*mods, please leave this here and not in the Audio section, as this is relevant for the 5th gen only, and I believe I will get more relevant responses here*

I just got a 10gb iPod, and so far I'm loving it. I have a few questions:

1. Should I get the Belkin car kit, or something else? I have a 50% off thingy at Circuit City for Belkin stuff for another month, so I should probably use that...

2. I have heard that THIS can be used instead of the Belkin car kit.. would anyone recommend this, or would this lower sound quality tremendously?

3. Is it difficult to hardwire with the Belkin kit, if that is what I need?

Thanks.

 

1. I have the Belkin power & line-out adapter if that's what you're referring to.

2. A friend of mine went with the iTrip and he said the signal/sound quality sucked.

3. I thought it was pretty easy to hardwire it.

I cheated a bit and went to radio shack and bought a cigarrete lighter kit. That way I wired the new kit in and just plugged the Belkin into it (so I never actually made any changes to the belkin part).

Then I just used the tape adapter and pulled my stereo apart so the adapter and the wire went behind the dash.

And the final piece was getting a universal cell phone cradle from Radio Shack which is a PERFECT fit for the iPod, even had a gap in the bottom for the Belkin plug.

You can check out my car domain site for a couple of quick pics I took, although there's not much there.

I LOVE my iPod... I use it almost exclusively in my car. The next step is to upgrade my HU so I can get an aux input and ditch the stupid cassette adapter!

 

Thanks!

OK.. so if I do not want to open up my dash and all that, can I still use the Belkin kit? I think I want to try the Belkin FM transmitter.. would I need to open the dash for that? Basically, I want to use the iPod in the car without pulling the dash/radio apart - what's the best way to do this?

 

I only pulled my dash apart b/c I didn't want any of those ugly wires hanging around. Originally I had the Belkin plugged into my cig lighter and then the cassette adapter plugged into the deck, and that was it - no install needed.

It only gets harder if you want everything to look neat like I did.

I bought a FM transmitter from a hobby site that I directly wired into the 12v of the car, which is more powerful than any battery operated one would be, and I didn't like the quality - so I went back to the tape. If you have a tape deck, use the adapter - otherwise I'd check out the reviews on all the different FM transmitters and buy the best.

 

Sweet deal, thanks a lot. I don't think I will mind the wires (not **** about that stuff, hehe), so this may work out well. One final question: hows your bass with the adapter? Do you think it's less pronounced than if you had burned the same MP3's onto a CDR?

 

Not sure. I usually have my bass kinda low anyway. There's definitely room for improvment on the overall quality, but it's still pretty good. As good as it can be going through a cassettte player.

 

Alright.. I'll just have to test it and find out. Thanks for your help, man..

 

my brother has the i trip and its very nice he really love it. and i thinks its nice

 

Look at Pmas76's website. He has a how to for the install

 

Lithiumax,

The link you posted of the iTrip is for 3rd Gen iPods. They have one that will fit the 2nd gen which is what u have.

If you are an audio purist, the iTrip is hit/miss. No wires are needed. You set the transmit frequency to an unused one in your area. The sound quality is a equal to/little short of radio quality at best. Not good enough for me.

I was actually working on a line-in connector for the 3rd gen but apple refuses to sell me the "PROPRIETARY" connector.

just so they could charge $50 a pop for trivial white connectors.
SHIFT_woosh

 

Eh.. I have a 3rd gen iPod.

 

my bad, I thought 10Gb were end of lifed at 2nd Gen.

 

Look what I did. It's the best way. The Itrip quality sucks. The cassette adapter has the best sound quality by far. You don't have to worry about the frequency cutting in and out. It will sound good, I promise.

 

I have the Belkin kit, and it works pretty well. The only downside is that there are only 4 frequencies to choose from. If there are live stations on all 4, you're out of luck.

I know 2 people who ordered the ITrip last summer and still haven't received it. The Belkin also uses its own batteries - less drain on the IPod.

I can't help with the hard-wire, but I'd be interested in the answers on that one.

 

I had hard-wired my iPod a few months ago, using an FM modulator. I eventually upgraded to a new Alpine HU, and this dramatically increased the sound quality.

Here's the original writeup:
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=243415

Here's some pics of the original install and my current install: