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General discussion

MP3 use in car

Nov 17, 2008 8:21AM PST

I purchased my Samsung T10 in order to listen to recorded books. This it does perfectly. Now my husband and I are planning a driving trip. My question is: Is there any way a passenger and driver can both hear the audio? Are there accessory speakers, connections, or anything like that?
Thanks.

Discussion is locked

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several options for playback through car's speakers
Nov 17, 2008 12:52PM PST

Does your car have an aux input? If it does, then all you need is a cable. A 3.5 mm with 2 male ends - one goes into the headphone port of the player, the other goes into the aux input port.

If not, does your car have a cassette player? Then you can use a cassette adapter. It looks like a cassette tape with a cable sticking out of it with a male end. That end goes, again, into the headphone port of the player. The cassette goes into the deck.

Have neither? You could use an fm transmitter. However, these are hit or miss. It depends on where you're driving and how crowded the fm stations are. You connect the fm transmitter to the headphone port of the player. You set the transmitter to an open frequency and then you set your car's radio to that frequency.

Your last two options:
1. Get a new head unit with aux input or get an aux input installed. Some car radios allow the latter using the connection that would have gone to a disk changer. I believe it may involve pulling the radio out.

2. You've already mentioned accessory speakers. Since you're going on a road trip, this is not really a good option. You'll probably want something small. And because of that, it's not going to get loud enough unless it is really quiet inside the car. But if you do decide you want to try this route, pretty much any accessory speaker will work. Even the ones for iPods, provided they have an aux input port. And make sure it comes with the necessary 3.5 mm cable or buy one.

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MP3 use in car
Nov 18, 2008 3:06AM PST

Thanks very much for answering my question. Sounds like a cassette adapter will do it for me. Had never heard of such a thing, so thanks for expanding my technical savvy too.

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Play mp3 in car
Nov 21, 2008 10:56AM PST

I bought a gigaware portable speaker http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3191518 at radio shack, for use in my car, it works great with my mp3, I also use it for books, it runs on batteries. It holds the mp3 steady and the design makes it quite stable, the sound quality is really good, and loud enough to hear over road noise.

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Play mp3 in car
Nov 22, 2008 2:34PM PST

That sounds like a good option too. Is it portable, then, so it can be used pretty much anywhere?

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Could not have asked for better timing on this subject
Nov 22, 2008 1:13PM PST

Just today I tried the cassette into the radio and then plugged into my mp3 player. Nothing. In fact my mp3 player shut down, could be tho that it is too old, like sandisk 140e so don't know. Guess if I wasn't so cheap would replace my radio and cassette player in my car. Anyhow enjoy your trip. I also am off on a short jaunt and guess will be taking my old cassettes with me to listen too.

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FM transmitter
Nov 24, 2008 9:42AM PST

I'm a couple of days late, but maybe someone else can use this. I bought a fm transmitter for about $14.95, plugged it into my cig lighter and plugged the attached cord into my walkman. I turned on my player and then selected a low fm station, with no audio (a little static that goes away). Then I push the button on the xmtr until the sound come out my speakers. My music, set on shuffle, plays beautifully.