I spoke to a customization shop today and the guy told me that they use a FM modulator through the radio to play the iPod in Mazda3s. Has anyone tried this? How does it sound?!?!?!? It's a cheap solution if it works right. Thanks,

jonnaroo

 

Mine sounds pretty crappy. The problem I have is that there's so many radio stations around here, that it's tough to find a vacant frequency. The FM modulator and the local stations fight for the frequency and the sound from the ipod gets pretty bad.
They work like this:
You set the FM modulator to a vacant radio frequency...say 104.1. The ipod sounds pretty good until you come to a place where your head unit begins to pick up a signal from a radio station on that frequency, like if KROK104.3 begins to fight for the empty spot(104.1) on the radio dial; then it begins to sound like ****. You can hear the radio station over the music on the ipod, which sucks. I'm constantly changing stations on the modulator, looking for an empty frequency.

If I caould have my 60 bucks back, I'd probably save up and get a Harmon Kardon Drive+play
http://www.harmankardon.com/drive-1/tour.aspx

If there's a lot of empty frequencies on your radio dial, then the FM modualtors may work OK for you, but IMO, mine kinda sucks. I don't live in a big city or anything either.

 

As far as I can tell, the Harmon Kardon Drive+play allows you to remotely and easily control the ipod, it does not provide any functionality for connecting your ipod to your cars audio system. As it shows on the website, you must connect it via a line input or an FM modulator.

So, for a Mazda3 without a line input or cassette deck, what's the best way to connect an external device to the audio system?

 

wouldn;t u loose sound quality by transmittin it over FM waves??

 

you do lose some quality using the fm transmitter. you rely on a tiny device often only slightly bigger than a keychain to transmit audio over conflicting signals, but also your sound quality will only be as good as your entire sound system. if you have just a basic OEM set up, you may not even notice the drop in quality.

as a cheap solution, its more portable than a cassette adapter, and cheaper than an entire integrated unit. if you have the money, go with a headunit with built-in inputs, or a headunit with an ipod accessory available. you'll get best sound quality possible and if you get a good system, you can display the track/song info on the display of the headunit.

the reason i say that is because there are a lot of discussions in the mazda3forums and rx-8 forums about ipod integration and many of the products out there that plug into the OEM system require some fiddling which could end up voiding the warranty on the OEM system. a lot of the products are plug and play and if you are confident with modding (me--not so much) then here are some links i found:
www.pie.net
http://www.therpmstore.com/product_i...roducts_id=142
www.sylfex.com

i'm just glad my cd player can read cd-r/cd-rw and can play mp3 & wma. i dont mind changing cds and 700mb of songs is quite a lot of songs for my tastes.
-meGrimlock

 

the audio link systems are supposed to be very nice. i've read where people say they can install them in about 30mins. works with both ipods and any other mp3 player. with ipods you get the advantage of charging the player too.

 

my ipod thing is nice and basic.... my headunit has RCA inputs.... so i just use a mini jack to RCA cable and connect it to ipod... with the wires hidden away along the side of the center console and ipod in CD holder thing between the seats....