seem much like this but when you have to do it for a 5 minutes drive you just end up not doing it anymore. The best thing would still to be able to plug it, like in the BMW's. There should be some devices that allow you to plug it in so the ipod charges an you get the quality sound.
but the quality is not that bad. As someone said earlier it can have the quality of the best radio station you will ever receive. I bought mine two months ago and it works alright. I have to turn up my volume of the radio a lot and when I unplug it I have to turn the volume of the stereo down very quickly. The main problem with the itrip to me is thta its just a pain to get it started. I use it only for the days when I know I will be in the car for some time. Everytime I take the itrip in the car I have to run the station I chose, so the ipod finds the radio, and then go back to playlist to chose the song. It does not seem much like this but when you have to do it for a 5 minutes drive you just end up not doing it anymore. The best thing would still to be able to plug it, like in the BMW's. There should be some devices that allow you to plug it in so the ipod charges an you get the quality sound.
It really depends where you live (how saturated the radio bandwidth is).
I get decent quality off my iPod with the iTrip most of the time; if you live in a suburban/rural area, you'll get decent quality. However, don't even waste your time if you live in a city like San Francisco or New York.
I get decent quality off my iPod with the iTrip most of the time; if you live in a suburban/rural area, you'll get decent quality. However, don't even waste your time if you live in a city like San Francisco or New York.
itrip is sucky sometimes and great at others, great when ur on the open road heheh not in the city
arrrghhhh!!! iTrip's have been banned from the UK!! due to them contraveaning the UK Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949. Anything that broadcasts on a FM range like this needs to be licensed and anyone in the uk who has bought one and wants to use them legally has to pay £500 ($808) a year in royalties.... oh well portable speakers it is!!
edesignuk said:I've got an iTrip, complete sh*t
That's got to be an extreme exaggeration. It's not that bad. Why are you so irritated by it?
When I used to work at CompUSA, I used to have customers bringing their iTrips back, saying that they were unpleased with the performance. With most cases, they had the volume maxed out on the iPod, which results in ultra-crappy sound (staticky, etc.). The iTrip's own instructions say to decrease iPod volume to 75% or so, resulting in much better quality sound.
That's just a shot in the dark. If that isn't your beef with the iTrip, please tell me why you hate it so much. I don't think it's any worse than any other average FM transmitter.
Now that's some wild stuff. At that price, I would just buy a new deck for my car that has an auxiliary input jack fraction of price, and huge improvement of sound quality!garybUK said:
jenniff said:
It could be that bad. I fully understand eDesign's frustration with it. I was using my iTrip on an unused band in the UK (not even radio stations can use it, it's just that my foreign radio can tune the signal) at the lowest end of the spectrum. Absolutely zero interference. And the damn thing still couldn't provide a signal better than my £5 cassette adapter. It was just worse, all the time. I could have strapped it to the aeriel and I doubt I'd have noticed an improvement. It's seriously underpowered.
As for getting one in the UK, all you need to do is buy it from everything-ipod.com or some such company. Selling them is a grey area (the official Griffin distributors balked), only using them is definitely illegal. This is in main due to the law not taking into account very small gain radii. Pirate radio and the iTrip are one and the same in the eyes of the law.
If you're a moral man, you can't use one. If you're a practical man, how exactly will you be caught?
EDIT: If I owned my own car, rather than stealing my Mum's each time I come back from Uni, I would seriously just sort out a hardwire solution, like the new BMWs do for you. It's not that hard and not that expensive either, provided you have a decent stereo to begin with.
Chris
I live in a radio saturated area in western New Hampshire. Not the big city, but as big as it gets round here. I've used iTrips with my 10 2G (deceased), my 30 (stolen), my friend uses it with his 15 and I'll use it with my new 40. We only have two useable radio bands, but I find it to always work very well. Being the nonaudiophile I am, I can't really tell the dif between CD and iTrip when it's working well, since I just get into the music. Some cars screw with it though, like my friend's '67 bug. I'd say go for it tho!
If you're going to spend all that time modifying the itrip, why don't you just hard wire the ipod into your head unit and split the power supply from the lighter? That seems to be the most logical, best quality approach, not to mention you don't have ugly wires everywhere running into your cigarette lighter, etc. I had an FM transmitter and it sucked. Hard wiring is the way to go.slughead said:
Your car has a nasty little feature that keeps it from using adaptors, it's their way of forcing you into buying an in-dash CD player later on. But anyway. My iTrip works pretty well when driving around locally, but when driving across distances, i find i have to find a new station every 100 miles or so, which is a bother... Sound isn't too bad, as was said, like the radio. The biggest problem i see people doing with their iTrip is turning the iPod volume too high-- it has to be between 40-60% or you get horrible distortion. So, you wind up having to turn your radio up a bit higher.
paul
paul
paulwhannel said:
I highly doubt that. I really think that it's the fact that the iPod was not playing.
I know because last road trip I took, I had that problem. The tape player kept ejecting the tape. Lo and behold, some fluke of nature, I decided to play a song on the iPod and THEN insert the tape, and it magically worked. Wild stuff, eh?
I really, really think that's the problem.
On a personal note, I really, really hate FM, and always opt for a wired solution.
And I really wish this dude would reply, I'm dying to know if that solved the problem or if you're right. What's that, Occam's Razor? All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. Thus, I'm right, mwahaha.
(Watch, now you'll be right, and I'll be stupid).
edesignuk said:I've got an iTrip, complete sh*t
Wow, that's kind of a strong statement! I'm looking into getting it, but we'll see how this thread pans out...
I didn't fall in love with my iTrip in the car, so I looked into it and was able to directly wire my iPod to my head unit-- AWESOME. But I still like to use my iTrip for bringing my iPod to parties, etc. If you're used to high quality audio, a wired stereo solution is always the best bet, though.
believo said:
I tried a variety of itrip like transmitters. They all were terrible. In my view using an FM transmitter is the absolute last resort. I used a tape adapter for a while and had the same problem with the tape getting spit out. Finally I took the adapter apart and took out the little gear wheels and all the other guts except for the little magnetic head. I then taped the adapter back together and that solved my problem.