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Aiwa car CD-MP3 player
conraduno writes "Looks like Aiwa is releasing a car stereo MP3 player which loads tracks from a CD. Called the CDC-MP3, it plays CD's, CD-R's, and CD-RW's. Now all I need is a burner. " Here's a
few more details from mp3.com.
I would be wary of buying anythign Aiwa. I know 6 people whose Aiwa products have broken within 2 years... unlucky? Maybe, But I'd rather risk it all on a MamboX.
-- taking over the world, we are.
Considering how many drivers get into accidents just fooling with a radio or cell phone, another car gadget is just what we need...
who makes it.. Did anyone review it yet?
=1000101
Practical - YES Price - OK Gary
Cool, from the link (c'n'p karma)
Is MP3 legal? MP3s can be legal or illegal. The
MP3 format itself is legal, and it's legal when the
song's copyright holder has granted permission
to download and play the song. It is legal (in
most countries) to encode MP3s for personal
use. However, it is illegal to distribute or trade
MP3s without permission of the copyright
holder. Good things are always good to share,
aren't they?
yup.
--
+&x
Why haven't I seen this anywhere else???: easybuy2000 has portable ones for $109 - they play ISO9660 CDR's with MP3's in any directory structure, as well as regular CD's... The construction's a bit cheap (it looks like your average discman from a few years back, but the buttons are chromed-over plastic things that push all the way through the cover to the main unit), but there are separate headphone and line outputs that pump out sound easily comparable with regular portable CD players. It includes random or single-directory play - the latter will keep you in the same subdirectory, but doesn't seem to work quite like the manual (which reads like a bad web translation) implies - i.e., trying to jump from the first track of one subdirectory to the next dir confuses it, requiring you to switch out of that mode and back. For some reason, it also has an absurd amount of memo space if you want to hook up a microphone to it - might have something to do with that 50 seconds of anti-skip...? The extra EQ settings aren't terribly impressive over the car stereo, but they help make cheap headphones sound a bit better. It even comes with an AC adapter that will charge Ni-Cads in the battery compartment. It decodes my 160K-encoded MP3's just fine - I don't think the manual says anything about what rates are supported (I've already misplaced it). ...and it's OEM to boot, so no corporate logos. An insanely good deal despite its quirks, from my perspective. I'm baffled that I haven't been able to find anything about it anywhere else (and saddened that my story about it was rejected because it was too similar to this one \). fri-'net-ik
I haven't looked at these sites too closely, but how many of them will play any music from any CD that happens to have mp3
Dude, the guy linked them. It's a frickin' click away. He wasn't paid for that post (although he should get kickbacks.:)
--
+&x
Whaddya know, somebody beat me to the punch while I was proofreading, anyway, heh.
AIWA's site is short on specs---anyone fathom a guess as to what format the CDs need to be in? Guessing it'll do ISO9660, but UDF would be cool. HFS+ very unlikely so, please everyone, damn me for burning 40+ CDRs of MP3s in HFS+ format. Damn me.
----
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Just for a little info, a co-employee called Crutchfield on Friday and they said they had sold 26 already, and yes, they won't have them for another month or so. I think the price was $279 there. Anyway, I am going to order one (they won't charge your card till it ships) and maybe cancel the order later. I would cancel it if the deck doesn't support ID3 tags. Another thing to think about is all the laswuits going on now... Who knows what manufacturers will put in MP3 player hardware in the next year or so... perhaps some copyright protection scheme to protect themselves even though today there are no real standards there of. I would rather get my unit today before the sh*t hits the fan. We will always find a way to make the software work, but when they start changing the hardware to protect themselves, the consumer gets hurt.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
If you got one, please tell us the limits for reading mixed media , multidirectory, etc.
Thanks
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
Not everybody has a car! I want a portable one! I mean, I could burn one big friggin CD w/ like 100-150 songs on the mofo and play it with some clear plastic (stealth), 1.5", sattelite headphones. Damn, can you even devise the uses for that? Couple that with a nice watch-style remote controller and college is a breeze!
Eventually it will get to the point where the remote control is a ring and the headphone is just a little hearing-aid type thing. The mp3 player will be the size of a thick credit card and the disc will be a 2" diameter mini-dvd. Damn I love technology.
This product is total vapor AFAICT. They announced it in October of last year. It has been shipping "next week" since January. Personally, I'm pissed because they proudly display about 5 sites that are more than happy to take your money on preorder, yet they seem to feel no obligation to actually ship a fscking product. I'm also pissed because I get to go out now and buy an overpriced solid state MP3 player with a tenth the capacity, a greater price, and a slower means to transfer music... grr.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I'd really like to hear more about this. I've been waiting for that goddamn MamboX since last year. $117 seems cheap. Is it poorly made? Durable? Can you post a lot more info on this? I think a lot of people are interested...
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
"I never pay more than $200. or so for a car stereo" ... Is this the same guy who then goes on to talk about analyzing music... Can't get there from here buddy. I bet you get all your home stereo equipment from Wal-Mart too.
Yea -- This will work when i am mowing the lawn....err...No -- I guess I am stuck with the "puny" 64 megs in my Rave....(Which can hold close to 35 songs encoded at 56K)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I read about this awhile ago, well actually I had a vision, then read this http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/04/19/02402 20&threshold=-1&commentsort=3&mode=threa d&pid=87#189
Kid: We're getting pulled over
Cop: Get out of the car or I'll shoot
Kid: We didn't do anything
Cop: Oh no? My Microsoft dork beam picked up
illegal Dr. Dre signals coming from your stereo
put your face in the ground! NOW!
The entire Aiwa line of head units has an auxiliary input on the front.
What? It loads MP3s off the CD, and DECODES them. Thats your point, nothing else decodes the files. What in the hell is your logic of the death and resurrection of mp3?!?! Its not a stock! Technologies dont die and return. They DIE.
- And unless you only have one arm, I'm pretty confident the average person can keep a discman in their car and press a button or two while driving.
- What do you do, drive one-handed holding it in midair and shifting with your knee, or drape cables over your passenger and have the whole mess hit the floor whenever you stop?
Either you've never owned a car, or you're an idiot. there are many many places in a car that you could mount a device that size. Besides the obvious center console mounted portable CD player holders, many Japanese cars have a second DIN-size compartment in the dash right below the stereo. Many cars have center armrest bins. Some have enough space in the dish below the handbrake handle. Then there's also visor or door pockets, or you could get one of those cupholder trashbag combo dealies that drapes over your center hump or console, and put the discman in the trash bag. If you actually thought about it, you'd find a perfect place in your car to put it where it would be within arm's reach while you're driving. And if you can't, you can just wait until they release the remote control for the unit. Then you can screw it into your big thick skull so you never lose it.ToiletDuk (58% Slashdot Pure)
Here's the latest on the Z919 from an email from Kenwood USA:
We are planning on releasing the Excelon Z919 MP3 player in the US this summer, but do not have an exact date. The unit will have the following features and will have a suggested retail price of $650.00:
DRIVE distortion reduction circuitry
Maximum output power: 45 watts x 4
Motorized faceplate
Front/Rear and Non Fading gold plated preouts
System E's+ Advanced Crossover System
Full function remote
Champagne finish
We will update our website with additional information as soon as it is available.
www.dirtcheapdrives.com has a creatve DVD RAM that claims to do 5.2 GB for $279. (Sorry, you'll have to click through their site... they do their links via Javascript, and I'm not in the mood to reverse-engineer their site.)
I've never used one... I'm going by the specs on paper.
I agree they're not nearly as ubiquitous. But, I believe most of not all DVD players will read all the CD formats.
Bah. Just get a car MP3 player for less money. Linux-based ones cost less than $400 in hardware, counting an old monitor. Just slap a 486 or low-end Pentium together.
;)
MP3Car.com has some great examples and resources. One of my friends has built a mp3 car for $0 in expenses. It runs DOS 6.22 and I've seen it - it's damn leet
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
I'd be impressed if you can get both a cd drive and a hard disk into a DIN-sized package. But it would be sweet...
--
http://gammatron.weblogger.com
Finally, this is what i was hoping before? Anyone konw if it is coming out before July it would be really great to have this when I follow phish for a few weeks this summer. Hopefully this will drop prices/increase RAM on the digital mp3 players with RAM the size of floppies.
I certainly see a point to this product -- a lot of people want it! What's wrong with CD media? A lot of people have been holding out for it as solid-state media is too expensive.
This will probably sell really well. I'm planning on getting this, or an equivalent, as soon as they are available.
Why the skepticism about the future of MP3? I don't understand.
Then again, it's not too late for M$ to cram another standard down our throats... they'ds trying already, the Rios, etc. are compatible with the M$ compressed audio format... Which may sound great, but I have a problem with it in principle.
This is the big question, IMHO. I will jump through a hoop or 2 if needed to set up my MP3 CDRs properly for the deck... but I draw the line at extensive prep time. It better be forgiving WRT file names, directory structure, etc. I want to dump my best music onto a few CDs, and leave them in the car. At $1 apiece for CDRs, I could duplicate my entire library and if it got stolen... I wouldn't care!
I would hope the dir structure works something like this:
DIRECTORIES at the root level are named by the user for the category of songs within them. There should be a hardware button to skip categories ahead & back. This way I could name a dir "industrial dance classics" or "classic polka" and refer to that group of songs on the display.
When you are "in" a category, you could set it to random play or sequential play, repeat, etc. You could also tell it to do global randomization.
SUBDIRECTORIES should perhaps be ignored. It might be nice to have a sub-category, but think about the front-panel interface you'd need to navigate it. Too much, I think.
ID3 TAGS should be used, when present, to display the song name. If there are no ID3 tags, the dispaly can show the category name, "track number," and filename.
Support for some kind of disc playlist would be nice too. I don't use playlists on the desktop so I am not sure how it should work mobile...
Enough rambling. Time to go look for change under the couch so I can get one of these, or equivalent...
It's encouraging that there are people trusting enough to give their cash now in exchange for a vague promise of future delivery of a product that no one's ever actually used or even seen yet.
I was going to write to kenwood and see if I could get the specs for the control... that would definately be sweet...
---
I just meant that not many have a cd burner or want to shell out the minimum-seem of $300...maybe it will change, i don't know...
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
-madd
On eastbuy2000's site they say it can only do between 32-192 kbit/second. This really sucks because most of the CDs i've encoded are 224kbps, and there's no way i'd downconvert them for this, besides I got my minidisc from mobshop for $127, though it did take 4 weeks to ship, this does look cool, considering that you could fit 10h of music on it though.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
I've seen a few posts of people looking for portable MP3 Discmans instead of in-dash players. Thought I'd go ahead and throw out this link where you can buy one for $109 + s/h. And as of right now they are in stock. Enjoy.. Dustin http://www.easybuy2000.com/store/products/mp3/mp3_ discman.html
Well, think of it this way: If the AIWA one costs too much, competitors will jump in and then we'll have a race for the best cd-mp3 player (Like nvidia vs. 3dfx, intel vs. amd), eventually leading to 200 dollar multi-cd mp3 players, possible within the year! Fantabulous.
IDE harddrives are cheaper per gigabyte and hold -much- more at once than DVD-RAM media.
Agreed, want 100+ hours of music and no ugly in
dash units.
Your copyright notice is bizzare and immature. Slashdot reproduces your work; so do proxies. It's also OK for me to take parts of it, or in some cases all of it. If I'm using it for non-commercial purposes, then I'm almost certainly in the clear - especially given that your work is a slashdot post, rather than a novel. And especially considering that you wouldn't be making any money on it anyway. Please check www.loc.gov for more info.
-Dave Turner.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Yea, this AIWA player is kinda old news. But once again, MP3Car.Com has got the downlow on everything under the sun MP3 + CAR. Cheers
Crutchfield carries the Sanyo EXCD-1000, which packs a CD player and cassette deck into a single-DIN unit. If they can do that, they can probably squeeze a 2.5" HD and an MP3 decoder in there instead of the tape deck...
Nullsoft, are you listening? This could be huge! :)
Say I get one of these units and install it in my Knight Industries 2000 (I call it K.I.T.T. for short). And this is one of thos new fangled "inteligent" cars of the future. It talks to me, orders pizza for me, and even berat's up bad guys. But I digress, if I install one of these players into K.I.T.T. and he finds a way to get on the internet and download "And Justice For All", is Metallica going to sue me or my car?
Signed,
-Concerned Citizen
Moderating to further my personal world domination agenda... and to get chicks.
After I did this to a few of my MODs to load onto my empeg, I was on the unofficial BBS requesting that MOD support be added. The programmers said it can be done, and will probably come down the road. (Aka after the Mark II and Release 1.0 of the software).
That seems to be the most portable device for now that may be able to do MODs.
All I need is a car!! *G*
This is exactly what I've been waiting for. And at $299 it's pretty affordable too :-)
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
I hope this actually works... I have heard runors about CD mp3 players for years. I would find this very useful, as I have more mp3 cds than actual cds...
This is basically the same thing, only instead of in-dash, it's like a portable cd-player. Definitely cool.
oh, yeah, and it's only $200 too.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
Finally they're starting to get it! Like what would I need a player with a tiny bit of RAM and nothing more for? Combine it with a disk or with CDs and it actually starts getting really interesting.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
I don't have a car, so an in-car one wouldn't be real useful. Now, if they could make one the size of a discman that you could carry in your pocket, now that would be cool (I remember an Ask Slashdot about minidiscs w/ mp3s, but not cd-rws). Any reports?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Not quite as cool as the actual car system that play actual MP3 files, but playing MP3 encoded disks is definitely a step in the right direction. Huzzah!
-Mad Dreamer
according to the latest crutchfield catalog, kenwood has released one as well.
Kenwood Z919
although, it's about $350 more then the aiwa(299.95) and 649.95 for the kenwood (probably cheaper at places other then crutchfield)
-Jae
i never pay more than $200 or so for a car stereo, so as soon as a mp3 player hits that sweet spot i'm off to frys.
the CAJUN thing is cool, but it's too big for my vehicle.
mp3's are great, on some classical music i can really hear the difference (soft strings) otherwise i have reduced my entire collection of about 150 cd's onto about 12 cd's (not done yet).
i have put a hold on all new cd purchases until i see how the whole 'tallica/riaa/mp3 shit turns out.
mostly, i borrow all the cd's i can from my friends and reduce them to mp3 format, then give them a huge cd of mp3's.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
What was that loud explosion?
Oh, it must have been empeg's business plan crashing into flames. Hope you guys have broke even already (FWIW, I still and always have liked their product. Just not $1000 worth.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
With a 2.5" drive, NO problem. Some cooling may be required, but a low-RPM fan as large as the space available would be both good enough and inaudible.
Honestly, I do not see much of a point to this from Aiwa's standpoint, except so they can try to play the wave of the future, as if they are with it. It still loads tracks right off of a CD, so I see this as kind of pointless.
I'm sorry-correction:whether or not mp3's are the wave of the future, it is extremely hard to tell at this point (and you know why), although I believe after all of this is settled, mp3's will die down for a while to shortly make a fast recovering return, at which point the future we are so longing for may have arrived.
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
"spare the lachrymosity when the fulminations have inveighed"
-madd
The headings shows it as $299, yet the blurb states $350.
You can get them directly from Aiwa for $299. They are backordered by about 3 weeks right now. My wife is ordering her one as I type this. :)
An Empeg would be great, but priced one? Tried to get one? I know someone that works there and they are VERY delayed on shipping. Not just because of demand but because it takes them a long time to produce a run of product. Carrying CDs is no big deal, especially when you can get 10 hours out of one CD.
You can order this unit directly from Aiwa. Or get it at a store in a few weeks. This is a product that is shipping now or SOON and not just hype.
Right.. 2.6GB on one side of the disc, 2.6GB on the other side. I've also heard that Best Buy may sell those for $299.
Either way, the suggested action stands. Same goes for the moderator who decided that agreeing with you was worth than ignoring the fact that your post is off-topic. If you don't have a printer I'll be happy to send you a copy.
I have about a billion MOD files. Someone needs to make a portable device to play them!!!
:) I once converted a 250K MOD into a WAV. It expanded to SEVENTY THREE FREAKIN MEGABYTES!
;)
Why? Cuz RAM's expensive!
When I converted THAT into an MP3 to stick in my Rio and it was 3MBs. With a 32MB Rio, one could store over 10x as much music if it's in MOD format... and most of the music is cooler.
Does that mean you need the 6 or 10 cd changer too to be able to use it?
(And where do you order this via the web? Shipping to Sweden also of course :)
it's in my head
http://www.genica.com/MP3-CD.htm
I _think_ this is company that makes the unit this guy mentioned. They make a huge variety of different products. Can't beat the price either. I just purchased one.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
The advantage of this is increased display size. The displays on aftermarket stereos are much larger now that they hide the slot behind the face. Very cool idea, whomever came up with it.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
What I want is for Ford|Chrystler|GM|etc to make a OEM trunk mounted MP3 player. If Ford offered an OEM MP3 player for the Crown Vic|Grand Mark|Continental, I'd be on the phone to my dealer within seconds....
www.eFax.com are spammers
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I hit all the links for MP3 CD players and some did not specificaly mention CD-RW. Since cheap CD players can have troubles with this medium, I was trying to confirm from somebody using one vs an ad since I have yet to find a decent review.
My apologies for incoherency.
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
http://www.empeg.com/
http://www.carplayer.com/
http://www.mp3-player.org/hardware.htm
http://www.mp3carplayer.com/
Descriptions of personal projects
http://utter.chaos.org.uk/~altman/mp3m obile/
http://www.jarcom.com/inmotion/
http://www.ryanspc.com/carmp3/mp3playe r.html
http://www.capybara.org/~dfraser/car- mp3.html
--
The shareholder is always right.
I came across the CDC-mp3 a few days ago, but could not find a retailer selling it (and believe me, I looked long and hard)?
Does anyone know a retailer that has it, or when it might be distributed widely?
Saw a write up iin Popular Mechanics a few months back about these items..cool stuff..1 was this AIWA and the other was a portable CD player that also will play CDs that you burned MP3s onto..now Metallica can cry even more
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's
That thing is pretty cool, but I think that aftermarket CD players are ugly, and that one definitely won't match the interior of my car. I want a large-capacity MP3 player that sits in my trunk and is controlled by the CD changer controls built into my factory stereo. That's what I'd pay money for.
Take care,
Steve
========
Stephen C. VanDahm
How does this thing organize MP3's? In other words, do you have to dump all the MP3's in the root directory or can you organize them in folders? Is there a playlist editor (can I choose one directory to play)? Or do I just stick the CD in and it starts randomly playing an MP3 without my control? All that would seem hard to do on a tiny little display. --Nicholas
It says:
Detachable In-Dash CD (MP-3) Receiver with Changer Controls
And since you don't see any CD slot, the slot is almost certainly behind the face. I've seen these -- the face will flip down to reveal a regular CD slot. I dunno if there is any particular (dis)advantage to this design, but it is not uncommon for aftermarket in-dash CD players.
Why not straight to DVD? This application doesn't need a fast DVD player. I'm guessing the DVD mechanism wouldn't be much more than CD.
Or at least make it an option, I suppose. There are lots more CD burners than DVD writers out there.. but for this, I could be pursuaded.
yeah - it's called the apex 600a dvd player, and supposedly circuit city has now pulled them from their shelves. they claim it's being discontinued.
-Jae
--
The shareholder is always right.
The only bad thing about this player is that AIWA is giving RIAA more bullets to put into the gun. They mention in their advertisment or press release that the usual way people get mp3s is to download them off the internet. The miss all the users who are making legal copies of mp3s off their own CDs.
The bright side is that if that this is a major car audio vendor selling this thing. If they think there is money to be had from the market then they have the deep corprate pockets to fight RIAA if they try and sue them. The more market penetration mp3 players get beyond the nerds the more the old making a copy of a cd you own to listen to on your tape player becomes a valid argument.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
I mean, I realize that what you're concerned about is whether or not the company has actually built them yet, but I know that it can be done because I know (as I'm sure many of you do - besides the fact that I'm sure many of you have built one yourself) a friend of mine is building himself an MP3 player that he'll put in his car (when he gets one ;-). I think it's really neat; right now he's held back by not having the case he wants, and he's got to get a power supply the right size for it. But it's nice that they're on the market now, as long as they're not so over priced, because they'll be targeting people who will have cds of mp3s... which will likely include a lot of people who could and would build their own mp3 player if the Aiwa one is too expensive. So, Aiwa had better watch themselves so they don't lose their market.
Insert mind here.
Look for it at Circuit City - of course, this in-car MP3 player will not have the loopholes menu to disable Macrovision and region coding (heh heh heh)
:( doesn't look like I'll be getting one for my car after all!! It was pretty decent, grabbing MP3s from Flash, CD-ROM or memory, displaying ID3 tag info and encoding info, as well as shuffle play. Works great - but now nobody will probably ever see it. Oh well.
I haven't seen a price. Apex is also known as L.A. Sound, so I expect the player to be released under that brand. Perhaps it will be sub-US$200 mark.
I've spent the last couple of weeks getting an MP3 player working for our AutoPC project, but the whole thing has been put on hold
/. is really lagging behind on their news. I saw this at http://www.hardware.mp3.com about two months ago. This is not news. What /. should be concerned about is how it is possible for the JPL to lose the Mars Orbiter if supposedly they test all their equipment millions of times to find bugs.??
I'm surprised that this hasn't been posted to /. yet but an actual CD/Mp3 player already exists: http://www.easybuy2000.com/store/products/mp3/mp3_ discman.html . In stock and everything. I've had mine for about a week now. The total cost was $117 US. Sure, there are some shortcomings to it (e.g. Directory skipping, ID3 tag reading) but the thing is just over 100 bucks. It's definitely worth the dollars I paid for it.
The moderators ultimately decided to moderate me down dangerously close to losing my +1 bonus. That's OK, I'm an Everything2 addict now anyway.
I know what prompted it. I was on slashdot when the original hellmouth series ran. And I'm arguing that 1. you are on shaky legal ground and 2. you're on bad moral ground.
Legally, there's a concept of fair use that you're ignoring. Actually, you're ignoring the rest of my post too. I should have marked my first post as OT, this one is so marked - if my post should have been modded down, yours should too.
Morally, well, copyrighting slashdot posts is bad, because it means that less people will read them (assuming that they're insighful, when I assume you beleive they are). It also means that slashdot gets intp legally weird situations (it's reproducing your comment). And since slashdot is good, getting it into bad situations is not nice.
I don't know why people get so upset about this.
Now, I'll reproduce my comment on the subject from kuro5hin:
. Entire comments were not posted. Parts of comments were posterd.
Common sense points:
2. If you said the comments to a friend, you might expect him to say "A friend of mine once said 'blah'".
3. Maybe you wouldn't.... but if you write the comments on a subway wall, you probably wouldn't care if they were quoted in a book on subway wall art.
4. What if you put them, anonymously, in a school newspaper, and someone quoted you from there? Again, I don't see the big deal.
5. Comments may be owned by the poster. But it's obvious that you grant slashdot the right to republish them on the web. What's so different about slashdot publishing them on dead trees?
I just don't see what all the fuss is about.
-Dave Turner.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
And have it melt-down in the summer? Nah. The CD-mp3 player is the best and cheapest way to go by far. If you're talking on-board navigation and all that, then your 486 'slap together' idea is more-or-less valid but still more of a pain than it's worth. A wave of these players is just over the horizon. Very soon you'll be able to buy a cheapo discman-mp3 at KMart for $49.
The on-board computer idea is truly 'leet' beyond all comprehension, 'specially with speech-activation and/or a nice 'gameboy' type hand-held interface. Actually, I think a ppilot makes an excellent interface. It's already got IR built in.
**>>BELCH
You might be able to get the drive adn such in there, but then the speaker level outputs would have to go. There's no way that you could fit the amplifier and a drive in a single head-unit. Also, having a hard drive in there would be pretty dangerous... Love those Michigan potholes:)
There's no faster way to kill a hd than bump it while it is running.
Also, you may be able to fit a fan in there, but with most cars, anyways, there is next to no room behind the head-unit, so air circulation is still essentially null.
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
You can pre-order the CDC-MP3 from Crutchfield right now at http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-d3nKX9Z0iVA/P rodView.asp?s=0&c=3&g=300&I=570CDCMP3&o= M&a=0
It's $299, and I was able to get free shipping somehow... According to their sales rep, there are currently 97 pre-orders, and that increased from 70 yesterday. I'm hoping I got in on the first 100!
But why would you want to carry around a few dozen CDs? If you want it stuck to your car, get an empeg. If you want a portable, the Nomad Jukebox is probably the best thing out there. Too bad it doesn't support Linux.
With the general lack of Linux USB support, it's still looking like I'll have to build my own player if I want something decent.
Does anyone here have *in their possesion* (not on order, or their friend etc etc) an MP3 capable portable CD player?
I've read more press releases than I care to talk about concerning a product like this, but I have as of yet not seen one for sale. This MamboX thing looks nice, but alas is not shipping.
If you actually have one, where did you get it? How much did it cost?
Built-in CD player, slot loading, not a changer.
(plays audio CDs & MP-3 encoded CDs:
Added bonus if the CD can act as a CD-ROM reader and provide data for a map display if I have one. But it's strictly a bonus.)
Built-in hard disk storage. Plain old cheap and huge 3.5" would be nice, but 2.5" is more realistic. It should be easily swappable by the end user.
FM tuner. This is one feature I would give up without complaining too much, but it's so cheap to add, why not? One day there might be a decent radio station without too much advertising in the bay area.
Line outputs for connection to an existing head unit.
4-speaker + sub outputs for simple replacement of an existing unit without a separate amp.
slot-in secure design, grab it by the handle and take it with you when you leave the car. The cradle (permanently installed) must be DIN standard size. Plastic shell to protect the unit when carried.
Headphone socket on the front - so when I have it on my desk at work I can listen to my tunes without the music being interrupted when Windows crashes again.
Spare desktop cradle providing PC connnectivity. Better still, 100baseT connection on the unit itself!
Expanding the above idea, include a web-based interface to the unit for management of on-hard-disk MP3s. Throw in a telnet client for good measure, and FTP too. Napster client? Maybe. I bet they would contribute to development too.
Tasteful faceplate. I don't want the inside of my car to look like a disco for pimps. Discrete Tux logo OK.
Make steering wheel control possible through a rear connector interface.
PIN protection. User has the option to set a requirement for re-entry of the PIN every 30 days or so. Screw those thieves.
Remote Control What the hell for? Not much use to me, but I suppose if you drive a behemoth it would be good. Do you really want to give the back-seat passengers control over the tunes?
Price point? $200.
OK, this last point is a joke. I would expect to pay around $1000 for this unit. But I would.
As usual, I want everything. Empeg Car is almost perfect, but a couple of features are missing.
I don't like wondering where one of my CDs is when I take it out of the case and put it in the car. I lost Swordfishtrombones for a few months once and it really pissed me off. Point me to a device like I've described above, and I'll buy it right now.
Better still, give me venture capital and I'll build you a prototype inside of three months.
I can just see it now...the RIAA will be griping about car MP3 players such as this because they "encourage piracy." Whatever. Sooner or later, the proliferation of MP3 devices like this will have to make them realize that MP3 is here to stay.
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of the Corporate States of America...
I have seen a dvd player that also plays mp3 cd's. It was cool, but i don't think you could search through the mp3's while playing one.