When my son and I finally decided to break down and buy an FM transmitter so we could play our iPods in the car, I did what any intelligent consumer would do, I went online to read up on this type of gear and to see what the masses and tech press recommended. I quickly discovered something disappointing about it. In general, it sucks. Everywhere I went, I read tales of poorly designed products, awful-sounding audio, frequently lost signals, and the need to be constantly frequency hopping in search of an open station when you’re supposed to be… oh I don’t know, DRIVING?
As I traveled from site to site, one device seemed to fair much better than the rest: the Kensington 33185 Digital FM Transmitter/Auto Charger (kensington.com, $80). After I read a fairly glowing in-depth review of it on iLounge.com, I was convinced that this product was the way to go. The price was higher than a lot of other such transmitters, but I’d much rather spend $20 or $30 extra bucks than half of my road trip trying to futz my way to an open frequency. You can also find this unit for as low as $50 (we paid $60 for ours).
Having lived with the 33185 Transmitter for a while now, and gone on several long trips with it, I can tell you that it’s worth every penny. It’s easy to use, doesn’t require a lot of frequency-finding, and when you do lock onto a frequency, you get surprisingly decent sound. Even the best of these devices are prone to periodic bouts of static, dropouts, and this unit in particular is known for a slight case of sibilance (hissing “s” sounds), but this is a very minor quibble. Obviously, if you have a cassette deck in your car (remember those?) you’ll want to use a cassette adapter with your mobile player, or better yet, if you have an Aux In, you should use that. But if neither of these options is available, then this unit is a good bet.
Because the 33185 is higher priced than most of its competitors, you also get some nice bells and whistles, such as a bright blue LCD screen that shows you what frequency you’re on (or tuning through), three pre-set buttons for saving favorite freqs, and a built-in iPod charger. The unit works with all iPod models.
Overall, I haven’t felt much of a difference between this solution in our current car and the cassette adapter we used in our previous vehicle. And given the generally poor track record for this type of technology, that’s saying a lot.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
This is great info to know, Gareth. I’ve had an iTrip adaptor and, like you said, it sucks. To the point where we gave up even trying to use it, especially because we have lived in major metro areas where there are TONS of existing radio stations on various frequencies. Anyway, thanks for the tip on what might be a better solution.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
You raise a point I didn’t cover in the piece: In my reading, I discovered that crowded radio markets can be hell on these things and that if you live in such a market, you definitely don’t want the type that only has a few preset frequencies. We live in the DC metro area, a crowded market. And we have little problem and don’t have to change freqs very often. This past summer we drove all the way up 95 to Cape Cod, a road that’s basically one big crowded radio market. It stayed on 88.1 nearly the entire time. We only had to scan like 3 or 4 times the whole trip, and often only to the next avail. freq.
November 21st, 2006 at 8:46 am
Another option, for just a little more money, is the Drive+Play car integration system. It takes some installing, but it integrates the iPod right into the audio system very well.
Oh, by the way, the black-on-blue color scheme of this page is impossible to read. (Mozilla 1.7, OS/2.)
November 27th, 2006 at 11:08 am
I have the iRiver AFT 100 and it works very well.