FM Modulated Ipod

A friend of mine just got one so I borrow it for a few hours to have it test out. WOW! I am a bit sadden by the fact that it is so good . Signal is excellent too! I am forseeing headunit sale going down the drain very soon say,...Christmas. Most ( I think ALL) people that I know don't care AT ALL for sound quality. If the cd unit breaks down in their car I am very sure an Ipod and the factory unit in the car will do just fine for them. Anyone share the same sentiment?    Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.

Asking my opinion? MP3's are rediculous. I agree that if SQ is last on your list of requirements, go for it. The compression artifacts are PAINFUL to listen to, (even at 320k) and the lower the bitrate you use, the worse they sound. 128k = "CD Quality"? BS. I will use an MP3 player on an airplane if forced to, but only through cheezy headphones - my good 'phones stay in the drawer at home. And even then, the resolution is 320k. Now, to take a crappy resolution MP3, and then run it through a modulator, to FURTHER destroy whatever resolution MIGHT still remain... I truly do not know how people manage to sit through it. Trying to listen to that... I just can't tell you how bad it sounds to me... How about "dragging a rake across a chalkboard". Yeah, that'd be close to it. This is why I wonder why the RIAA is all up in arms about MP3. At 320k, you are STILL not close to the actual capabilities of CD. And THEN these online "music" services have the BALLS to charge me a buck a song for an inferior format... 8 songs at MP3, a buck a song, 8-10 songs per CD. My math says that for about 10% more money, you can go buy the entire CRAPPY CD (just to get the one good song, is what I mean) for about 10% more money. Keep your MP3's, WMA's, OGG's, and any other PASC schemed "portable" music formats. Would SOMEBODY PLEASE build FLAC support into a portable unit, so I don't have to hack my MP3 player to play them?!?It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

Hey haemphyst, I know you are a preacher of quality sound. Much like everything, unfortunately, we don’t allow lawyers and judges to sit as juror. Yes, I couldn’t agree with you more that 128k does not equal "CD Quality", but you have to acknowledge that the marketing people have done a pretty good job in marketing it to the people with untrained ears. You got to give them that. I mean if you ever walk into any box store they have 128K=CD quality written from one end of the store to the moon. That being said, at 320k that’s a different story. Unless you got the ears of a white tail deer or a dog, I am absolutely certain that it is very difficult to decipher from CD quality that was originally copy. I personally think this iPod FM transmitter is going to do well. It’s just a matter of time before older folks and people in general will find out that an iPod with a FM transmitter is better and cheaper to replace than a stereo head unit. It’s portable, works in any car, home and basically anywhere you got a radio. So no more worrying about parking your car with your new stereo head unit because it was stolen from you two weeks ago when you found out that someone like it more than you. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.

My biggest beef with the current proliferation of alternative encoding devices are the poor quality decoders they use. Start throwing other items with a poor sound quality in the chain and the results only get worse. I doubt that even most audiophiles could tell the difference between CD and highest bit-rate WMA. But those people make up a micro-segment of the users anyways. The average consumer uses a stock stereo system in their car, or a 'box set' at home and think it sounds great! Most could not hear the difference between 128k, 320k and CD on such a system anyhow. When I listen to such systems I beg for a.m. radio, or a fire in the dash, anything to stop this assault on music. However most people are fine with poor quality or poor quality-mediocrity. People pay for BOSE upgrades and JBL in their cars, not knowing what good sound is, just taking someone else’s word for it and being told 'this is the good stuff baby.' This is turning into a rant... I think it comes down to a public who is mostly happy with the way their music sounds, at home, in the car, portable or otherwise. People who DEMAND more are the minority; the market does not cater to a minority. Sure, we get ours, but we are not going to change the way the system works. Companies will never cater to 1-2% of the population when poor quality sells like mad. To address the original idea of the post: No, not really. When the tape adapter for portable cd players came out some people thought: 'who would buy an in dash cd player when tape adapters are 30$?' People who buy in dash cd players for SQ anyways. The people who will buy in dash players are largely the same ones who will not settle for FM modulated the sound quality, the markets don’t crossover as much as you might think. Further, the manufacturers will respond with better head units, that do more and have more features, small built in hard-drives or flash-memory built in, high-quality adapters/interface for alternative media players are on the horizon im sure. The market will respond.What will you get for Christmas, bad boy? Coal........or Visonik?? - stevdart

Wow, is everyone clueless and lost in the dark? - uthinkuknoaudio