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mandolindave · 02-17-2004, 12:25 PM

I am researching a new sound system for my trailer.
Most of the new decks contribute to light pollution
I found a pioneer that is made for a toyota ( or something )
that has a minimal light show. It has radio, tape, CD, Ipod ready, and has RCA outputs that I can use to record the broadcasts of the shows I go to. The soundmen often broadcast the show so people can listen from their campers. Another thread advises that Alpine and a few other companies are going with the IPOD ready feature. The IPODs costs from $500-700, But my daughter got an MP3 that holds 26,000 songs for $300. It hooks up with a fake tape cassette adaptor.

Photobitstream · 02-17-2004, 12:28 PM

Actually, iPods go from $299 to $499. The new iPod mini is $249.

I hadn't heard about the Pioneer player. I'll have to check 'em out.

Janets Husband · 02-17-2004, 12:57 PM

Mandolidave

I don't know what quality your looking for, but the IPOD and MP3 players use data compression. This means lower quality than say a CD.
I would look for a player that has a AUX input for any sort of external device. The Cassett interface is poor at best.

Try for the best speaker you can afford and you'll be happy.

I agree the light shows suck, but no one listens to an old grey beard.

Good Luck

Photobitstream · 02-17-2004, 01:09 PM

Gary, I've re-reripped most of my CD collection in the new AAC format and the sound quality is a huge leap above MP3. Files are smaller too. Being an audiophile from way back, I used 256 Kbps compression. Most people would be happy with 192 or even 128. I have 15,996 songs taking up 105.42 GB disk space.

And you're right about the speakers. Get the best ones you can afford, but don't skimp on the amp either. Garbage in garbage out.

bredlo · 02-17-2004, 01:18 PM

I'm on my third iPod (keep upgrading for bigger sizes, it's not like they're breaking or something) and I can't reccommend them highly enough. I plan on centering my whole sound system around it for my redesign, and along with a radio tuner (even better, Sat radio!) there's absolutely nothing else you need.

You'd be wise to look into this if you own anything beyond a couple dozen cd's. Besides holding up to 10,000 songs, (that's an entire month of continuous music, 24/7) ..it's also portable, letting you use it with your car audio system while driving.

I'd also like to rebut Janet's Husband, and say that any cd you burn onto the iPod can be done so with the ACC format, an open-standard MP4 that gives you CD-quality sound at smaler-than-MP3 sizes.

Besides music, iPod can hold thousands of pictures from that new digital camera you bring to the rally this summer (can't view them on it though) has four games to pass the time if it's raining outside, and finally has an alarm clock which can wake you over the trailer's sound system with either an alarm tone OR... music!

Personally... I'd love to be awakened in my GlobeTrotter each morning, dappled sunlight dancing on my face, to the strains of Beethoven's Sonata No. 8. Combine that with the aroma from the automatic coffeemaker, and a view of the coastline out the window.. ahhhhhhh.

**Stefrobrts** · 02-17-2004, 01:18 PM

I just bought an iPod about two weeks ago, and I'm madly in love with the thing! It was $299 for 15 gig of storage, and I've almost reached 4 gig with my entire CD collection stored on it. You can get cables to connect from it's docking port to aux in or from the headphone plug to RCA jacks. I'm getting the FM modulator so I can use it in the cars without having to do anything fancy, and I can't wait to see how that works. If it's not obvious by my lack of terminology, I'm not a big audio nut, I just like to hear music and not commericals when I'm driving down the road.

Silvertwinkie · 02-17-2004, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Janet's Husband
Mandolidave

I don't know what quality your looking for, but the IPOD and MP3 players use data compression. This means lower quality than say a CD.
I would look for a player that has a AUX input for any sort of external device. The Cassett interface is poor at best.

Try for the best speaker you can afford and you'll be happy.

I agree the light shows suck, but no one listens to an old grey beard.

Good Luck

Not sure where you got this from but the quality has been very good...either at or above that of a CD depending on the original recording.

I also had the cassette tape connector on my Bambi and being an audiophile, I was pleased with the output given the low end stereo the Bambi had. I've also played my iPod through my Threshold Stasis Amp and I gotta tell ya, you'd be very hard pressed to tell the difference between a great recorded CD and most of my .mp3s and/or AAC files.

Steph I know what you mean....I have had some real great fun with my iPod, plus, I can also use it as a firewire hard drive too! As for the FM broadcast, my buddy had one in his BMW. The car had the antenna in the back so he had a few small issues. I'd expect any car with the antenna in front should have better results.

Eric

MaShep · 02-17-2004, 03:20 PM

iPods ROCK! We plan to use ours too! I bought PodWorks to enable transferring music 'from' the iPod, back to my computer hard drive.
Any advice on how to best hook it up to our speakers in the 16CCD?

Silvertwinkie · 02-17-2004, 04:03 PM

If you have the "fireworks" looking Sony, then the only option I can see is an FM transmitter. The 04's have a CD and also no input, just a sub connector.

Eric

idahosafari · 02-17-2004, 04:13 PM

The new aluminum iPod Mini will be introduced on Feb. 20th. If you choose the silver color it will match the interior of a CCD Airstream. (It holds between 60 to 70 hours of music) Price is about $250.

MaShep · 02-17-2004, 04:22 PM

Hi Eric: So we'll have to get complicated with it, I guess. I haven't had a chance to investigate options. Thanks for the advice. L.

Porky Pig · 02-17-2004, 05:28 PM

Has anyone tried the new iTunes Music Store?

I've purchased 65 songs so far ... also discovered some artisits I had never heard of.

Silvertwinkie · 02-17-2004, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Porky Pig
Has anyone tried the new iTunes Music Store?

I've purchased 65 songs so far ... also discovered some artisits I had never heard of.

Oh yea Pork, almost $75 in music from there!

The first few times are the worst, you can spend hours there....

As for complicated, it's not too bad using the FM broadcaster. I think it would be fairly painless.

**Stefrobrts** · 02-17-2004, 06:36 PM

I've been using iTunes for a few months, downloading and burning music to CDs. I think it's by far the easiest to use interface yet for burnings mixes to CD. It was the main reason I went ahead and bought the iPod, because iTunes uses ACC format and most MP3 players (obviously) use MP3s. iTunes can convert to MP3, but I wanted the simplest solution, and iTunes and iPod were made for each other.

iTunes also let me load up it's library with all the music from my existing CD collection.

I have to say, they work darn good together. It was literally plug and play. That doesn't happen everyday on a windows machine!

Photobitstream · 02-17-2004, 06:38 PM

526 songs in my Purchased Music list.

Check out Those Legendary Shack Shakers next time your in the store. Great roots rock.

Silvertwinkie · 02-17-2004, 07:14 PM

That's a good question...how many of you are using the iPod and iTunes with a Wintel machine?

Eric

silverback · 02-17-2004, 07:15 PM

Alpine has a new iPod ready deck that allows you to control the iPod from the in-dash stereo. The iPod connects to some kind of proprietary bus (believe they collaborated with Apple). FYI - Mrs. Silverback and I have matching engraved iPods. We have used the cassette adapter from Xtreme Mac. It's OK, but no where near as good a sound as the Shure E2c phones we're currently using.
Just podding along....
KL

CanoeStream · 02-17-2004, 07:25 PM

My son was shopping for iPods with his Christmas money. He was looking at the 10 gig units when it was discontinued and they came out with a 15 gig for the same price. He was impressed!

Part of our consumer evaluation led us to this site from TechTV. There is some interesting information there but don't start pulling your machine apart on my account. It looks like a major issue was batteries going bad (which some will). Consumer complaints succeeded in getting Apple to drop the price to a third of what it used to be!

74Argosy24MH · 02-17-2004, 07:29 PM

Has anyone else had problems burning audio CDs with Itunes and 10.3? I get nothing but errors, went back to 10.1 finally.

John

Davydd · 02-17-2004, 07:44 PM

Count me as an iPod owner (actually a Christmas gift for my wife). She is the user but the loading goes through my Powerbook.

John, I have Mac OS 10.3.2 and have loaded three audio CD books into iTunes and then onto the iPod with no problems. It sure beats switching tape cassettes or CDs when out walking.

I have bought a couple of tunes off iTunes Music Store mainly for the experience of doing so. Like Stephanie we have more than enough music from our CD collection to last a while.

Target Stores is creating an iPod kiosk in its store and selling pre-paid iTunes Musics Store cards. That just came out today.