I don’t normally go on about geeky toys, and I promise to not make a habit of it. Today we finally joined the ranks of the MP3 Player Owners and got a cheap no-brand 1GB thing which is utterly tiny – it’s not much bigger than an AAA battery. We also got one of those things that plugs into the headphone socket and broadcasts the signal over low-power radio. They’re meant to live in the car, so we can put loads of children’s stuff on the MP3 player and avoid having a clutter of tapes (with the requested tape always left at home), and also get around having no CD player in the car.
I tested it out tonight as I had to pick up some furniture (not Ikea!) and I had one of those wow! moments with technology. There was a thing about the size of a pack of chewing gum that contained a ridiculous amount of music, which it then piped down a wire to a gizmo plugged into the cigarette lighter that turned the pack of chewing gum into a mini radio station, whose signals were then picked up by the aerial on the roof, back down a wire into the car stereo and out through the speakers. (Much of this could have been avoided if the stereo had a socket for a simple wire rather than going via radio waves.)
It was like the first time I put a music CD into a lap top – this shouldn’t have been happening. This tiny bit of electronics was acting like a hi-fi, which is large static black boxes in the corner of the living room. I expect the amazement at the MP3 player and radio thing will wear off soon, just like it did for the lap top. I also expect that the children don’t find it remarkable at all – it’s a normal thing to them, like the computer. I wonder what gizmo they’ll get amazed by when they’re adult, and what gizmo will completely baffle them when they turn into old fogeys.
I also wonder how many car cigarette lighters are actually used to light cigarettes, compared to how many are used as power sockets. I finally wonder how long the range is – if someone travelled in convoy with us in another car, could they pick up Radio Free {insert county here}?
An experiment for melrose?
I’ve heard that the range isn’t great: 5-10m maybe.
If your car stereo has a tape slot, you can buy a gadget that looks like a tape with a wire hanging out that plugs into the MP3 player’s headphone socket, and cuts out the faffing with radio waves.
I’ve heard that the tape adaptor things are hit-and-miss – some work fine and some are pants. Gina told me the one you use is fine, but a colleague said I could have his for free as the sound quality was so poor he gave up. Admittedly driving at motorway speeds isn’t the place where you can appreciate sound quality, but I was put off the tape adaptors.
usefully timed review – we are considering just such a bit of technological geekery for very similar reasons.