Is it just me or is public radio becoming less about music and more about some overpaid, under-talented nobody bleating on about what they had for breakfast this morning, or going on about who they met this morning on the way into work, who actually turned out to be another nobody. Look none of us really care, give us back our tunes.  This is a problem I’m not prepared to put up with up with any longer and so I’m in the market for a new car stereo which can hook into my mp3 player, a Zune as it happens. I also subscribe to a lot of audio podcasts, so the ability to catch up with these on the daily commute will come in handy.

I was pleasantly surprised to find an extensive offering of car audio, like this Pioneer, which will allow you to connect your mp3 player via the line in, or you can load a CD full of your favourite mp3s and play those instead. Given that that you can fit on many more MP3 songs than a regular audio CD this is a great feature if you want to keep your car free of lots of empty CD cases. It will also play regular CDs, and of course allow you, if you must, tune into your local radio station - ah yes he had an Egg McMuffin this morning ! The Pioneer also allows, via an optional connection to control your music collection on your iPod from the stereo. Or how about this offering from JVC which, although lacks support for plugging in an external MP3 player does once again support MP3 or WMA CDs. It also supports DAB radio, which allows you to get the additional  features offered from digital radio, such as textual information.

Finally with systems such as these I can say no to local radio and listen to my own music / podcast collection on the way to work - roll over Mr DJ here comes the Cliff Richard Christmas Special !

Posted on January 13th, 2008 by nigel