Wednesday, September 12, 2007

MP3s on the Road: 3 Ways to Play your MP3s in your Car

Let’s face it, by now who doesn’t own some sort of MP3 player? Whether it is an IPOD or a less popular MP3 player made by manufacturers such as Sony or Creative Labs, everyone that I know has an MP3 player (except for my grandmother, who still doesn’t know what an MP3 is anyway). Regardless of the brand, to be able to use any type of MP3 player, you must have MP3s to upload and listen to on your MP3 player.

That being the case, many people prefer purchasing single MP3s from sites like iTunes and Napster versus paying ten dollars or more to purchase an entire CD which only contains one or two songs that the individual likes. With all of the MP3s that people have amassed over the few years that they’ve been extremely popular, it now presents somewhat of a dilemma when they want to play the MP3s they’ve collected in their car audio system. For those who have a standard in-dash CD player or CD changer, the only solution is to burn the MP3s onto a recordable CD and play the CD in the car. This solution can be both costly and time consuming if you are constantly updating your MP3 collection as you have to continuously buy blank CDs and go through the CD burning process each time you want to play a new collection of MP3s in your car. Thankfully there are several products on the market these days to give MP3 owners more options when it comes to playing their MP3s in the car.

MP3 Car Adapter Kit: The most economical way to play your MP3s directly in your vehicle is to purchase a simple MP3 Car Adapter Kit. These kits are similar to the portable CD player kits that were popular before CD players became standard in automobiles. In fact, many of the MP3 Car Adapter Kits also allow you the ability to still hook up a portable CD player or any other type of portable music device. These kits are very simple to use as well. In most cases you simply connect the adapter to your car’s 12v power supply or cigarette lighter and in turn hook up your MP3 player to the adapter. After your MP3 player is hooked up to your adapter, you simply play your music as you normally would on your MP3 player, and the music is broadcasted through your car’s speakers.

CD Player w/ MP3 playback: Another option would be to purchase an in-dash CD player that has the capability to play MP3s that are copied to a recordable CD. This type of CD player allows you to copy your MP3s onto a recordable CD instead of having to “burn” them onto the CD. This offers a cost and time advantage as by simply copying the MP3s to a recordable CD, you are able to copy more MP3 files versus burning the MP3s onto the CD. When you burn the MP3s onto a CD, the burning process transform the music file from its MP3 format to a format that is recognizable by traditional CD players. You are able to copy more MP3 files, allowing you to save disk space and in turn save money by purchasing less recordable CDs.

Digital CD/MP3 Receiver: Now there is something even better for MP3 owners who want to take their MP3s on the road with them. Sony recently released the first car audio receiver unit with the capability to “drag-and-drop” your MP3s into the unit just like you would normally do with your IPOD or MP3 player. The Sony GigaPanel MEX-1GP is a car audio receiver that features a removable faceplate like most of the other receivers on the market today. However this faceplate also comes with a USB port and a 1GB flash memory drive that allows you store up to 500 MP3 song files. You simply use the USB cable that comes with the receiver to connect it to your PC and transfer the MP3 files just like you would with your IPOD or MP3 player. Once you’re done copying your MP3s to the receiver’s faceplate, you simple reattach the faceplate and proceed to listen to your MP3s in your car. The receiver also allows you to play regular CDs and CDs with MP3 files copied onto them as well. This revolutionary new product is sure to make an impact in the highly competitive car audio industry. I’ve already ordered one for my vehicle and I can’t wait to install it!

Dwayne Wright is an automotive enthusiast with over 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. If you decide to upgrade your car audio system with an aftermarket car audio receiver, visit his site at http://www.customautosearch.com to find a car audio installer in your area to install your new receiver.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dwayne_Wright

3 Places To Find Cheap Car CD Players

Its consumer nature to want to find the highest quality product at the lowest price. When searching for car audio there are a few places where you are guaranteed to find cheap car CD players. All of these are online venues that have netted the searching consumer an awesome cheap car CD player. When I say cheap I'm not referring to the quality, but the price of the car CD player.

The first place you should check out online should be Froogle. Froogle is Google's online product search engine. When you enter a a search query into the search bar at Froogle, Google will send it search engine spiders over the internet finding prices, descriptions, and pictures of all the cheap car CD players it can find. The best part about it is you can organize the results to display from lowest priced to highest price. Thus saving you a ton of time.

Go to http://www.froogle.com!!

The second place that you should search for cheap car CD players is on CraigsList. This is an online database of classified ads organized by city. CraigsList is the absolute best place to find gently used cheap car CD players. When you find an ad that looks interesting, contact the seller and set up a meeting. This is another advantage of using Craigslist. You actually get to see and touch the product before you buy. If you can't find a cheap car CD player anywhere else you will be able to find one on CraigsList.

Go to http://www.craigslist.org!!

The third place you want to look for a cheap car CD player would be Ebay. Ebay has some of the best deals on new and used car audio on the internet. You must be careful on Ebay as some sellers are crooks. Always check out the sellers feedback rating before you do any business with them. I would recommend you look elsewhere if their feedback rating is under 90%.

Go to http://www.ebay.com!!

Using these three internet resources you should be able to find a great deal on cheap car CD players. We're talking brands like Sony, Pioneer, Alpine, and Clarion. Whatever kind of cheap car CD player you want you WILL find it!!!

The author Garland Robinson is a serious car audio enthusiast. He has installed systems in multiple cars and attended sound competitions and car shows.

His extreme passion for this hobby has driven him to create a website based solely on car audio.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Garland_Robinson

Pioneer Car CD Players Reviewed - DEH-P3800MP

Pioneer is one of the most recognized brands in the car audio industry. They make car cd players, subwoofers, and amplifiers. The Pioneer car CD player DEH-P3800MP is an entry level car cd player manufactered with the casual car audio enthusiast in mind. Being moderately priced this Pioneer car CD player is a great buy.

The DEH-P3800MP comes with several features that make it a great deal as they can be had anywhere from $90 to $130. These features are MP3/WMA support, XM or Sirius satellite radio capability, and a large 16 character display. Lets go into to futher detail about each of these awesome features.

* 1) MP3/WMA support - This Pioneer car CD player has the capability to support CD-R discs burned with MP3's or WMA's. A 700 megabyte CD-R can hold up to 10 full MP3 albums or nearly 20 WMA albums. This feature is great for those of us who have a large collection of music on our computers.

* 2) XM or Sirius satellite radio - The Pioneer car CD player DEH-P3800MP is manufactured with support for these two formats of satellite radio. This means if you already subscribe to either one of these services than you do not have to purchase another radio receiver. Satellite radio is the "next big thing" in the media industry, with thousands of stations, high definition sound playback, and limited commercial interruption. This feature in and of itself makes this Pioneer car CD player a great buy.

* 3) 16 Character Display - This Pioneer car CD player supports ID-3 tags, which allow you to burn the artist name, album name, and track names, onto the disc itself. The large 16 character display allows you to see this information right on your car CD player. You will also be able to see the FM radio stations frequency and station name with this technology.

All and all the DEH-3800MP Pioneer car CD player is an awesome buy. I would highly recommend this product to anyone looking to upgrade their stock car CD player.

The author Garland Robinson is a serious car audio enthusiast. He has installed systems in multiple cars and attended sound competitions and car shows.

His extreme passion for this hobby has driven him to create a website based solely on car audio.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Garland_Robinson

How Does a CD Player Work?

Today there is a wide range of CD players available for the consumer and choosing the right CD player can feel like an arduous task. Style, quality, design och technical solutions vary greatly between the different players. Some players are portable; others are included in larger sound systems. Some players can only handle one disc at the time; others can easily skip between 50 discs or more. Some CD players are very cheap, others are highly expensive. The list goes on and on. Regardless of which CD player you choose it will however consist of three basic parts that are found in all moderns CD players: a drive motor, a tracking device and a laser and lens system. Another thing that all CD players have in common is that they interpret data that has been stored in the form of elongated bumps on a CD (compact disc).

The drive motor in your CD player is the part that makes the disc spin round and round at a correct pace. The drive motor will gradually adjust the speed, since the correct pace depends on which part of the disc that is currently being interpreted. At some spots, the pace will be no higher than 200 rpm, while at other spots the pace needs to be increased up to 500 rpm. As the disc is rotated round and round by the drive motor, the tracking mechanism will adjust the laser assembly and make it possible for the laser and lens system to focus on the miniscule bumps where data has been stored. The laser is constantly being pushed from the centre and outward over the disc by the tracking mechanism.

The data interpreted by the laser and lens system has been stored in the form of elongated bumps on the surface of the CD. One single bump is very small and no wider than 0.5 microns. The height is greater than 125 nanometres and the length is 0.83 microns or slightly more. All these bumps are very neatly organised at the surface of the CD in the form of a 5 kilometre (3.5 miles) long spiral.

The CD itself is made up by several different layers, including a polycarbonate layer and an aluminium layer. When the laser tries to interpret data that has been stored on the CD, it will first penetrate the polycarbonate layer. The aluminium layer will then reflect the laser beam, and the light alterations will be detected by a special optoelectronic mechanism in the CD player. Since the bumps in which data has been stored reflects light in a different way compared to the areas between the bumps (commonly referred to as “lands”), the CD player can determine exactly which parts of the disc that is made up by bumps and which parts that are not.

If a CD is scratched or injured in any other way, it can be impossible for the CD player to interpret it. Sometimes only a minor part of the data will be skipped, but larger damages can render the entire CD useless. Always store your CD’s in a protective casing to decrease the risk of scratches. When you clean your CD’s, carefully move your hand from the centre and outwards to the edge rather than just swabbing around. Scratches that occur from a radial movement tend to be less damaging than other scratches.

The information you just read about CD players can be applied to most types of optic drives and can not only help you pick out a CD player for you home but also other types of optic drives such as car CD players and car DVD players.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=William_Berg