This is actually yesterday's hack, but something got in the way of writing it up. A few weeks ago I purchased an iPod. I love it, although I'm not using it enough. The next logical step is to be able to use it in my car.
I purchased a Radio Hut CD-to-Cassette Player Adapter. Looks good, right? WRONG! It doesn't work in my car's casette player, because of how it uses tension on the spindle to detect end-of-side. It would happily play five seconds, reverse, reverse, play, reverse, reverse, play... for eternitiy.
That's not good, so I googled, and a suggestion was made to make one of the spindles spin freely. After some little screws removed, and an accident or two involving opening the case upside down, and watching the gears fall to the floor.... I had an adapter that worked.
Sort of. The next phase was to put one of the pieces back to prevent another piece from wiggling and making noise. Progress. BUT - after all that, the sound quality is horrible. There is a noticable hiss that makes it unsuitable for listening to music.
I'm thinking about returning the adapter and trying an irock! Wireless Music Adapter instead. It uses FM radio to transmit, which gives another place for interference. In Los Angeles there is a FM station almost every 4 Mhhz, which doesn't leave much of a gap. Another option is a Sony adapter which has gotten decent reviews on usenet. (Plus, it's cheaper!)
I've been using the one that came with my wife's
CD player for almost a year, with no real problems.
Well, one morning last week it did the
play-reverse-reverse-play thing, but it was fine
that afternoon and has been since.
-Matt
