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I personally haven't tried any of them, but after hearing the stories
I'm just gonna fork out the bucks for an in-dash MD player.
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I would assess the situation more carefully if you are considering MiniDisc
in the car, especially on a permanent basis.
This would mean assessing whether the factory head unit has a line-level
input that can be opened up by any old device. Some AM/FM stereo car radios
have a connection to feed in the signal from a separate cassette player
which was available as standard or as a dealer-fit option. Here, you
adjusted the volume for the tape sound by operating the controls on the
radio. Also some car radio-cassettes made since the late 80s were equipped
with connections for a separate CD player, available as a dealer-fit option
in most cases.
I had discussed the possibility of modifying a Sony add-on CD changer
controller kit (which controls their MDX-65 MiniDisc changer), which uses
the RF modulator setup to perform a direct feed into these car radios.
The trick was to wire the controller to the vehicle power, then re-direct
the RCA connectors that connect the changer to the controller, from the
controller to the line inputs on the car radio, then use the "switched power
output" on the lead to operate the line-level input trigger.
If this is hard to do, look for an CD/MiniDisc stacker controller that
installs in the output line and has its own volume and tone controls. Then
you can use a speaker-line interface for those car stereos that only have
speaker level outputs. These controllers then feed a powerful amplifier,
thus modernising the sound in an older car stereo.
Alpine and JVC make these kind of changer controllers and they are still
worth investingating. They also come in handy if your car is a recently-made
luxury one where external amplifiers are used for the sound system, such as
the Bose, Harman-Kardon, JBL or Infinity sound systems.
If you live in an area covered by a digital radio system such as the Eureka
147 system, keep an eye out for controllers that can control add-on digital
radio tuners.
With regards,
Simon Mackay
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