How to Use an MP3 Player in Your Car's Audio System

It is surprising how quickly the Digital Audio Player, more commonly known as the MP3 player, has come from being a fun little novelty to a ubiquitous and indispensable entertainment accessory. The MP3 player is popular not only because it is able to replace a bulky portable CD audio player and dozens of CDs single-handedly, but also because it is able to do this for very little money and in a very tiny package. A question that lots of people have goes to how they can bring the fun and convenience of their MP3 player into their car.

Let us look at some of the possible ways that an MP3 player can be ported to a car's audio system, to let you cut the clutter of all the CDs and tapes that you have hoarded up in your car. Why have your music stored in two different places, in your pocket and in your car, when it could be the same device in the same music collection in either place?

MP3 players come with two kinds of connection options, at the very minimum: a headphone socket and a USB port. To connect your MP3 player to the entertainment unit in your car, you'll need to find some sort of entry point in your car audio system's head unit. Here are a couple of the easiest ways.

Most modern car audio units today anticipate the need that users may have for an AV input on the head unit. People have all kinds of entertainment gadgets today that they should need to connect to the car's entertainment system, and a convenient AV input or two is quite indispensable. If your car's entertainment unit comes with an audio input of this kind, it makes things very easy: all you need to do is to buy the appropriate cable to connect the MP3 player to the head unit. If your car's entertainment unit does not have this feature though, there are still a few options.

The cassette tape adapter gives you an uncomplicated way of connecting an external audio device to a car's entertainment unit. Cassette tape adapters are very common devices that you can find in any electronics store for no more than $10. All you need to do is to place the cassette-shaped adapter that they give you in your car's tape player, and plug your MP3 player to the cord on the adapter. This will work quite easily, but of course, only for cars that have a tape player. Also, since you will be playing your MP3 music through your tape player's tape head, you cannot possibly get better sound quality than what is possible with cassette tape.

A kind of high-tech way of getting audio from your MP3 player to your car's entertainment system is via the car's FM tuner. You can buy an FM transmitter for just a few dollars at most electronics stores; plug your MP3 player into the transmitter, and it broadcasts the music your MP3 player puts out, over the FM bandwidth. Your car's FM tuner can tune in to the signal and play the music over the speakers. If you look about, there are lots of great ways of connecting to your cars versatile audio entertainment unit; these were some of the best and most popular ways this is done.

Source: Connect your MP3 player to your car stereo