Cassette to phone

My car has a cassette deck. I have been using a cassette tape with a
phone plug to listen to music and podcasts in the car. The cassette
tape cord has been pulled too many times and now the sound only comes
out of the right speaker.

I plan on just buying another cassette adapter to replace it, but I
have also seen a FM transmitter that plugs into the cigarette lighter.
I don't see any advantage of using this over the cassette.

I was thinking however that it would be even more useful if the phone
had a FM transmitter. I wonder if it would be as useful as blue tooth
and why no one has tried adding this to the long list of phone
features.

Seymore4Head wrote:
My car has a cassette deck. I have been using a cassette tape with a
phone plug to listen to music and podcasts in the car. The cassette
tape cord has been pulled too many times and now the sound only comes
out of the right speaker.

I plan on just buying another cassette adapter to replace it, but I
have also seen a FM transmitter that plugs into the cigarette lighter.
I don't see any advantage of using this over the cassette.

I was thinking however that it would be even more useful if the phone
had a FM transmitter. I wonder if it would be as useful as blue tooth
and why no one has tried adding this to the long list of phone
features.


An FM transmitter might be hard on battery life.

In terms of fidelity, the FM might have a 10KHz bandwidth
or so. Whereas the Bluetooth A2DP uses compression, so the
mutilation is in the digital domain. And using AptX might
not be quite as efficient (uses a bit more juice).

Come to think of it, the interference from all the phone
digital circuitry, would probably "ruin" the output of an
FM transmitter. There could be lots of baseband noises in
the analog signal feeding the transmitter. Whereas,
with an all-digital Bluetooth delivery method, the shortcomings
of the phone printed circuit board design no longer matter.
That would be as good a reason as any, not to do an
FM transmitter.

Paul

On 1/17/2017 5:41 PM, Paul wrote:
Seymore4Head wrote:
My car has a cassette deck. I have been using a cassette tape with a
phone plug to listen to music and podcasts in the car. The cassette
tape cord has been pulled too many times and now the sound only comes
out of the right speaker.

I plan on just buying another cassette adapter to replace it, but I
have also seen a FM transmitter that plugs into the cigarette lighter.
I don't see any advantage of using this over the cassette.

I was thinking however that it would be even more useful if the phone
had a FM transmitter. I wonder if it would be as useful as blue tooth
and why no one has tried adding this to the long list of phone
features.


An FM transmitter might be hard on battery life.

In terms of fidelity, the FM might have a 10KHz bandwidth
or so. Whereas the Bluetooth A2DP uses compression, so the
mutilation is in the digital domain. And using AptX might
not be quite as efficient (uses a bit more juice).

Come to think of it, the interference from all the phone
digital circuitry, would probably "ruin" the output of an
FM transmitter. There could be lots of baseband noises in
the analog signal feeding the transmitter. Whereas,
with an all-digital Bluetooth delivery method, the shortcomings
of the phone printed circuit board design no longer matter.
That would be as good a reason as any, not to do an
FM transmitter.

Paul

The FM transmitters are generally plugged into the cigarette lighter
jack, and many of them work fine, probably with better performance than
the cassette adapters through a cassette player. They are very cheap
from places like dealextreme.

Bob F wrote:

The FM transmitters are generally plugged into the cigarette lighter
jack, and many of them work fine, probably with better performance
than the cassette adapters through a cassette player. They are very
cheap from places like dealextreme.


The one I tried was inferior to the cassette version. It said "stereo
quality", but that must have been a technicality. I returned the one I
bought. I suggest you stick with the "cord".

On 1/17/2017 6:21 PM, Bill wrote:
Bob F wrote:

The FM transmitters are generally plugged into the cigarette lighter
jack, and many of them work fine, probably with better performance
than the cassette adapters through a cassette player. They are very
cheap from places like dealextreme.


The one I tried was inferior to the cassette version. It said "stereo
quality", but that must have been a technicality. I returned the one I
bought. I suggest you stick with the "cord".


Every one I've tried seemed to have fine stereo. One (from a thrift
shop) did have additional unwanted noise.

Bob F wrote:
On 1/17/2017 6:21 PM, Bill wrote:
Bob F wrote:

The FM transmitters are generally plugged into the cigarette lighter
jack, and many of them work fine, probably with better performance
than the cassette adapters through a cassette player. They are very
cheap from places like dealextreme.


The one I tried was inferior to the cassette version. It said "stereo
quality", but that must have been a technicality. I returned the one I
bought. I suggest you stick with the "cord".


Every one I've tried seemed to have fine stereo. One (from a thrift
shop) did have additional unwanted noise.

The result from mine a would compare to AM radio. It's that's "fine"
then we had similar experiences.

On 1/18/2017 8:14 AM, Bill wrote:
Bob F wrote:
On 1/17/2017 6:21 PM, Bill wrote:
Bob F wrote:

The FM transmitters are generally plugged into the cigarette lighter
jack, and many of them work fine, probably with better performance
than the cassette adapters through a cassette player. They are very
cheap from places like dealextreme.


The one I tried was inferior to the cassette version. It said "stereo
quality", but that must have been a technicality. I returned the one I
bought. I suggest you stick with the "cord".


Every one I've tried seemed to have fine stereo. One (from a thrift
shop) did have additional unwanted noise.

The result from mine a would compare to AM radio. It's that's "fine"
then we had similar experiences.


The result for me has been little different than using a cable from the
audio source to the phone jack input of my now more modern car radio.
Maybe you didn't choose a good unit. One sample is hardly a fair sample
to critique a whole range of products.

On 17 Jan 2017, Seymore4Head wrote in
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:

My car has a cassette deck. I have been using a cassette tape
with a phone plug to listen to music and podcasts in the car. The
cassette tape cord has been pulled too many times and now the
sound only comes out of the right speaker.

I plan on just buying another cassette adapter to replace it, but
I have also seen a FM transmitter that plugs into the cigarette
lighter. I don't see any advantage of using this over the
cassette.

I was thinking however that it would be even more useful if the
phone had a FM transmitter. I wonder if it would be as useful as
blue tooth and why no one has tried adding this to the long list
of phone features.

I've owned several of those FM transmitter things and the sound of all
of them was dreadful, much worse then the cassette adapter. The
cassette devices have their own problem, mainly physical noise from the
little reels inside and buzz from the electronics, but at least the
frequency response was decent. The FM things sounded pinched and tinny
and the stereo width was collapsed.

Bob F wrote:
On 1/18/2017 8:14 AM, Bill wrote:
Bob F wrote:
On 1/17/2017 6:21 PM, Bill wrote:
Bob F wrote:

The FM transmitters are generally plugged into the cigarette lighter
jack, and many of them work fine, probably with better performance
than the cassette adapters through a cassette player. They are very
cheap from places like dealextreme.


The one I tried was inferior to the cassette version. It said "stereo
quality", but that must have been a technicality. I returned the
one I
bought. I suggest you stick with the "cord".


Every one I've tried seemed to have fine stereo. One (from a thrift
shop) did have additional unwanted noise.

The result from mine a would compare to AM radio. It's that's "fine"
then we had similar experiences.


The result for me has been little different than using a cable from
the audio source to the phone jack input of my now more modern car
radio. Maybe you didn't choose a good unit. One sample is hardly a
fair sample to critique a whole range of products.

All I can do is share my experience... It was a genuine experience.
I'm pleased that your experience is better. Performance may depend on
locale. If I had to choose between the two today, I would grab the
cassette adapter.

Nil wrote:
The FM things sounded pinched and tinny
and the stereo width was collapsed.

That's a very good way to describe the experience I had. "Stereo width
was collapsed"--so much that it didn't seem much like stereo (for lack
of better wording, I compared it to AM radio)!