Friday, 29 April 2011
Mp3 Cassette Adapter
I bought this product and found like many other people out there that if you have a tape deck with an auto-reverse feature, that you'll have some problems with just about any cassette adapter. After looking online, I found out how to fix most brands, but not this one. So after tooling around for about half an hour, I figured out how to get this cassette adapter to work in an auto-reverse tape deck. If you open the adapter and look inside, you'll see a small gear between one of the center teeth wheels and the little assembly that contains the guide wheel near the edge of the adapter that can only rotate in one direction. Remove this small gear. This will allow the tape to spin freely in either direction. If you look at the guide wheel, you'll notice that it can shift to two positions. One that protrudes closer to the outside of the adapter and one that has it sit more inside the adapter. Tape this piece so that it stays permanently in one of these two positions. That guide wheel moving is how the auto-reverse in your tape deck knows to activate. After I made these changes, I found that the adapter worked in my Ford tape deck flawlessly. No need for an FM transmitter, after all! Hope this helps those of you with the same problem! Coby CA-747 Dual Position CD/MD/MP3 Cassette Adapter
This is an excellent product. I have been using it to connect my portable MP3 player to my car audio system. I have been using it daily for over a month and it work EXACTLY as it should. The sound is truely excellent and indistinguishable in quality from my car radio or CD player. The construction quality also seems to be excellent.
One thing I especially like is the coiled cord. I had used a similar product some years ago and the long connecting cord was always an inconvenience - it would hang down and get in the way during use. When you wanted to store the item in the glove box, it would just add to the clutter. With this product the cord stays neatly coiled and out of the way - it does not clutter the dashboard or floor area and is easy to store.
One thing to keep in mind when using any product like this - some (but not all) car tape players have a "skip" mode. When a tape player's "skip" mode is active, it listens for silent portions of the tape. If it is detects any silence for more than a few seconds, it will automatically go into fast forward until it "hears" sound again. If your tape player has a "skip" mode, be sure to cancel this mode - i.e., put the player in "normal" play mode. Otherwise, you will find the tape player trying to "fast forward" over any silent portions of your audio feed.
I would highly recommend this product.
I just received my unit and was aware of the possible problem with auto reverse when I bought it. But being unhappy with the quality of FM transmitters, I thought the price was worth the risk. When I plugged the Coby into my car cassette it did a couple of auto reverses and then spit the Coby out. Having read the review from 3/07 about taking the unit apart and removing the center gear, I got out my small Philips and had at it(2 screws on one side and a bunch on the other). Be careful because the parts inside the cassette fall out pretty easily. But removing the center gear worked and the sound is very good except for a little clatter from the cassette. I would guess highway noise will cover that up.
I just got mine, and have tried it in two different front loading car players. It sounds terrific in both. However, the second player is smart, and almost outsmarted me. :-) I found that, if the music isn't playing through the Coby when it is inserted, the player doesn't think a tape is there, and it won't enter play mode. If you turn the volume all the way up, you can hear a fuzzy version of the music anyway, which confused me for an hour or so. Once I realized the music needed to be on, and the Coby plugged into my iPod before putting it into the cassette player, it started working perfectly. Keep this in mind if you have trouble with yours...
Highly recommended!
Before I had this, I had a generic cassette adapter. The sound was horrible and it made a terrible, tinny echo. I bought it for my Ford Taurus which costs $800 to add a CD changer to. My wireless FM adapter sounded better than my generic cassette adapter, and it was static city since the antenna is on the opposite side of the car (station wagon).
I was pleasantly surprised when I got this adapter to replace my old one. The sound quality is better than the strongest FM station here, and the coiled cord really reduces the mess in my car. I only had one problem with this, and I think that is because of my car stereo, but I will note it anyway.
After 10 minutes of playing, my car stereo would switch to side 2, then side 1, and display TDE1 and eject the tape. After getting very angry, I found a solution. Simply take the adapter apart, spray WD40 on all the gears, and remove the small gear assembly that prevents the rape from being rewound (was this even necessary? there is no physical tape so it doesn't matter if someone tries to rewind it). Problem solved!
I would definitely get this over any other adapter.'
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