MP3 Players / Music in the car

[Bobby5280]

I still have a Sirius|XM subscription in my truck. Just a couple weeks ago I did the annual bit of calling up to cancel, because I'm not going to pay that ridiculous renewal fee. So they cut me a deal to renew for a year for around $105 -which is the price they should have offered in the first place.

But when I want the audio quality to actually be good in my vehicle I play albums copied to a solid state hard drive plugged into one of the USB ports.

A real SSD behaves a lot different from a cheap memory stick when plugged into a vehicle USB port. File access times are far faster with a SSD than a flash memory stick. The vehicle may decide to access only a limited number of files from a flash memory stick. Far more files can be catalogued and accessed via a solid state hard drive.

I have my entire music CD library backed up as LPCM WAV files and 320kbs MP3 files. I wish my truck could play FLAC Lossless files. The nice thing with FLAC is it can include all sorts of metadata and album cover artwork just like MP3 or AAC files. But FLAC can deliver true CD quality and even encode better than CD quality high bit rate content. LPCM WAV files can't include any of that extra stuff. But WAV files can still sound a little bit better than a 320k MP3 file, provided the vehicle's amps and speakers are good enough to reveal the quality difference.

Sirius|XM is really good for driving through desolate areas where there isn't much for mobile phone reception or broadcast radio stations. I rarely ever listen to broadcast radio anymore though. So many local stations have been gobbled up by bigger companies. Those bigger companies dictate very bland, extremely repetitive playlists. And there's lots of commercials.

When I do have a solid mobile phone connection I can stream music at pretty good quality levels from Amazon Music Unlimited. I don't know the technical differences between tracks they have labeled as "HD" and "Ultra HD" though. I mainly have the Amazon subscription for listening to music while at work or while lifting weights at the gym.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

A mix of my personal collection I have on my phone, as well as both terrestrial and satellite radio. Usually I'll listen to my collection just to have some comforting noise in the car, but when I feel like I need more personal connection then I'll switch to the radio. I'll listen to NPR or classic rock/oldies stations usually, or sometimes live sports if it's the evening or a weekend.

I found SXM quickly gets pretty stale for ultra-marathon trips. Their music channels are as dull and repetitive as terrestrial, just without ads. I wonder if their listener base tapers off around the end of the work day, because by evening the talk stations are all replays of shows that aired earlier in the day. NPR's SXM station is useless with how repetitive it is, and lacks the flair of the local stations anyway so it's more fun to seek those out.

[Scott5114]

Your poll is not valid because there isn't a Vinyl option!

...in the car? Maybe someone made it work, but that and a bumpy road sounds like a great way to ruin your records.

[1995hoo]

Your poll is not valid because there isn't a Vinyl option!

...in the car? Maybe someone made it work, but that and a bumpy road sounds like a great way to ruin your records.

At one point in the 1950s there was indeed a car, not sure whether it was a Chrysler or GM product, that had a turntable. But it could only play 45s, which is an obvious problem in terms of requiring someone to be constantly changing the record. The option didn't last long.

[ZLoth]

Your poll is not valid because there isn't a Vinyl option!

...in the car? Maybe someone made it work, but that and a bumpy road sounds like a great way to ruin your records.

At one point in the 1950s there was indeed a car, not sure whether it was a Chrysler or GM product, that had a turntable. But it could only play 45s, which is an obvious problem in terms of requiring someone to be constantly changing the record. The option didn't last long.

Here is a picture of the boxer Ali using his in-car record player https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/m2te07/muhammad_ali_inserting_a_45_into_the_record/

Another version of the car record player had you purchasing a custom-size records that can only be purchased from the dealer. It lasted one model year.

[vdeane]

I found SXM quickly gets pretty stale for ultra-marathon trips. Their music channels are as dull and repetitive as terrestrial, just without ads.

When my parents drove from Rochester to Poughkeepsie for a wedding last year, they ended up changing SXM stations periodically, for exactly that reason.  I find SXM more boring than radio, but that might be because my parents choose different stations than I would (I like when they choose classic rewind, although they're more likely to choose classic vinyl; if I had it in my own car, I might choose Pop2k or something, but I haven't fully explored it).  Terrestrial radio also forces one to change stations every 50 miles of so just as a matter of reception range, although I get the same effect sometimes with Star 92.9 if I'm driving up the entire length of the Northway.

[ZLoth]

I cancelled SiriusXM after I got unlimited data for my phone about four years. It's cheaper to stream from my server than to pay for the SiriusXM that I wasn't using because I wasn't driving.

[Bobby5280]

I found SXM quickly gets pretty stale for ultra-marathon trips. Their music channels are as dull and repetitive as terrestrial, just without ads.

I don't agree. While it is likely you'll hear some of the same songs repeatedly on Sirius|XM it does depend on the channel. The ones playing more current music are going to be playing what's currently popular. Unfortunately that translates into things being more repetitive.

Even if a channel on Sirius|XM gets a bit repetitive, that's nothing compared to most broadcast radio stations. If the radio station is owned by a big company that owns a lot of other radio stations the play list will be absolutely terrible. The radio stations in my area play the same 10-15 songs over and over again for months on end. You'll hear the same song play at least once every 2 hours. It's that bad. Plus portions of the songs will be trimmed, be it instrumental intros or endings, guitar solos and anything else they can edit to cut down a song's run time. Some radio stations even speed up the music slightly. It's all about squeezing in more commercials. Sirius|XM plays music uncut and uncensored.

Sometimes a DJ at Sirius|XM will talk over the intro or ending of a song, but it doesn't happen all that often and the talking over stuff is the first few or last few seconds of the tune. Broadcast radio DJs may talk a lot more. But some of that depends whether they're broadcasting live or not. Increasingly broadcast radio stations are playing all their stuff pre-recorded via automation. A growing number of local radio stations no longer have any on-air staff. The on-air talent is in some other city.

...in the car? Maybe someone made it work, but that and a bumpy road sounds like a great way to ruin your records.

Even music CDs can run into problems when played in a moving vehicle that's traveling on a bumpy road. I'll occasionally use the CD player in my truck just to make sure it still works alright. Otherwise I play music from my own collection via the solid state drive plugged into the USB port.

CD jewel cases don't fare too well in a glove box or center console. And I would never use one of those damned notebooks where all the discs are slid into clear plastic sleeves. Those are great at scratching discs all to hell.

I still remember the cassette tape players and 8-track tape players. Those obviously had their problems. There was always an outside chance the player would try to eat the tape.

I cancelled SiriusXM after I got unlimited data for my phone about four years. It's cheaper to stream from my server than to pay for the SiriusXM that I wasn't using because I wasn't driving.

Yeah, Sirius|XM is honestly only good if you're on the road. I've tried listening via the online app while at work and it just sucks so bad. It's not that the content itself is terrible. It's the friggin' audio quality. Holy crap it is bad. The data rates can't be more than maybe 64 kilobits per second or maybe 96. I can hear metallic swirling in the music. Various details get turned to fuzz. Overall the music has no punch to it. It's weak. The free version of Amazon Music you get with a Prime subscription has pass-able audio quality. It's not great, but the bit rate is at least high enough that you don't hear obvious lossy compression artifacts in the audio. Amazon Music Unlimited has very noticeably better audio quality than the free version.

[Tendies]

Bluetooth FM device, in a 2024 camry with native bluetooth. Yes, I still pretend its the early 2010s. It connects faster than the native bluetooth and is less annoying.

[bulldog1979]

My in-car audio is either Sirius XM, podcasts or music from my phone via CarPlay.

[freebrickproductions]

I wish I could select multiple options, because while I normally listen to the radio, my car also has a six CD player built-in that I swap over to whenever there ain't anything on the radio.

[ZLoth]

Bluetooth FM device, in a 2024 camry with native bluetooth. Yes, I still pretend its the early 2010s. It connects faster than the native bluetooth and is less annoying.

An.... FM.... modulator? Uggggg.... They are the WORST.

What is wrong with your vehicle's Bluetooth?

[Alex]

Still using my 15 year old iPod. It syncs with my car, so I have full functionality. The iPod used to be part of my travel kit when taking trips in a rental, but now cars no longer recognize it.

Also I will occasionally stream from my phone using bluetooth, especially if I want to listen to YachtRock Miami, Soma Underground FM, or another stream from the RadioGarden app.

[Scott5114]

I found SXM quickly gets pretty stale for ultra-marathon trips. Their music channels are as dull and repetitive as terrestrial, just without ads.

When my parents drove from Rochester to Poughkeepsie for a wedding last year, they ended up changing SXM stations periodically, for exactly that reason.  I find SXM more boring than radio [...] Terrestrial radio also forces one to change stations every 50 miles of so just as a matter of reception range[...]

I find that one of the things that makes terrestrial radio nice on long trips is that the ads actually become interesting because you haven't heard them before and the locations advertised are all on streets with unfamiliar names. It kind of adds to the sense that you're really, truly far from home.

The bad thing is sometimes the options are thin, especially in the West. When we were moving, I think there were stretches of I-40 in New Mexico and Arizona where I couldn't get a single music station to come in, but on the other hand I didn't try all that hard either, since my phone had enough MP3s on it to make it easier to just use that.

[Henry]

Your poll is not valid because there isn't a Vinyl option!

...in the car? Maybe someone made it work, but that and a bumpy road sounds like a great way to ruin your records.

At one point in the 1950s there was indeed a car, not sure whether it was a Chrysler or GM product, that had a turntable. But it could only play 45s, which is an obvious problem in terms of requiring someone to be constantly changing the record. The option didn't last long.

Right off the top of my head, I remember seeing someone inserting a 45 into the record player in his Chrysler (or maybe it was a Dodge, Plymouth, DeSoto or Imperial). GM may have offered that too, but I've never seen one in any of their vehicles. Now 8-track players were a big thing in the 70s, and then they just disappeared without a trace. It seems to me that cassettes and CDs have become the most enduring additions to car audio systems, and if your car has both, then good for you.

[Tendies]

Bluetooth FM device, in a 2024 camry with native bluetooth. Yes, I still pretend its the early 2010s. It connects faster than the native bluetooth and is less annoying.

An.... FM.... modulator? Uggggg.... They are the WORST.

What is wrong with your vehicle's Bluetooth?

The FM modulator connects faster and is easier to disable when making calls, as I tend to have issues with the other person not being able to hear me with hands free systems. Also an app I use for work calls doesn't release the bluetooth device unless the bluetooth device is restarted. This means if I make a call on the road I have to restart the entire car, rather than just unplug a thing, make the call and plug it back in.

Also my fm modulator works just fine with no issues.

[1995hoo]

... It seems to me that cassettes and CDs have become the most enduring additions to car audio systems, and if your car has both, then good for you.

Two of our cars have both—my wife has a 2003 Acura and I have a 2004 Acura, both of which have in-dash six-disc changers and cassette players. Insofar as I know, she's never used her cassette player (as noted earlier in the thread, I've used mine a few times, but not since 2018). Hers doesn't have XM, mine does. Now, her other car, a 2015 Acura, has no cassette player, but it does have XM and it also has a single-CD player that can rip the disc to a built-in hard drive. Neither of us particularly loves the ripping option because twirling the knob to scroll through a list of artists or albums is not something either of us likes doing while driving (same problem happens if we connect an iPod or similar, of course). Theoretically there is a search by voice option where you tell it, for example, to show you all your Bruce Springsteen recordings, but we've never been able to make the voice search work properly.

[Road Hog]

I had a 1998 Chevy that still had a cassette player and a 2000 that had cassette and CD.

Until it finally crapped out, I had a high-end Pioneer cassette deck at home that came pretty close to CD quality. Still waiting for the vinyl-like cassette revival in 10 years.

[Rothman]

I had a 1998 Chevy that still had a cassette player and a 2000 that had cassette and CD.

Until it finally crapped out, I had a high-end Pioneer cassette deck at home that came pretty close to CD quality. Still waiting for the vinyl-like cassette revival in 10 years.

Meh.  Cassettes degrade a lot faster than well-taken care of vinyl.

[ZLoth]

Still waiting for the vinyl-like cassette revival in 10 years.

Keep dreaming. It's a niche product, and in the hostile environment of a vehicle, that's five pounds of equipment and dash space for either a CD player or tape deck that can be used elsewhere. And, this is coming from somewhere who has a sizable CD, BluRay, and 4K physical media collection.

[1995hoo]

....

Until it finally crapped out, I had a high-end Pioneer cassette deck at home that came pretty close to CD quality. Still waiting for the vinyl-like cassette revival in 10 years.

I have a Denon DRS-610 cassette deck downstairs that I bought new in the summer of 1992. It's connected to the main stereo system and it still works, although I haven't used it in several years. The cassette loads horizontally in a drawer similar to what you see on most CD players. Denon said at the time that one advantage of that design is that the cassette is recorded in a position closer to the one in which most cassettes are played back (roughly horizontally in an in-dash car stereo, though I'd suggest that vertically in a Walkman-type device was at least as common, if not more so). Whether that was true or not, when I was an undergrad it was fun having this as part of my stereo because people visiting our apartment would see it there and be confounded as to why I had "two CD players." I'd say, "That one's a tape deck." They wouldn't believe me until I opened the drawer.

[ET21]

I've always had a phone playing music since starting to drive.

My first car, I had a RCA Cassette to MP3 adapter where I'd be able to play music from my phone through the headphone jack into the cassette slot.

2nd car was simple bluetooth, but I also occasionally threw in a CD. Plus I was able to get Sirius XM but only when they did the free 7-10 days once a year. Covid was so nice cause it was free for 3 months.

My current car is Android AutoPlay/BT but I get some free SiriusXM channels with no sub needed outside of the usual once a year free period.

[bugo]

Still waiting for the vinyl-like cassette revival in 10 years.

Keep dreaming. It's a niche product, and in the hostile environment of a vehicle, that's five pounds of equipment and dash space for either a CD player or tape deck that can be used elsewhere. And, this is coming from somewhere who has a sizable CD, BluRay, and 4K physical media collection.

There has been a bit of a cassette revival for a few years.

https://theconversation.com/cassette-tapes-are-making-a-comeback-yes-really-268108

https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/are-cassettes-making-a-comeback-in-2024-walkman-style-players-compared/

https://musicgoldmine.com/blogs/news/the-resurgence-of-cassettes

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4976071/the-cassette-tape-is-making-a-comeback-thanks-to-a-family-run-company-in-missouri

[cahwyguy]

I voted for MP3. I have two iPod Classics, modded with the iFlash adapter ( https://www.iflash.xyz/ ) to have 1/2 TB each. My music library is about 57K songs, with about 100 unlistened to podcast. Of these, about 40K are on the iPods, because above that the database gets wonky. I sync the iPods daily, and all music has been listened to in the last 43 months (I clear that playlist daily). The two iPods are in rotation, one month on, one month off, and have essentially the same content. All my music is synced to my phone (I have a 1/2TB flash card) monthly. I connect and play music through the Aux port, although in rentals, I still have a use an FM transmitter, simply because I find the Bluetooth adaptor to be way to laggy.

I love the iPod because, with my playlist setup, I can navigate, select, and fast forward without really having to look at anything.

[Rothman]

Still waiting for the vinyl-like cassette revival in 10 years.

Keep dreaming. It's a niche product, and in the hostile environment of a vehicle, that's five pounds of equipment and dash space for either a CD player or tape deck that can be used elsewhere. And, this is coming from somewhere who has a sizable CD, BluRay, and 4K physical media collection.

There has been a bit of a cassette revival for a few years.

https://theconversation.com/cassette-tapes-are-making-a-comeback-yes-really-268108

https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/are-cassettes-making-a-comeback-in-2024-walkman-style-players-compared/

https://musicgoldmine.com/blogs/news/the-resurgence-of-cassettes

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4976071/the-cassette-tape-is-making-a-comeback-thanks-to-a-family-run-company-in-missouri

Given the degradation with every play, this is silly.