How to Listen to Digital Music in Your Car
Published: December 13, 2004
Entertainment is the key to a successful road trip, and in the 21st century, conversation isn't going to suffice for anything longer than a trip to the corner store. Listening to the radio is fine when driving near your home, but if your trip is longer than half an hour, you're going to lose reception. You need digital audio in your car.
If you're not yet listening to digital audio, you're really missing out. Digital audio is great for music lovers because it's less expensive than a music store and you only pay for the songs you like. A CD at a retail store will cost you about $15, but at a PlaysForSure online store like MSN Music, songs cost only 99 cents and albums cost $9.99. Don't just limit yourself to music. Buy some stand-up comedy to pass the time after the conversation dies down. At Buy Music, you'll find Jerry Seinfeld who's hilarious and family-friendly.
Getting digital audio is the easy parts. The hard part is getting it into your car. Sure, you could use your Windows mobile-based device, portable audio player, or Portable Media Center and listen with a pair of headphones, but you'd be leaving your traveling companions out of the fun. Plus, it's not safe to drive with headphones on.
You'll need a way to connect your digital audio to your car stereo. That's what I cover in this column—how to find digital audio to listen to, how to connect a portable audio player to your car stereo, and how to support and power it during your road trip. I'll also touch on how to replace your car stereo, add a hard disk-based audio player, and burn custom CDs with digital audio.
Find More Digital Audio Sources
Check out subscription services such as Napster and F.Y.E. These services distribute music that is in Windows Media format and they carry the Microsoft PlaysForSure logo. The PlaysForSure logo means that the music or device is compatible with Windows Media Player. Combining devices and subscription services that support PlaysForSure lets you fill a device with 10s of thousands of songs for the about the cost of a CD per month.
In addition to music, audio books are a great way to pass the time on a long road trip. Trust me, you'll feel much more involved in a scary Stephen King book about a small town in Maine when you're actually driving through a small town in Maine. With digital audio books, you don't have to switch tapes or CDs every hour either. If you're interested, check out the huge selection at Audible.com.
You can get free digital audio too. I love Podcasting, which is an audio blog that you can take with you on your portable audio player. Think of it as pre-recorded radio made by people on the Internet. You can find Podcasts on almost any topic, including talk radio and music of any genre. If you're a gadget nut like me, download Engadget's Podcasts. To get started with Podcasting, read Engadget's how-to article.
You can also make your own digital audio by recording the radio. I love talk radio, but my favorite shows aren't broadcast at convenient times. So I record them to WMA or MP2 files and listen to them on my portable audio player later. I'm using a Hauppauge FM card and some custom scripts to record radio, but you can do it much easier by using a Griffin Technology radioSHARK. To keep file sizes for long radio shows reasonable, record at a very low quality. I use 32 bits, which is acceptable for talk radio. A five-hour show takes up about 100 MB.
Connect a Portable Audio Player to Your Car Stereo
If you don't yet have a portable audio player, you need one. Make sure to find devices with the PlaysForSure logo. Once you have one, there are several different ways to listen to it through your car stereo.
Aux-in port. Some stereos have an auxiliary port right on the front. With a $2 male/male cable available at any electronics store, you can connect your portable audio player directly to your stereo and enjoy great sound quality.
Add-on Aux in Port. Some stereos that don't have a factory installed aux-in port can have one added for a small fee. Car shops like Car Toys can add these ports to your vehicle for under $100. Sometimes this port will replace the car's CD changer, but other vehicles have multiple inputs hidden behind the dash that aren't typically in use.
CD changer port. Most factory and aftermarket car stereos can connect to the CD changer port on the back of your stereo (assuming you don't already have a CD changer). Vendors such as BlitzSafe and PIE produce adapters that connect your portable audio player to your CD changer port, and they cost between $50 and $200. If you're not comfortable removing your stereo, you can pay a stereo installer around $100 to connect the adapter. If you have a popular model of a portable audio player, you might also find adapters that let you control your portable audio player using the buttons on your stereo and steering wheel. This is an expensive route, but the sound quality is excellent.
Cassette adapter. If your stereo doesn't have an auxiliary port but does play cassettes, you can use a $2 to $10 cassette adapter to connect your portable audio player to your car stereo. Cassette adapters slide into your cassette player just like a tape, but they have a wire that connects to your headphone jack, as shown in Figure 1. This is what my wife currently uses in her Volkswagen Jetta.
Figure 1: Cassette tape headphone adapter
FM transmitter. If you don't have either an aux-in port or a cassette adapter, you can connect your portable audio player to your car stereo with a $15 to $40 FM transmitter. An FM transmitter is a tiny radio station in your car. You broadcast your mini-station on an unused radio channel, tune your car stereo to that same channel, and can hear your portable audio player. You can even share your music with the people around you. Get a custom bumper sticker showing your FM transmitter's station, and people in nearby cars can listen too!
FM transmitters are easy to set up and wireless, but sound quality isn't as good as other types of connections. Also, if you drive more than 30 or 40 miles on your road trip, you'll probably hear interference and will need to tune your transmitter and car stereo to a different, unused station. Make sure to look for FM transmitters that allow you to broadcast to any FM frequency. Some transmitters only give you the choice between 4-6 stations that may be occupied by actual FM stations in your area. You can avoid this problem by getting a transmitter with a broad spectrum of FM frequencies. I use a Belkin FM transmitter in my Volvo, as shown in Figure 2, because I can't use any of the previously-mentioned connectors. Professional installers can also add a wired FM transmitter that physically connects to your car's FM antennae and gives you a more reliable connection.
Figure 2: Wireless FM transmitter
Support and Power Your Portable Audio Player
After you connect your portable audio player, you have two lesser challenges: powering it and supporting it. If you're taking a long trip, your player might run out of juice before you reach your destination. Grab a car charger for your player and power it using your car's 9v outlet (the cigarette lighter).
After about half an hour, you're going to realize that you have no place to put your player where you can easily see the display and reach the controls. This is less of a problem on a road trip, because your copilot can hold it. It's a problem when you're driving by yourself, though. Visit ProClip and buy a clip to attach to your car's dashboard and a holder specific to your player. They install in seconds without damaging your dash.
Replace Your Car Stereo
Starting at about $120 plus installation, you can replace your factory stereo with an after-market stereo that supports Windows Media Audio (WMA) files or MP3 CDs. Because the music on an MP3 CD is compressed, you can store about 200 songs on an MP3 CD, instead of the usual 10'20 songs. Some stereos support using Windows Media Audio (WMA) files, too. If you have a big music collection, you'll still have to juggle multiple CDs, but you'll probably only have two or three CDs to worry about, instead of dozens.
If you do replace your stereo, get one with a front-panel aux-input, so you can connect a portable audio player later.
You don't necessarily need to replace your car stereo to add a PhatBox. PhatBox is a hard disk-based audio player that connects to the CD-changer port on your car stereo. It's like a portable audio player that's designed only for use in your car. It'll require professional installation, but the final result is excellent. Because it supports up to 80 GB of storage, you'll have plenty of room for radio shows and audio books.
You might also check out the Omnifi DMP1 Digital Media Player, which lets you wirelessly sync your car music collection with your home computer when you drive within range.
Burn Custom CDs
If you don't want to buy a portable audio player, you can burn your own custom CDs with digital audio. You can use Windows Media Player, which is quick, easy, and free, but has one minor drawback: it doesn't support CD text. If your car stereo displays the name of the track that is currently playing (as my Volvo does, shown in Figure 3) and you want to view the CD text, you'll have to use third-party CD burning software such as Nero or Roxio.
Figure 3: CD text
 | Tony Northrup is a writer, an Internet engineer, and a digital photography enthusiast. Tony has a decade of experience making networks and servers connected to the Internet run smoothly. He has authored and co-authored eight books about using Windows and written dozens of articles about Internet technologies. When he’s not on his deck writing, he toys with home automation technologies and takes pictures for display in a Web photo album. He lives in the Boston area with his wife, Erica, and cat, Sammy. You can learn more about Tony by visiting his Web site at http://www.northrup.org.
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