Bypassing the FM modulator and plugging direct will restore channel
separation, dynamic range, reduce distortion, reduce noise, and restore
freq. response (as you mentioned). Good move, that.


"Tim H." wrote in message
news:vcIXb.38418$yE5.137465@attbi_s54...

"SEVEN SEVILLE" wrote in message
...
Looking for an MP3 player for my recently acquired truck I went to the
local
electronics store which shall remain nameless. I asked the the car
stereo
guy
(just last week he was working the television department) about MP3
players and
he showed me a few and told me all this riff raff and suggested that I
would be
happier with XM radio. I was like WTF, i outta just stick with the stock
AM/FM
that's in there right now. Not much difference between XM and FM you
know,
they even had a sample in the showroom and you can hear the compression
artyfacts.

Hmm, interestin thing about compression. I understand you're not
interested
in XM, but I have to "rant." I picked up my XM radio a year or so ago. It
was Alpine's XMA-T200RF unit. It came with an FM modulator to make it
co-exist with stock systems easier. I, too, could hear the compression
artifacts. I believe some stations are dynamically allocated bandwidth and
suffer from compression less.

Anyways, I decided to crack open the XM receiver and tap into the line
outputs (that go to the modulator) and run them to my stereo. It could be
a
placebo effect, but it sounded better. Going direct got rid of the FM
bandwidth limitations. Again, this could be purely subjective, but I
didn't
notice the compression artifacts as much.

Just my two quid,

-Tim


Does any of you own an car MP3 player?

Who makes it?
How much did it cost?
How well does it play MP3's?
How does the FM tuner come in?