thrustinj

What MP3/CD Players do you guys like. Have you looked at them? Having 200 songs at your fingertips is pretty interesting. What do you think?

theblue

AWIA - CDC MP3... I love mine. ~$300

thrustinj

What is the trach searching like? Is it difficult to get from track 13 to 157? I think this is my only hang-up about them.

fnkmaster

AWIA?? surely u mean AIWA no?

SuDZ

I have never used a bought one for cars. What I mean is like a predone one or what not. I actually built one in my last car. Yes this is the computer geek way of getting it done.
I had used a computer to do so which was in the trunk. Very small about the size of an amp ( where I mouted it it was not even seen and took no real usuable space away from my trunk). It was controlled using a small remote with four buttons that you could even attach to the steering wheel like some imports have so you keep both hands on the wheel not becoming a safety issue.
From there I had a LCD board that was about 5 to six inches long and about 1 high as my screen. On that you could start it up and then pick what type of music you wanted to hear ( rap, rock, PUNK <-=- My personale choice, classic whatever you wanted to put on there.) and then that broke down to what artist then what song. or you could just choose a certain like group or whatever and it just plays all of them. Nice if you had a whole cd or there or whatever.
The screen was clear enough to see even in bright sun which was nice so there was no moving around of anything to make a shadow or whatnot. The computer was able to give out the sound using a sound card I installed in it. I went with a nicer one using a soundblaster 128 for clearer music and what not. I had the cable come out and splice into the factory speakers.
To run the music I used Linux ( to those who dont know it is a free operating system that you can download) to run the whole deal. It was nice because it ran without problems and came out very nice. Also linux was my choice because unlike windows you can change the operating system code at any time to fit my needs. In this case I did not need it to be much bigger than the ability to run an MP3 player.
Some might ask once it is in the trunk do I have to keep taking it out everytime I wanted to install a song or what not. The answer is NO. That would have been way to inconvienient. The way it was setup was that I had a network connection run into the wall in my garage. From the wall it backtracked to a hub connecting it to my computer in my room. This way when I installed musicv I just opened the trunk and conencted a network cable into the NIC on the computer in my trunk. So on the MiniMe ( oh sorry, that was the computer in my trunk) when I typed minime into internet explorer or netscape or whatever it pulled up a web page that let me upload music to my car. On the page I just told it what group it fit into and who it was by and the song title. It took it from there. When I wanted to go back into my car to listen I just unplugged that cable and I was ready to go.

Sorry this was so long but it takes some space to explain how it works ect. I do not have it hooked up in my Max and do not know if I plan to. Please know that if anyone looks into doing this project it is not for the faint of heart. It is a big project that took me months to get done. But if your familiar with Linux or want a challenge that comes out really cool let me know and I will tell you where to look for info.

SuDZ

theblue

yawn... I'm still waking up...

track search is east.... there is an up/down button for switching between folders (a.k.a. albums) and there is a left/right button for switching between tracks (a.k.a. files) in a folder. very easy.

thrustinj

So organization is key when burning MP3s to disk??

theblue

yes... but its easy.... it plays the albums then tracks in alphabetical order starting with numbers first... so you can just put whole CDs (in mp3 format) into a folder and as long as the tracks are numbered it will work fine.

SuDZ

How much did the player cost?

SuDZ

animal72

i bought my aiwa off ebay for $200 shipped new! the cost for the aiwa is going down since kenwood sony etc are coming on the scene with their players. I think the most I've gotten onto one data cd-r is .... .... .... 23 full cd's. A buddy of mine (who told me about them 1st) is also building his own computer and putting them in the trunk. That way, they don't skip aT ALL! And he can get much much more albums on a computer drive.

loup1276

i have the kenwood z828 organic display mp3 cd player and love it its has 4.5v preouts xovers..prettymuch everthing... it reads the mp3s pretty fast.. faster than others i have tested.. i can send you a pic if you'd like just give me your email..louis

Mishmosh

iTrader: (3)

Hey, theblue.
I have the cdc too but don't you get skipping? I am sure mine is installed correctly. Even put the back brace as best I could. On medium-sized and larger bumps, it always skips. I also used to get mid-track freezing but since trying a number of CDRs, I found TDK's work the best.

Love having MP3s in the car but am not totally enamored with my CDC-MP3. I really hate skipping...

RPalka

Can you send a picture to RPalka128@aol.com or post it on the board? Also if you can send some specs on it that would be great.

theblue

that's because you are lowered. my car is still stock and only skips on huge bumps... its not the player as much as it is the fact the the CD has to spin much faster to read the data (I think)

bobl

Actually it's probably poor design. I have a Rio Volt portable MP3/CD player that I've been using in my Max. It looks like a normal portable CD player but does MP3's. You can plug it in via the line outs to your inputs on your head-end or via a cassette adapter.

At any rate, I've watched it play and it spins the MP3 CD for a little bit, maybe 10 seconds and then that's it.. it plays for like 3 minutes from that one data read. What this means it must have a 2-5meg ram buffer. It reads the MP3 file into the buffer (hell, it's digital data) and then plays from there. You can actually remove the CD and it'll still play for 3 minutes! You can see the CD stop spinning, then when it needs more data, it spins it up again.

So, if your in-dash unit is skipping, then there's some problem with the design, memory or something because it should ONLY be reading the data into memory and playing the music out of memory. It can't skip from memory.

Gary95

I have had my JVC head unit installed for about two months now. Great unit, overall. Paid $310, incl. shipping, at XtremeShopper.com. Lots of nice features. Multi-position servo motor controlled removable faceplate, 12FM/6AM presets, RCA plug-n-play connectors for additional amps, subwoofers, graphic equalizer, about 20 different settings to control sound and appearance. Cool looking graphical display. And of course, MP3 capability with ID2 tag support. Does a nice job of playing MP3s, too. Remote control provides very easy folder navigation. Also, it's pretty good with bumps. Only twice has it skipped, and that was only when going over severely poor roads for more than a few seconds. The unit recovered quickly though.

The only drawbacks I've found are 1) display gets a bit washed out in very bright light or direct sun, and 2) some controls took a while to figure out--you definitely need to read the manual.

I would buy it again.

Mishmosh

iTrader: (3)

Damn! That is pretty slick. For sure the CDC-MP3 doesn't do that. In fact, given that the skips are instantaneous with the bump, it is safe to say it has no buffer of any significance or any "electronic shock protection" whatsoever.

theblue: I only recently lowered my Max. Have been using the CDC-MP3 now for the past year. The skipping has not really changed. It is safe to say that every time I take my car out, I KNOW it will skip--doesn't matter if I'm just going to the local grocery. On my way to work, it'll probably skip 5-10 times. Sometimes very brief, but I count 'em. It is not just MP3's neither. Regular CDs will skip just as badly. Had a Pioneer CDplayer before this that almost NEVER skipped.

CKNY

iTrader: (1)

Check out the link in my sig for details and pictures of my computer install...

OgreDave

iTrader: (1)

the aiwa mp3 decks are notorious for skipping, its pretty much considered a given fact over at other car audio forums.

i own the z828 and its sweet lookin, havent put it in yet. (soon) .. just finished building 3 sub boxes last week or so..

theblue

that sucks... I'm glad mine is not like that...

WaarrEagle

iTrader: (1)

I have recently been looking into the AIWA CDC-MP3 player but I have read of some problems. One is the skipping which has been mentioned above, next is that there is a 2 second silence between every MP3 which is annoying to some. It also takes a while to load up once you put the CD in. And lastly you can't put a folder into a folder. You can only organize 1 folder deep. I do not have one and everything I have said came from people's rating at www.epinions.com I have decided to wait until a better version comes out because most of those problems would really bother me. AIWA has released a new version called the CDC-MP32 but I don't know if the problems above have been fixed. Its also too expensive for me at the time. So if those problems don't bother you they go for it.

Mishmosh

iTrader: (3)

2 sec? I really don't think so. Not sure if maybe track-to-track burning vs. DAO has anything to do with this but there isn't really that long of a pause unless you are forwarding to a certain song, in which case there is a pause before it starts. As for the folders, I never really wanted to have a folder within a folder but I had thought you could do that...hmmm. I should also mention that the steering remote is pretty lame so don't consider it a feature. Also, when you stop the car, it only remembers what track you are on and will not just continue where you left off in the track--like CD players often are able to do.

I should add that I think the ability to play MP3's is enough for me to overlook the CDC-MP3's shortcomings although I would urge prospective buyers to look at some of the newly introduced models. CDC-MP3 was only the 2nd headunit to feature MP3s and it has some 1st gen type of faults. It is also possible that some of the skip problems may have been corrected with new builds of the CDC-MP3. Mine was one of the first shipments Crutchfield got 8/00.

WaarrEagle

iTrader: (1)

Sorry if my information is wrong but that is just what I read from posts on epinions.com. You would probably know since you have one.

97GreenMax

I have a Sony Mp3 cd player. I love it. Its really easy to use, and looks nice also. I got it for 280 with shipping off of ebay.

24KP-I-M-P

ive got the Rio 800 portable one i just hook it up to the car with an adapter and it stores 40 songs on it...
my friends got the titanium mac laptop and it got a dvd player on it we hooked it up to my car and watched movies it just like the theater the sound was 3d

Zam

Sudz: That is a sweet install. Do you have specs on the cpu that you used? What about the case that you put into the trunk? I'm assuming you aren't running any drives except for the HD and maybe a floppy drive. Did you do all of your initial loads via your network? I'm very interested in this, especially when the 80 gig drives are running $200. I'm very very new to Linux and have just found another reason why I need to learn it.

The network drop in the garage is sweet. My wife would just shake her head and walk away.

Oh yeah, what kind of a screen did you use? I'd really like the full specs on your system.

Thanks.

Zam

bobl

Depends on what you're doing. In my case I have root:folder:folder because I might have a folder in the root called 70s or 80s and then I'd put albums in their own folders inside of those. Makes it easy to navigate with a MP3 player that is designed correctly. Also, you could have root:band:album1, album2, etc. This is the typical way you would set up your CD if you were doing themes or groups/albums. If you're just dong like 160 of your favorites.. hell, put em all in root without any folder.

Anybody have any experience with the Alpine CDA-7878? I'm really looking for an in-dash unit that does MP3 and WMA like my Rio Volt Portable does. Hell, if it can do all that with rock solid skip protection, WTF can't the people doing in-dash units do it? They are charging at least DOUBLE the price! My Rio Volt was like $160. Does WMA and MP3 and doesn't skip.. hell, I had it slide off the console and onto the floor and bounce around and nada.. not a single skip! I also have the Phillips portable which cost $200 and that doesn't skip either! Problem with the Phillips is no ID3 support so you're going through track numbers 1-160 which sucks the llamas wiener.

SuDZ

I actually doesn't take much because of the fact your really only using it to play MP3's. I used a Pentium running at 120 MHz. From there it had 64 meg of ram just for good measure really and a 9 gig drive. Since My linux install was about 300 megs or so it left lots of space on there for MP3's , especially since most of my songs are under two minutes.

Exactly too many just takes up unnecesary space and was not needed. I did have a cd rom in there during the starting part though just to load software and rip cd's. The case was small about 12 inches by 10 inches or so. I actually had to run a small piece of metal over the top to mount the drive right but it worked fine.

The first loads I did were not over the network I just did them from the desktop since I already had it running and in my room. Also this way it let me test it in my house running through my home audio system for a while to make sure it worked good enough. Then once Apache web server was running on it I did it that way and it worked great.

Most people did to me too but then thought it was really cool once it was going.


I used a matrix screen it was black outlined with a green middle. It was a nice one that I used because even in direct sunlight it could still be read. Some of the cheaper ones could not be. Some people though were looking at going with the bigger 5 inch square screens though. I was willing to consider that route if I was going to incorporate like map software into it ir what not. That was something I was looking at later but was looking for a way to incorporate it. Also the software I used was mySQL. I used that for databasing the songs instead of a playlist. Whats REALLY cool about that is that if you do a random plays and stuff it can actually track what songs you listen to the most least what style and things like that so you could do a random play and it was customed to your style.

I think I answered most of your questions but when looking to start a project like this there are always lots more. If ya got any let me know.

SuDZ

thrustinj

What bra are you getting??

SuDZ

I am gettign a factory one on a lower price than normal so I am going with that. Dont want alot of raod chips getting in my hood So this should help it out.

SuDZ