Is there any way to play a MP3 player thru Auto CD Player

[dadiOH]

The 64 kbps would have something to do with it.

[HerHusband]

These days I use 320kbps for everything, as the difference in file sizes is only a few MB and that's insignificant these days.

Many years ago I was tasked with encoding sermon's for a church. I used the True Speech codec which could encode an hour speech to a very small file size. Not so good for music, but it worked great for speech.

Of course, I recently looked at the website for that church and they now use MP4 video files at hundreds of MB each. :) Times change.

Anthony Watson

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I remember a stereo tape deck that had a 5-pin DIN connector for all the audio connections (2 input, 2 output).

[Paintedcow]

I remember seeing "DIN" used on old microphone jacks/plugs many years ago, but never knew what it meant. I just accepted it as the name for that plug type. I think the old round keyboard plugs were of a similar size (and even appearance). But I never knew the face plate size of car radios was also using "DIN" for it's size.

But now, I'm left with one huge question. What are the actual sizes of a FULL DIN (ONE DIN), one and a half DIN, Two DIN, and so on?????

Without running out to the car with a tape measure, I will make a guess that the face of my factory radio is 'about' 2 inches in height, and 6 inches wide..... And since I had it out of the dash recently, I know that the depth is important, bcause there is no spare room in back.

This is where it all gets confusing. How to know what will fit and what wont. This pretty much eliminates buying a stereo on Ebay or Amazon or Craigslist, since I will need to touch it, measure it, and so on. Then, once I buy it, I'll have to go to a store or go online to order the faceplate adaptor and wiring adaptor.

I have not shopped around much, but I see Walmart has some car stereos, and they are pricy. Add in the cost of the faceplates and wiring adaptors and this might end up costing $200 or more.... I dont really think I want to spend that kind of money on a 20 year old vehicle, just for a radio/stereo. I do plan to keep this car for awhile, and it's in very good condition for its age, but plans change as things break, and/or accidents occur, etc.... I know the stereo can be moved to another vehicle, but that means buying another wiring aadaptor. faceplate, etc.... The last time I saw those wiring adptors, they were upward around $50.

In the past, I'd toss a Boombox on my seat, toss in a cassette and have music that was also portable. Although those batteries did get costly. I wonder what portable devices they have now, and I do have an auto 12vdc to 120Vac inverter. I'm sure they make something like that which costs much less than $200.

[rbowman]

Single DIN is 2 1/8 x 7 1/8" (50 x 180 mm). Double is twice as high.

1.5 is an OEM screwing with you to make mounting a after market radio a pain in the ass but usually there are dash kits that work. For your edification, DIN stands for Deutsches Institut für Normung.

Metra is the big player in dash kits and harnesses. You may also want to get an into car or into radio harness to match the existing connectors or you can just solder the wires together if you have a wiring diagram for the car and radio. At least you have had the radio out. That can be an interesting project in newer cars where you need to peel the dash to even get to the damn thing, hopefully without breaking any tabs so you can put it all back together.

[dadiOH]

Five bucks up. You can get battery powered speakers too.

[HerHusband]

I'm sure you could look up the actual dimensions of DIN on Google, but it really doesn't matter. Any single DIN sized stereo is going to fit in a single DIN sized opening. Same with double DIN stereos. That's the beauty of a standard size.

It's like you can buy "letter", "legal", or A4 sized paper without knowing the actual dimensions and know that it will fit in your printer.

The only variable that WILL be important is the depth. In other words, how much space you have from the front of the faceplate to the back of the dash. Obviously a stereo that is too deep is not going to fit in a shallow opening.

Thankfully, most modern stereos are shallower than older stereos. If you're buying used, you could easily ask them for the depth measurement if they don't include it in their ad. It doesn't have to be exact, you'll want some extra space in back for wiring and whatnot anyway.

It might add $30-40 to the overall price at most.

Walmart would not be my first choice for stereo shopping. Try an actual car stereo store, or look online at places like Crutchfield, Amazon, etc. You can certainly find a nice car stereo for less than $200 if you don't need all the fancy bells and whistles.

I'm sure your factory radio still works fine. It's a matter of how much time you spend in the vehicle and if it would make your drive more pleasant. A couple hundred dollars is a small price to pay for a more enjoyable daily commute.

If it's an old farm truck that only gets driven once a month, it may not be worth the trouble.

There are more portable devices than you can imagine! :)

Last year I picked up one of these Bluetooth speakers for about $30:

I don't use the bluetooth feature, but I inserted a microSD card filled with hundreds of MP3 files. Despite it's tiny size the sound quality is quite impressive, and it runs a very long time on the rechargeable battery. It can even act as a power bank to charge other USB devices like your smart phone.

That's just one example, there are many similar devices on the market if you don't want to install a stereo in your car.

Anthony Watson

[Paintedcow]

Thanks for the info. I'd be more inclined to buy one of these bluetooth speaker devices. First it's affordable. Second, I drive quite a lot, and while I drive my car the most, I do own a farm truck, and I need to drive that to go to the nearest big city to buy building supplies and other stuff. The nearest city is an hour away. My truck only has a radio. Well, actually it has a tape player, but that has never worked since I got the truck.

I wonder if any of these bluetooth things come with a power adaptor to plug into a vehicle cig lighter socket?

[DerbyDad03]

...snip...

...snip...

That reminds me of the time I tried to replace the mono radio in my 1966 lay-down Rambler with an after-market stereo AM/FM/Cassette unit.

Imagine my surprise when I opened up the dashboard and found that AMC had used a radio with the face on the "bottom" and installed the radio "standing up". Let's call it a vertical radio instead of your standard horizontal radio.

In the image below you can see the radio with the round AC vents right above it. The AC ductwork ran up behind the radio and there was no room for a horizontal radio.

AMC was notorious for following the advice of Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.

[gfretwell]

It might be worth trying a tape adapter in the truck. A lot of times the player may not work but the adapter will. Then you can plug in any kind of MP3 player.

[DerbyDad03]

Free Tip: When using a cassette adapter in a bookshelf stereo system, don't accidentally hit the record button while the play button is depressed. It makes a hell of a racket!

I have an old bookshelf system in my shop that I use with my smartphone. Occasionally I miss the Stop button and hit the Record button instead. Can you say BZZZBBZBBZBBZZZZBBZBBZZZ?

[thekmanrocks]

DerbyDad03:

You probably created a feed-back loop when you accidentaly hit Record with one of those adaptors in the cassette well. lol!

[DerbyDad03]

Without a doubt!

[clare]

If they don't they almost certainly have a "power jack" for charging the batteries, and universal power adapters are available with just about any plug available - and any voltage. Mix and match, and "bob's your uncle"

[HerHusband]

I worked as a car stereo installer back in the late 80's or early 90's. I saw a lot of weird radio configurations, but that's one I never saw before. Very interesting!

Anthony Watson

[HerHusband]

I wouldn't necessarily buy the one I have to use in a car. It's quite small and the user controls leave something to be desired. You basically turn it on and let it play through the songs. Skipping songs or folders is awkward at best.

I bought it to use with my laptop so I could watch movies during power outages. It works great for that. Doesn't take up much space, has good sound quality, and the battery lasts a long time. The bluetooth connection doesn't work right (buzzy audio), but it's easy enough to connect a wired cable to the laptop.

As I said, there are many other powered speakers that can take memory cards or USB drives. Shop around.

They'll have a charging port. It would just be a matter of finding the right cable and/or adapters to plug it into the lighter socket.

Anthony Watson

[Paintedcow]

There was some sort of car radio from wayyyyy back, that had the amplifier portion of the radio separate from the tuner. This was a tube set, and probably from the 50s or early 60s.

When I was in my teens, I belonged to a group of kids that liked electronics, and the old guy who ran the group was a Ham Oprerator and he had piles of old radios, tvs and other gear. I remember asking him about that unusual radio, but I dont recall what kind of car it was from.

[Paintedcow]

I was at Walmart again yesterday. I dont really intend to buy from them, but I was looking at their car stereos. I have not really read about car stereos in years and I was surprised to see that they have the ability to play MP3s right from a USB flash drive, and also have an AUX input for any audio source. One in particular I read the box, (Pioneer brand), is AM, FM, CD, AUX, USB, and Bluetooth, plus has some sort of special (thing) to connect a smartphone. (I dont use a smartphone, so that I did not understand).

However, I still dont quite understand what the bluetooth does... I know phones have that. Even my old flip phone, but how that has anything to do with music is beyond me. If those car stereos have USB and the ability to play music directly from a flash drive, that's all I need. Heck, a 16GB flash drive holds over 5 times more music than my 3GB MP3 player.

[rbowman]

Bluetooth is just a wireless communication technology. I have a radio that takes a USB directly but I'm too lazy to replace the factory radio with it. The factory one has an aux port on the console so I plug in the MP3 player. The only downside is having to provide power to the player and turn it off manually.

I haven't looked at car radios since I bought the USB model in 2007 but many were iPod specific which pissed me off since I don't do Apple. I think the one I have also has a 8GB limit on the USB. That was a big stick back then.

[HerHusband]

I never saw a two part radio like that, but I did pull out a few tube tuners. Big heavy boat anchors. :)

Back then the "standard" radio opening had a hole on each side for the volume and tuner knobs and a smaller rectangular opening for the radio dial. Installing a modern stereo in those cars meant cutting sheet metal.

Today I think you can buy "retro" radios that will fit the old openings without cutting metal. New electronics in the old format.

Honestly, I haven't kept up with current car stereo's. The last stereo I bought was over 15 years ago. :)

Anthony Watson