I just realised, as I'm sitting with a pile of CDs and my G5, that my audio solution for the Beetle is actually (assuming you already have a computer) than a factory six-disc CD-changer.
I'm using my iPod with a Belkin cupholder bracket (designed originally for the Beetle) and a power adaptor with a line out socket and a cassette adaptor since the VW stereo lacks an aux input (you can hack one in /if/ you already have the CD changer).
So far I've reached G on my CD collection, just under 200 albums (yet to do a bunch of compilations, but I've done my 80s cheese which accounts for 16 albums). Over 2,000 songs, nearly a week of solid music, and 8Gb of disc space gone. (The G5 devours CDs, it's ripping and encoding a CD in less time than it takes to play one track).
I was wondering if I should have gone for the 40Gb iPod instead of the
20Gb, but what the hell - I'm not really going to listen to /all/ of my albums. But I can get nearly all of my CD collection in any car (I've got an (apparently illegal) FM transmitter for the iPod too) and it cost less than the £300-ish pounds the VW factory fit thing was - and I can use it outside of the car, too. And be all trendy with those white earbud cables.
Anyone else using such a user-friendly system? I've seen various forms of In-car MP3 players, some of which looked pretty impressive, and I know about car PCs, but what about regular players?
(Oh, and iPods work on Windows too).
When I get the Beetle I'll have pics, but Apple and VW already did it in the US - buy a Beetle, get a free iPod - with a 'Pods Unite' campaign. I was highly amused, having been sitting sketching something to fit in the Beetle cupholder, that such a product already existed. (My idea was cooler, though - I wanted a cupholder 'dock' which had an audio feed into the headunit and just required the iPod dropping in. The present solution isn't far off though).
One thing I have noticed is that I'm more liable to listen to my CDs now
- I can call up iTunes on the PC or other Macs (I use my Powerbook as a radio in the garden with streaming audio on WiFi), so all the stuff which I bought and then forgot about, I can finally get to listen to. That, and I can strip all the duplicate tracks which I get on compilations...
Richard (working on playlists, trying to find my old mixtapes from when I was in college and remaking them. How the hell did I manage to go from RHCP to Tori Amos?).