206 CD player/radio

My X reg 406's player went pretty much the same way, I tried Halfords for a relacement and found them to be a bunch of infuriating tossers. On the way home I called into the local motorist discount, they fitted me (FOC) a sixty quid Radio/CD that plays MP3s from a disk saves me all that Ipod connection BS. It doesn't work form the stalk but I can live with that. You'll probably find one now with an mp3 player jack if you feel you need one. Oh and CD cleaners are generaly as much use as VHS head cleaners, they cause more damage than they cure.

Djimbo.

Thanks. I'm not bothered about being able to play mp3s from a CD - that wouldn't be much different from playing normal CDs. I already have most of my CD collection on a 40Gb iRiver mp3 player (NOT an iPod!) and it would be useful just to be able to hook that up to the in-car system, avoiding CDs altogether. I've seen units with in-built mp3 players, but that would been copying/ripping CDs again - which I've already done to my PC and then copied over to my iRiver player.

I'd recommend a look at your biggest local MDC, they must have a player available by now with just a socket for audio-in from your player. I was a bit daunted by the Peugeot radio/CD presentation, it looked like a big chunk of dash, but a std player with removable facia fitted straight in its place.

Djimbo.

There are now players with a USB socket which can read directly off (some) external hard drives/memory sticks/mp3 players. From the little I know of the iRiver I believe it's likely to be compatible.

Thanks, Djimbo. What's MDC? I'm in SE London, and I've never seen them. There's an independent car audio dealer/installer up the road from me, I shall try them tomorrow.

No, I wasn't expecting it to blend properly with the dash, and with a fitted finish. As long as it fits and is secure. Removable fascia is good for security, I suppose, although the standard Clarion(?) fitted to my Peugeot isn't removable.

Interesting - didn't know that. But wouldn't the USB interface only be used to copy music files between devices? I didn't think it was usable to play the music in "real time". I say this because my iRiver connects to the PC via USB for copying files. For listening I was expecting to use the standard earphone socket or optical line-out socket. This evening I connected it via optical line-out to my home stereo. I was expecting a similar arrangement for the car stereo. I've seen car devices that can not only play CDs, but also have a built-in mp3 player. While this adds to its flexibility, all I really want is radio, CD-playing and the ability to take in output from an external device via either a standard jack socket or optical line-in.

Update: Had a Sony CD/radio fitted this morning - a CDX-GT310. It plays standard CDs as well as those containing MP3 & WMA music files. It also has an auxiliary input to take my MP3 player, via a standard stereo mini jack. Unfortunately there is no adaptor available for it to support my steering column stalk (only some Peugeot electrical systems support this), but you can't have everything!

Don't know about the iRiver but from both my mp3 players I can play mp3s on the PC using the files on the player, just like accessing any other file on a memory stick.

My old goodmans CD player had a line in (still in a ZX estate somewhere) and it was only a cheap player.

C

Have a look at

if you are lucky you can keep your original fitted radio and also be able to run an mps player from through your radio.GGJ