Ok, I listen to music a lot, especially when I drive (Oddly Karaoke singing with the window down keeps other cars away from me. Why is that??). So naturally, driving back home, my factory car radio starts randomly turning off and on. I’ll take apart the dash to see if it’s a loose wire or not, but I suspect the CD/radio is just out of warranty and Thus ready to go the way of all things.
This begs the question: If it is broken, what should I replace it with? When I purchased the car, I didn’t have an Ipod, so a CD Radio worked fine. Now I have an ipod with an Itrip radio transmitter to play over the car radio. The Itrip is a good product, works well most of the time given conditions but the sound quality is lacking when there is radio interference.
I’m pretty demanding about Car audio too. Not just the sound quality, but how usable the device is. That is: I don’t want to have to look at it to turn it on/off, change the volume or to change the station.
Apple has an “Ipod Your Car” page which was actually pretty informative. Crutchfield has an Excellent on line site too. After going to Crutchfield’s site, I’m leaning towards a Sony CDX-GT300 with a Sony XA-110PI iPod interface adapter. It allows control of the Ipod and is what I call a “Fire and Forget” system. You plug your Ipod in, it gets charged and you only need to use the radio controls to access it. Also, The layout of the controls looks usable and has a detachable face to it. If I did get this with an Ipod controller, likely I’d never use the CD player built into it…
Image from Dave’s Antique Radio and TV Restorations . It’s a Philco 802 Antique Car Radio.
Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley from the “St. Elsewhere” Album.
