How do you listen to media when driving?

[roadman65]

FM Radio.  Don't care for news or talk radio.

[Henry]

FM Radio.  Don't care for news or talk radio.

SiriusXM is the best option for me. I just can't get into the Seattle stations the same way I did for the Chicago ones.

[ZLoth]

....  (I may be a dinosaur here, but I prefer to have my music on physical media that I can hold in my hand, keep in a safe spot at my house, and not on a server somewhere.  But that's a discussion for another thread.)

I'm pretty sure we've had that discussion in another thread (maybe you weren't part of it, but the discussion has taken place). Several of us agreed with your point in principle and one reason is that we don't want to give someone else control of what we can listen to. That is, it won't surprise anyone here that I don't listen to Taylor Swift, but she's a great example of the issue because I remember a couple of years ago there was a lot of news coverage about her getting into a dispute with Spotify that led her management to pull all her music from said service. If you were a fan of hers who used Spotify as your platform and you didn't buy physical media (or purchase your music via downloads), you were suddenly unable to listen to an artist you liked.

Edited to add: The topic has come up several times. Here's one of the earlier iterations when some of the younger forum members were under the illusion that physical media are unnecessary.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=22215.msg2304539#msg2304539

So, where does that place me? Technically speaking, my music is on a server, but it's my own Plex Media Server which sits in a closet and the port open for outside connection such as my work computer or my mobile phone. All of my CDs have been ripped to high bitrate MP3 files which are stored on my server so that I can stream my music. Some of those CDs, especially those from La-La Land Records, are produced in extremely limited runs which makes them irreplicable. But, because they are on my own server (and backed up), there isn't any possibility of my music going away. The only reason why I'm even subscribed to Apple Music is that it is part of my mobile plan.

[NWI_Irish96]

If I'm driving < 20ish minutes, I'll just listen to 94.3 FM on the radio. For any longer trip, I'm playing music via Pandora on my phone.

[kphoger]

Driving around town, it's FM radio.

On road trips, usually nothing.  But occasionally a CD.  On especially long trips (like Mexico), we usually put on an Adventures in Odyssey disc or two to help keep the kids entertained (and us awake).

[Flint1979]

SirusXM. I also have YouTube Premium so I can skip the ads and can hook into Android Auto with that if I want to listen to something else. I rarely listen to regualr radio anymore.

[hbelkins]

My issues with terrestrial radio have been frequently noted. There are no really good stations in my area that I want to listen to. AM reception is terrible. My favorite talk show host died two years ago. No AM stations in my area carry the host I prefer who's now in that time slot. I dropped XM Radio several years ago for budgetary reasons, and said favorite talk show host was never on satellite radio.

Over the years I went from 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs. My at-the-moment inoperable Saturn Vue has a CD changer and an AUX port, but I've found it easier to use a device that stores more music in a small footprint than multiple CDs in a case.

I have a 160 GB iPod Classic, but the combination of a dead battery in the device and my growing dislike with the touch wheel interface led me to buy a cheap Android phone that will accept a big micro SD card to use as my music player so I have my music on it. I have my CD collection (and tunes downloaded from Napster or Usenet in years past) stored on it and it's backed up in multiple places so if the card craps out, I won't lose anything. I'll just pop the backup card in there and buy another one to use as my new backup.

Streaming services? Nope. They cost money, and cell service is so spotty in my region that it would not be a worthwhile investment or a wise use of my data allocation. Besides, one never knows when some sort of contract dispute will cause a certain artist's music to disappear from that streaming service. And while when I'm at the office I will listen to streaming stations via iHeart, I can't do that while driving because of cell coverage and chewing up data.

I have an old iPhone that I use as a dedicated podcast player, and lately I've listened more to podcasts when driving than anything else. Favorites include political commentators that 50% of the country like, 50% don't, and 100% want to argue about, apparently.

I've never been an audiobook fan. I only have one (on CD) and it was given to me as a gift. I prefer to read a book as to listen to someone else reading a book.

[kirbykart]

Almost exclusively normal radio (not XM). When it's not that it's a CD.

[hbelkins]

I mentioned the podcasts I like. Others commented on them.

There are zillions of podcasts out there and not enough hours in the day to listen to all of them. I choose to listen to ones that discuss politics and current events.

When I went out west with my brother a couple of years ago, he spent much of the driving time listening to downloads of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and some hiking podcast.

There are actually some road-related podcasts out there but I generally get plenty of road-related content here.

I snagged a handful of "Dale Jr. Download" podcasts but haven't subscribed, nor have I listened to the ones I downloaded. There are probably enough sports-related podcasts to consume more than 24 hours in a day.

[skluth]

I listen to either music or podcasts downloaded to my iPhone which then plays over the car radio. Mostly music if I'm just driving around town but podcasts if I'm in the car for an hour or more. Nothing overly political though politics seems to sneak into almost everything these days. Star Talk, The Friendly Atheist, Science Friday, 365 Days of Astronomy, and a couple Packers podcasts are my usually go-tos. (I've taken a break from the Packers lately because it's been all Aaron Rodgers all the time.)

[Flint1979]

YouTube Premium is pretty cool when you are driving. You can listen to anything you want and it creates a playlist and has an endless library of songs. It's like $40 a month for the two (SirusXM and YouTube Premium), not that much money to me.

[epzik8]

The radio in my own car is broken, leaving me to listen to music on my phone. I do occasionally ride with others whose cars have working radios, and one of them switches between FM and satellite radio.

[Flint1979]

The radio in my own car is broken, leaving me to listen to music on my phone. I do occasionally ride with others whose cars have working radios, and one of them switches between FM and satellite radio.

I had a car like that at one time. The radio blew out and I'd just use my phone to listen to music.

[kkt]

Roughly even between OTA and recorded (FLAC files from discs I own, on a flash drive)

[Fredddie]

I have SiriusXM (yay for $99/3 years) also Spotify Premium ($10.99/mo).  When I'm in the Phoenix area, I'll listen to terrestrial radio because there's a station there that I really like AND it's the same frequency as one of my Des Moines presets.

[ErmineNotyours]

For my Seattle to Yellowstone road trip a year and a half ago, I found the perfect balance of music to audio books on a thumb drive.  Usually three albums to two 74 minute "chapters" of books.  I also went on to radio-locator.com ahead of time to look for AAA, Modern Rock and unusual formats in the bigger cities to try them out for a few minutes before going back to the on-board audio.  There is a dance music station in Missoula that I had to check out.  I heard Arcade Fire's "Everything Now" on the AAA station in Bozeman, and then I heard it again in line at a cafeteria in the park.  It's unusual these days for me to be listening to random music enough to hear the same song twice in such a short time.  The rest of the time for daily driving I use older sticks where I built up my collection a few years ago and just listen to them, hearing rarely-heard albums that seem random.

A few years ago in a previous car I had a player that could play MP3s on CD-ROM, and I only had enough capacity to balance LA Theaterworks plays to music on the first two days on a trip out to San Francisco.  The way back was all music, and that got terribly boring after a few hours.  On long trips you really need to break it up between speech and music.

When driving into places such as Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, I like to check out the new low-powered FMs, mostly out of seeing what kind of range they get and why people are bothering to program them in this streaming age.

[ZLoth]

I have SiriusXM (yay for $99/3 years) also Spotify Premium ($10.99/mo).  When I'm in the Phoenix area, I'll listen to terrestrial radio because there's a station there that I really like AND it's the same frequency as one of my Des Moines presets.

Are the stations available through Radio Garden?

[hbelkins]

I guess I'm a bit old-fashioned, but I don't like using my phone for listening to audio. If a notification comes in -- a phone call, an e-mail alert, a text message, etc. -- then it temporarily mutes whatever is being played back.

I also don't like using an iPhone for music because you have to use iTunes and keep a synched library around for copying tunes to the phone. That's why I opted to use an Android phone as a music player. All I have to do is drag-copy my tunes to the SD card to get them on the device. I don't have to worry about firing up iTunes and then being sure all the tunes are in the library, or else the ones not in that library will be erased from the device.

I do use an old iPhone as a podcast player, however, because I can download the podcasts straight to the phone via WiFi.

Of course, I still take pictures with a camera because it can do so much more than a phone camera can.

So yeah, on any particular trip, I'll be packing my personal phone, my work phone, my podcast player, my music player, and my digital camera.



I'm still driving an old 1990 Chevy pickup because I can't seem to solve the hybrid system problem in my Saturn Vue. That Chevy was one of the models with the radio and cassette player being separate units, with a tuner-amplifier box behind the dash. I used to use one of those cassette adapters to play external devices via the AUX port, but the cassette deck quit working. Turned out there was something wrong with that amplifier, because I could get no volume out of a plug-in FM Bluetooth adapter. I had been using a portable Bluetooth speaker with an AUX connection, but for some reason the speaker quit working. So I replaced the stereo with a head unit that fits where the cassette deck used to be (there's now a storage pocket where the tuner was in the dash) that has a tuner, Bluetooth, an AUX port, and a USB port for playing a thumb drive only, not for use with an iPhone or iPod. It works great, although I had trouble finding a good AUX cable that didn't generate a lot of noise when it was plugged into the Motorola Android phone. I just need some new speakers; at least one is blown.

I really should have someone take the JVC CD system/USB port that does offer iDevice control out of my old Toyota pickup, which is in non-running condition. That was a good head unit.

[mgk920]

I use an iPod that I attach to a set of cheap computer speakers that are on the back seat floor of my car AND the car's OTA radio, with the volumes adjusted for whatever is more interesting at the time. I dislike the idea of a subscription music service as if I let the subscription lapse, all of the 'saved' files go bye-bye and the iPod is like a radio station that only plays stuff that i like.  Sometimes the older tech really is better.

Mike

[Scott5114]

I guess I'm a bit old-fashioned, but I don't like using my phone for listening to audio. If a notification comes in -- a phone call, an e-mail alert, a text message, etc. -- then it temporarily mutes whatever is being played back.

My solution to this is to be enough of a pill that nobody ever wants to call, email, or text me.

[vdeane]

Back when I was in college, I'd set up an "on the go" playlist on my iPod for trips (this was with an iTrip FM adapter on the Accord, and an aux cable once I got my Civic a little over a year after graduating).  Once I graduated, this turned into a mix of FM for the stretch of Thruway between my apartment and where my parents live and the iPod.  Around May 2015, however, I switched to just having the sound of the road once out of radio range of my presets.  I did set up my music library on my phone with VLC after getting a smartphone just in case I was ever somewhere where I got bored and wanted music, but haven't actually used it in that capacity.

I did start expanding my FM preset system beyond the Rochester-Albany corridor about 5 or so years ago.  Buffalo and the Hudson Valley were early additions; starting around a couple years ago, I expanded into the FM 2 presets and covered the rest of the state and some adjoining areas.  Here's what it looks like now; aside from expansion, it's been mostly stable, with the changes mainly being 92.9 moving to FM 2, changing my Rochester station a couple times (first to move away from iHeart after Mix 100.5 stopped being 90s to now, and then away from Warm 101.3 after I got sick of two months of Christmas music), and changing my Syracuse station a few times (it took a while to find something good after WMVN became a hip hop station; while I'd prefer if Sunny 102 didn't become Santa 102 for a month or two, the alternatives are worse or don't fit the sections of road without gaps); note that I have 92.3 on both for ease of switching:

Code Select Expand


FM 1:
1. 92.3     Albany, NY (WFLY)
2. 96.9     Utica, NY (WOUR)
3. 102.1    Syracuse, NY (WZUN)/Springfield, MA (WAQY)
4. 98.9     Rochester, NY (WBZA)
5. 104.1    Buffalo, NY (WHTT)
6. 93.3     Watertown, NY (WCIZ)

FM 2:
1. 92.3     Albany, NY (WFLY)
2. 103.1    Oneonta, NY (WZOZ)
3. 101.7    Binghamton, NY (WLTB)
4. 106.1    Corning, NY (WNKI)
5. 101.1    New York, NY (WCBS)
6. 92.9     Kingston, NY (WBPM)/Burlington, VT (WEZF)


I'm considering adding a couple more "overloads" to fill in gaps and extend the range a bit, but I haven't yet listened to the stations in question in the car and verified coverage area, so they're not officially "in the system" yet:
-92.3: Lebanon, NH (WGXL)*
-106.1: Liberty, NY (WPDA)**
-96.9: Montréal, QC (CKOI)

*This would be an interesting case of "switching" between two stations on the exact same frequency along the VT 11 corridor.  Not sure how I feel about that.
**I'm not sure this would actually close the gap on NY 17, and given how out of the way this part of NY 17 is for me, I'm not sure how much I care.  There's probably a gap on I-81 too.

[SSOWorld]

simple


with my ears. 

[DandyDan]

I usually have my car on SiriusXM. I have listened to various Hawkeye and Cyclone sporting events on whichever local AM station carries them. (I'm too lazy to look that info up at the moment.) I believe the station that carries the Hawkeyes also carries the Minnesota Twins. Since SiriusXM usually only has the home team broadcast, I will listen to the terrestrial station if the Twins are on the road. The same goes for the Vikings, but the carrier for the Vikings here in Mason City is an FM station, which is the local rock station.

[ZLoth]

I guess I'm a bit old-fashioned, but I don't like using my phone for listening to audio. If a notification comes in -- a phone call, an e-mail alert, a text message, etc. -- then it temporarily mutes whatever is being played back.

I actually went into the notification settings of many of my apps and switched them to "silent" if not turning them off altogether. There are some apps that need my attention. Letting me know of a new book or a deal isn't one of them.

[ET21]

95% of the time, Spotify via Bluetooth
But occasionally I will listen to the radio, mainly ESPN 1000AM. When SiriusXM does it free 2 weeks I will also listen to that