im looking at getting a mp3 player of some sort,this will be my first attempt with this,i know the general idea of how they work,download music on to your computer,and upload into your player,that about it,i know they hold more songs,andwont skip,and wont ever scratch,but i dont know what are the better one's to look for,and i dont know what all i would need to work it into my car audio system,i have seen a couple different ones on ebay,going for 35-40 dollars on up,are these worth anything?also i have also heard this one that you can actually take music off regular cd's,is this true and would it be better?thanks

 

i know some of the newer alpine decks are compatable with ipods.
i think that you put the radio station on the deck to a certain frequency (radio station) and you pick up the songs from the ipod.

a few of my friends do this in their cars and they say it works, but i've never witnessed it first hand.

also you could just get a mp3 deck for your car. just d/l songs to the computor but a 100+ on a cd and play that for a while (that's what i do).

 

MP3 players rock. You can burn 250-300 songs per CD [with the larger 700meg cd's].

 

There are multiple ways to do what you are looking at...

There are true MP3 Hard-drive headunits, those are like the Ipod where they don't skip or anything. I don't know much about these, they have not been out very long, and I personally haven't installed any of them yet.

There are the MP3 compadible CD decks as well. These are typically CD/RW compadible, so to me this is a great investment (I personally have one and love it). The CD/RWs hold a TON of music, depending on what the bit-rate the music is recorded at. Also if you are worried about skipping, my Alpine rarely skips, I think in 3 years of hard driving in the Bird (No rubber in the suspension, full race setup) it's only skipped like 3 times.

I know Alpine A-series (Any units that have the format XXA-XXXX) have their Ai-Net bus controls. There is an adapter for your I-Pod that you can buy for their 2004+ model year headunits that is a direct plug-n-play.

 

i looked at the decks,however wasnt sure how they worked either,can you just take a regular cd,and load that music into the deck mp3??or do you need to upload in other ways? i really like pioneer head units,are these unit half decent with the mp3 systems?thanks alot for your guys input.
phil

 

I have a Pioneer deck that plays MP3 encoded discs. Never skips. Also plays cd/rw discs. The newer models have provisions for an Ipod or other players. If you're going on a trip, just pop the MP3 disc in, and you're set for hours.

 

Give us some examples of the HUs you are interested in, and I can probably tell you how it works.

 

Small world -- I was going to ask a similar question. I have an Apline MP3 / CD head unit and it works great. I have a CD of over 100 MP3 from last sumer I still play.

I'm thinking of getting an iPod to make consolidating my music library (work / home / car) easier. I saw they make add-one so the iPod can talk directly to the Pioneer head unit without an FM encoder. Are these really better than just getting an FM encoder? The advantage to the FM encoder is I can use the iPod in the IROC or Honda as well as play through the stereo at home.

Other than ripping MP3's to CD's, what solutions do you guys have to playing MP3 in the car?