alternative in-car stereo / mp3 / comments please .. - slightly o/t

[Adrian]

HI All

Firstly - apologies for the fact that the last 10 years' developments in personal music technology seem to have passed me by... but I've been busy at other things

Like many others of my generation, (I suspect ) - I have a couple of boxes of vinyl lps and singles, and cassette tapes in the shed.... despite being 'much loved' - they never seem to get played...

Sort of at the back of my mind for some time has been a plan to dig out these 'classics' and transfer them to something more modern - like CDs for instance.

Then I got to thinking (always fatal !) The new (old) car, a '64 Moggie Traveller needs some sort of music system, if only to drown out the rattles and bangs.

So - is there 'another way' to get the vinyl transferred into a format that could be used in the car ?

Possible plans so far

1) Grab the audio through my (pretty good) computer soundcard and burn to CDs

-- drawback - it's a tedious process, and ties up the PC for hours on end

2) Buy a dedicated CR-recorder and grab the audio and burn directly to CD. Thinking of the Sony RCDW100 Twin CDR - about £200.

-- drawback - cost

- advantage - stand-alone solution

3) Grab audio to mp3 format, and diy an electronics solution to play mp3's in the 'new' car. Thinking of an mp3 player with line in and removable memory cards, combined with a simple homebrewed power amp / psu tucked away in the car somewhere. (There's the DIY angle !!)

-- drawback ... don't know ?? - price of the MP3 player perhaps ?

--advantages - playback is 'bump-proof' - combination of Irish roads and 1960's Moggie suspension might cause problems for a conventional in-car CD player..

Any comments / suggestions etc ??

Many thanks Adrian

[ARWadsworth]

[Van Helsing]

Couple of options you could consider...

1) Many modern car stereos have either a 3.5mm stereo line in connector already, for input from mp3 players - so no need for a home-brew amp.

2) Alternatively some car stereos have USB connectors so an mp3 player can be plugged in directly (digital so no messing around with volume settings).

3) Many CD players advertise themselves as being mps compatible. This means thay can read mp3 files from a data CD rather than audio tracks from an audio CD. Net result is being able to fit *much* more music on a CD (albeit at a theoretically lower quality - though I doubt you'll notice in a car)

4) Look at devices like take any audio source and transmit a very low power FM signal that can be picked up, a short range, by a car radio. (Go to amazon.co.uk and search for "Digiana Audia")

VH.

[mike]

Adrian wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I think you've considered your options on getti g the audio, and if you can play the stuff, I'd use the computer to store it in some accepted format.

Cost zero.

For replay, these days I'd go to mp3 - I've been thinking about the same sort of thing, and there are loads of options to get the mp3 in car at little cost, a basic player with line out is very cheap.

Other posters have mentioned other options for outputting; but I think we're at the end of the disc/tape era, and memory cards are the only real option

mike

[Vass]

Sony do a nice head unit, plays MP3 CD's and has a jack socket for a player if you wish. Cannot do anything about the time to transfer to MP3 from your other media, but once done you're sorted. Halfords do the sony for £ 79.99

[Grunff]

Go for option 3, but buy a car stereo that can read directly from SD cards and USB sticks. These are becoming increasingly common, e.g.

[Cicero]

=================================== It might make sense to combine (more or less) (1) and (2). A second computer either new or second-hand could be used as a dedicated 'music box' with permanently attached turntable and tape player. The advantages are that second-hand computers are dirt cheap or if you decided on new (about GB 200 pounds for a reasonable base unit) you would have a spare computer to cover any breakdowns.

Still tedious, of course, but less frustrating than an unavailable computer.

Cic.

[Dwayne & Angela]

Is it illegal if he downloads tracks he already has on vinyl?

-- My blog:

[Graeme]

In message , Adrian writes

Hi Adrian,

Yep, me too.

Yep, me too :-)

Yep, me too - but it is long, tedious, boring work. I have now buried my conscience and started downloading mp3 files wherever I can find them, on the basis that I have paid for the music already. It may be legally incorrect, but seems morally OK to me.

One problem - your car is probably positive earth? My 68 Traveller is, and I doubt many modern car stereo systems are anything other than negative earth? Could alter the car, I suppose.

Just be lazy like everyone else, and download mp3s.

I would then go for an iPod type player. My wife has one, and I must admit to being impressed. Latest toy is a 'docking station' affair, so that she can listen in the home without needing the ear plugs. There are probably 12v versions designed for in car use?

[John Rumm]

Yes, in this country anyway. We have no provision for format shifting or taking backup copies etc.

(not like anyone cares, and that was to my first suggestion! ;-)

[Adrian]

Call me old-fashioned - but I tend to prefer listening to what we used to call 'an album' rather than individual tracks....

Having said that - my few attempts to find 'free mp3 music' on the web have met with failure - it seems that most of the so-called free' sites have a sting in the tail - and require you to sign up for a subscription of some sort. If anybody knows of genuinely 'free' mp3 then I'd be delighted to hear (adrian at ambquality.co.uk works fine as an email address)

Thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

Didn't know that .... (shows how far 'behind the times' I am !)

Something else I didn't know !

That makes 3

OK - not sure that's going to be useful for me - but thanks for all the pointers. Spent a happy half-hour browsing the 'in car entertainment' section of the CPC catalogue last night

So, you could store large amounts of mp3 on a digital memory 'stick' and just plug it into the car radio..... clever !

Do 'personal' mp3 players with the same ability exist? - might take some of the boredom out of mowing the grass, and would allow the same mp3 'sticks' to be used elsewhere around the house...

Many thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

Like the sound of that !

Do you know it the low-end players can be had with the ability to read a plug-in memory 'stick' (probably the wrong terminology). I don't think I need the ability/screen to play video on an mp3 player - and don't really want to be spending mega-bucks.

Gosh - you mean I might be getting in somewhere near the leading edge for a change ! That'd be a first.

Many thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

Not expensive, is it ? As mentioned above - CPC seem to do them with the usb connector as well as cd player - under the £100 mark...

Many thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

I see it also takes SD cards....

Pardon my ignorance, but is it possible to organise mp3 files on an sd-card or USB-stick so that they look like folders - as in one folder per lp or cd ? Does the player then become a sort of 'digital jukebox'? - in that you could select a folder and play it ?

Thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

Oh no - not more computers, please ! I guess it's not so much of an inconvenience really - but the nice thing about the Sony machine was that it was intelligent enough to understand 'tracks' on an lp and (allegedly!) break up the final CD into tracks. I guess it'd have a reasonable resale value - so it it's not necessarily £200 down the drain...

Thanks Adrian

[chris French]

In message , Adrian writes

Yes.

I guess that would depend on the player.

[Adrian]

That's a relief - thought it was just me !

I feel better already !

We should start a self-help group

Wonder where / how you find this free content ? I did have a browse around a couple of months ago but all the Google hits seemed to be 'free-once-you've-paid-us-some-money' - which isn't quite my idea of free.

Nope - she's been converted to neg earth and got a bright, shiny new alternator - so (in that respect at least) is bang up to date. Didn't know that you were a member of the 'oily driveway' brigade

That was my original plan. Any idea how much music fits into one of these machines ? I think I'd want one which allowed different memory sticks or cards to be inserted - unless, of course, the 'track capacity' of the things is so great that it makes this irrelevant.

To put it into perspective, my days of long-distance driving are well over - a long journey for us at the moment is the drive into Cork city

- which takes all of an hour and a half - and is only to be attempted after packing survival rations, thermos flasks of tea and distress flares. (Not a consequence of owning the Traveller - was like that before !)

Many thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

Well - I would if I could (find the free content, that is) All I ever seem to find is places that look free and then try to sting you for a subscription - I'm obviously looking in all the wrong places !

Thanks Adrian

[chris French]

In message , Adrian writes

You can download albums as well.

All of MP3 is not free, but very cheap. Though there are issues with paying for it now AIUI VISA blocks payment to them (Short version of the backstory - Allof MP3 is based in Russia, they claim to be operating under Russian law, which means they don't pay royalties etc., hence why they are cheap. Hence, the RIAA, IFPI etc. are waging a campaign against them)

For free you need to look at the P2P (Peer to Peer) arena such as the Bittorrent or Gnutella