I'm no longer interested in playing CDs in the car. Hardly ever play them at home for that matter.
I want a high quality radio with a USB input for MP3 music from a USB stick. Do they exist (in standard ISO radio size) ? Are they cheaper than radio / CD ?
I bought a Wharfedale ICS182 for about 35 quid on eBay.
It's a radio / cd head unit, with front USB and AUX as well as read AUX and it's also a bluetooth hands free kit, complete with bluetooth audio streaming if you have a bluetooth phone.
It's currently living in my MX5, as it doesn't really matter if someone decides to nick it when I park up with the roof down.
It's now got me thinking that maybe DAB + AM + FM + USB input maybe the way to go if reasonably available. (As previously stated, CD is now of little interest.)
I hope DAB car radios work better than at home where the DAB signal seems very marginal, though it shouldn't be.
I'll take a trip down the local Halfords and car accessory shop.
I have a Pure Highway in the company Golf (it came with Dynaudio, but you could only have DAB at the expense of the reversing camera, strangely!) - the windscreen 'ribbon' aerial is useless, but the short magnetic 'whip' you can stick on the roof works really well.
If it were my own car, and I were buying now, I'd buy a DAB head unit with appropriate permanent aerial.
I have a 'proper' DAB roof aerial - which also does AM and FM. Has two downleads and two head amps built in - one of which requires a separate power lead. The DAB head amp is line powered via its co-ax. It cost more than many radios complete - but does work very well. Around London, DAB reception is much superior to FM on the stations I listen to - most noticeable beside tall buildings in the City or under bridges etc where it remains rock solid.
Halfords will be about twice the price of others. Try others e.g.
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Though you you would be as well to ring them up and ask about any other bits you might need - like a wiring adapter for steering wheel controls. I found them very helpful.
To be honest I'm not impressed with the usability and sound quality of the non-DAB version of that radio.
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For instance, if you are in menus twidling around trying to find media, tone settings and the like - the system blocks all use of the volume control until ye come out of the menu. Which is pretty annoying if ye have to do that immediately for some reason.
I get better sound quality plugging things (phones, MP3 players) into the AUX-in socket, than listening to the internal DAC distorting either CDs or MP3s on USB memory sticks. Pretty complicated 'parametric' tone control filters don't do much to help.
Chances are the £100 premium on the DAB version doesn't fix this :-(
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