MP3's For The Mobile Masses
Written: Dec 06 '00 (Updated Apr 01 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: MP3's for the car!!! Reads ID3 tags; Plays CD-R AND CD-RW;
Cons: Useless wireless remote; No digital radio; Skips some (not enough to annoy)
The Bottom Line: This is the best bang for the buck. It does everything that even a techie wants. It has improved the quality of my driving experience.
|
|
|
| techjunkie's Full Review: Aiwa CDC-MP3 Car CD Player |
Picture this...
1. Surf to http://www.billboard.com
2. Make your own weekly billboard CD-RW's from Napster.
3. Pop your CD-RW into your AIWA CDC-MP3 player
4. Repeat steps 1-4 weekly.
For long trips...
1. Pop in a CD-R containing approximately 170 mp3's
2. Select Random mode.
3. Reads the title and artist from the player's display for each song name you forget.
4. The drive is already over???
Another idea...
1. Take out all your albums of your favorite artist.
2. Create a folder for each album on CD-R
3. Take 1 CD-R instead of 7 - 10 CD's
4. Play whichever folder / album you like.
(Insert your ideas here.)
My Story...
I ordered this player from http://www.crutchfield.com for $299.95 - $25 (referral) + $9.95 (shipping) = $284.90 (TOTAL). By the way, you can use any existing Crutchfield customer ID for the $25 off. If you don't know of one, you can checkout my profile for mine. Anyway, I picked the Make and Model of my car, and Crutchfield included all the accessories needed for the install.
The Install...
Since I haven't installed a car stereo before, it took me about 5 hours. I read and followed the instructions, bought some parts from Home Depot, and 5 hours later... everything worked the first time!!!
Cool Features That I Actually Use...
1. Displays the ID3 tags (Filename, Title, Artist, Album, ...). You will appreciate this if you have 170 songs on a CD.
2. Plays CD-RW also! I burned 3 CD-RW's and they all played perfectly the first time. (I've read articles that state otherwise.)
3. You can preset 2 timeslots everyday to play whatever radio station. This is obviously for your commute. Everyday, this feature automatically turns on and plays my news and traffic.
4. Albums / Folders. I actually made a folder for each of my moods. This way, I can play the songs that fit my mood at the time.
The Not So Cool Things...
1. The wireless remote is useless. It is cheaply made. It does not work majority of the time even when I held it in front of the IR receiver.
2. No digital radio. Digital radio is supposed to come to everyone's neighborhood soon. However, rumor says that there may not be enough bandwidth to support all the info that they're planning to broadcast. At any rate, this gadget won't be able to support any of it.
3. It skips once in a while. In my experience, it skips an average of once every 0.5 hour. More... if you are going over huge bumps.
4. Takes about 5 - 10 seconds to read the CD-R/RW's. I've read articles that say greater than 30 seconds. I personally haven't experienced that yet.
Hardware / Software I used...
1. Plextor PlexWriter 8/4/32 CD-R/RW Writer
2. Sony CRX100E CD-R/RW Writer
3. Memorex CD-RW's
4. Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID: techjunkie
|
|
Location: San Diego, CA
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me: "Why can't technology and people just get along?"
|
|
|