According to the US Census, the average American worker spends approximately 25 minutes per day commuting to work. While the number sounds reasonable in that context, multiply it out and in the course of a year, you see that you'll have spent over 100 hours inside of your vehicle. That’s a whole lot of time. When this much time is spent crammed inside a relatively small space, people are naturally antsy for some entertainment. Thus we have seen the evolution of car stereos, cell phones, and personal entertainment systems that allow us pass the time spent in traffic a little more quickly.
The car stereo system is by far the most widespread and universal of these creature comforts designed to make the trip bearable. Here's how the history breaks down: In 1929, the first car radios appeared on the American market, although they didn’t become popular until the 60’s. By 1970, people wanted to be able to dictate what music they listened to without having to rely on a DJ to hold their hand through the musical landscape. Thus, the 8-track was born. 1980 saw the advent of the cassette tape deck, which provided superior sound quality to the 8-track, and the cassette soon bowed to the CD in the 90’s.
In today’s digital world, however, the CD, while still in use, is taking a back seat to digitized audio content. With the popularity of downloadable and easily moved and formatted MP3 and WMA files, listeners now have nearly unlimited control over what they listen to. In addition, personal music devices such as the iPod play only digital content, meaning that music collections are increasingly stored on hard drives, rather than tapes or discs.
This creates a problem for the commuter with an older stereo system: how does one access this digital content on the road? Here are several options.
The first and probably easiest is to simply burn a CD with digital tracks formatted to play in a standard CD player. While this solution is fairly simple, many older CD players can’t read burned CDs.
Another option is to buy an FM transmitter. This is a great solution if you have a personal MP3 player, like an iPod or Rio. All you have to do is plug your player into the transmitter (which plugs into your vehicle's cigarette lighter), and select an FM channel to transmit on (generally restricted to lower channels between 88.1 and 88.9). The transmitter puts out a low powered FM signal which is picked up by your car stereo’s radio. Some FM transmitters also allow you to attach a USB flash drive (also called a thumbdrive or pen drive) to the transmitter. The transmitter decodes the music files on the drive and allows you to play, skip, and pause your music, all while transmitting to your car radio. This is usually an inexpensive solution, although audio quality sometimes suffers due to interference. One of the big benefits to the USB flash drive models is that you can be constantly keeping your musical selection fresh without always having to burn new media CDs. If you listen to a lot of podcasts, this is especially nice.
Yet another option is to install a Bluetooth car kit, which allows you to connect your iPod to your car stereo wirelessly. While some installation is required for this solution, the sound quality is fantastic and the hassle of plugging your iPod into the stereo every time you get into your car is gone, to say nothing of the coolness factor. Scosche makes one of these kits at a relatively affordable price.
Finally, you can spring for a new head unit, which is the part of the car stereo that you generally see in the dash of the car. Many newer car stereo head units can read burned CDs. What’s more, they can also read MP3 and WMA files, which, though you’re still required to burn a data CD with your desired music files, allows you to put a much higher quantity of music on the CD. In deference to the burgeoning popularity of the personal media player, some car stereo head units also have an auxiliary jack so you can connect your iPod or other similar device to your car stereo via a cable. And a select few car stereos, like the VR3 Car Stereo CD Player, come even more options. The VR3, for which I have found no alternative, can still read MP3 and WMA files and still allows you to connect your personal media player through an auxiliary line-in jack, but it also has a USB port built into the face which leta it access audio files from a USB flash drive without sacrificing audio quality. Again, if you listen to podcasts or are constantly updating your music collection, this is the solution for you.
In the end, however, it’s nice to look back and realize that car stereo entertainment is really the everyman’s entertainment medium. You can spend as much or as little as you want to get the kind of entertainment you want. You can get free radio, inexpensive FM transmitters to let you listen to your digital content without costly technology, pricer head units, which give the discerning audio enthusiast some respite in their travels, or, for the audiophile who accepts nothing less than the best, a world class entertainment system that’s worthy of any classy whip. Happy travels!
Nathan Kartchner is the Marketing Coordinator for Sewell Direct, a premium online retailer, where you can find the VR3 Car Stereo CD Player with USB Port and Auxiliary Connector, the VR3 Thumbdrive Player/FM Transmitter, and the Scosche iPod Wireless Bluetooth Car Kit.
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