Just like the tag examples... but with a twist.

December 20, 2006 10:44 PM

Are there really no in-dash hard-drive based car MP3 players (er, under $2000) or single-DIN 6-disc changers on the market anymore? Help me with my broken changer.

So, I have a 2000 Isuzu Trooper. It's been great. It came with a neat little single-DIN in-dash 6 disc changer that's connected to its in-dash cassette player. That too was great. It just broke. I can't imagine servicing a 6 year old in-dash CD changer's a good idea economically. Looks like there haven't been any cheap salvaged replacements on eBay in quite some time, and car-parts.com doesn't show anything that close. The Trooper's still in fine shape and probably has many years left, so it looks like I'm shopping for a replacement.

Problem is, I'm a bit picky. But really, all I want to do, is switch between a library of around 10GB of music relatively easily.

Right now, I'm doing it the "old-fashioned way" -- hit the number of the disc in the CD changer, or find the disc I want to listen to out of a pile in my center console and do a quick disc swap. I can do this quickly, at a traffic light. But not any more, obviously, because my in-dash changer's broke, and there don't appear to be replacements out there that aren't those big old changers from the 90's that went in people's trunks. I can't quite imagine climbing over my seats to get at it at a stop light or while I'm a passenger.

Now, what would be wonderful to have is a modern equivalent of the Empeg/Rio Car. By which I'm saying -- why isn't there a modern equivalent of the Empeg/Rio Car? Is there, and I'm missing it? Give me a nice display and a hard drive in the dash and I'll be fine. Put an amp in it so I don't need an external amp and I'll be elated. But I just don't think there's anything out there. No, I don't also want to buy an iPod that will get broken and/or stolen and look ridiculous hanging somewhere in my car that I can't use without looking at it and not at the road thanks. (I would consider an Empeg-like device where the iPod actually gets devoured by the head-unit.)

Yes, yes, I do know there are single-disc CD players that play MP3s. Boy, do they all look bad, with poor navigation of what's on a disc, and I can't quite imagine being able to swap things quite like I do now with a bunch of hand-scrawled 700MB MP3 discs. Perhaps you can convince me otherwise, but they all look like a pain unless you have just one or two MP3 CDs. Yep, I've looked through Crutchfield's selection.

So, knowing that I don't mind the in-dash 6 disc, that I'd love an Empeg if I could find one at a reasonable price, that I think a single disc would drive me crazy and I'd prefer not to have anything hanging out of anything else... got a suggestion?

posted by I EAT TAPAS to travel & transportation (11 comments total)

I don't know about changers, but one big reason why you don't find many hard drive solutions anymore can be summed up in one word: iPod. Why lock the hard drive in the car when you can take it with you? To that end, there are tons of in-dash interfaces designed for iPods that only require you to hook up the iPod and toss it in a cubbyhole somewhere; all the play controls are on the in-dash player.

This does, of course, violate your preference for not having anything hanging out anywhere (though I imagine you could route the iPod input into your glove compartment or dash cubbyhole if you wanted a clean look), but it looks like your other options are to buy an extravagantly priced car PC that'll do way more than you need, or roll your own solution.
posted by chrominance at 11:30 PM on December 20, 2006

Buy the best in-dash stereo you wish with a 1/8" line in and use it with your portable HDD-based MP3 player (most likely iPod) of choice.
posted by sourwookie at 12:03 AM on December 21, 2006

I have a 40Gb phatbox mp3 player in my car, it cost $600 at the time I bought it. Its connected up where a CD changer would go, and interfaces directly with my car's stock stereo head. Unfortunately, a quick browse of their website suggests they don't support Isuzu, but take a deeper look just in case. I love the thing.
posted by Joh at 12:09 AM on December 21, 2006

I personally don't see the problem you have with a single-disc MP3 player. One CDRW of MP3s will hold more than the 6 discs you had access to previously. Mine has a 4-way pad on the right; horizontal is prev/next track, vertical is prev/next directory, i.e. album.

Sure, it ain't 10GB, but it's more than a day's driving.

Other thing is: bin/ebay the tape player because it probably won't work without being attached to the old CD changer. That allows you the option of a double-DIN unit if you wanted something really expensive and flashy. Or you could just put a little pocket/tray thing in the spare DIN slot.
posted by polyglot at 2:42 AM on December 21, 2006

I am not sure why more car makers don't offer a usb hdd solution for audio, video, and navigation in their automobiles. I know the new high end mercedes sedan (s550 I think) offers a 30gb hard drive and this seems terribly convenient. Too bad the car costs 80k. I have a 6 disc in dash changer that can play mp3s but it is factory installed by ford. And even then, navigation between folders is cumbersome and variable bit rate mp3s make it choke and spit out the disc. It is far from ideal.

I hunted around for a while looking for the best solution and I echo what a few of the others have said... spend around 200 on a single disc in dash model. Get one that is XM ready and has an aux out feature so you can later connect an ipod to it. It seems like that makes a lot more sense than spending a grand on something like this.
posted by ro50 at 7:33 AM on December 21, 2006

To expand on what polyglot said I've got a 12 disk MP3/CD-R capable changer (C$187 from BestBuy 2 years ago) under the drivers seat of my Caravan. The controller has a rocker to change disks up/down and a 4-way to handle next/previous track and next/previous folder(album) on each disk. If I'm on the last album going to the next album will advance to the next disk (same for tracks). Fully loaded you have better than 70 hours of audio. And it will shuffle a single album or disk or the entire changer (which admittedly is a pain because changing disks takes 10-15 seconds).

Plus the controller (about a 1/4 -1/3 DIN in size) displays assorted time information and or ID3 tags.

The only thing that would make it better is if it supported DVD-R so I could get all three LOTR audio books on a single disk.
posted by Mitheral at 7:53 AM on December 21, 2006

Oh! Mitheral, you just gave me an idea.

I hadn't thought about the in-dash DVD players, since I have no need for a TV coming out of the middle of my dash, and we have a portable DVD player for that kind of thing anyway.

But if the single-disc DVD players play dual-layer MP3 discs? There we go. 8.5GB of music without a swap. That's as much as your 12 CD MP3 changer, but without needing to change discs, and as much as I'd need to have a decent selection of driving music.

Also, to all the people who said iPod: if I wanted to use an iPod, I'd just use a cassette adapter (which I actually own) in the car's working cassette player. A new iPod would cost more than almost any new head-unit, and I don't want to have to physically manage where the iPod goes, not to mention the increased theft risk of having an iPod in the car. I've tried the aux-input thing on a previous car with pre-iPod MP3 players; it didn't work for me.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 8:23 AM on December 21, 2006

With an iPod, you might be able to do something like this. You connect the iPod to the box and the box to where the CD Changer is plugged in. Then the iPod works like the CD changer except that you now have 6 playlists instead of 6 CDs.
posted by FreezBoy at 8:24 AM on December 21, 2006

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=dmp1

Here you go! There's even home-brewed replacement s/w that lets just copy music to the drive and do folder navigation.

That being said... I have one that I picked up on Woot pretty cheap soon before the product was discontinued. While I love the idea of it I personally wish I had just invested the money in a large capacity portable.

Positives: Easy to upgrade the capacity - I have a 60G hard drive in mine that came out of my laptop when I upped it to 160G. The home-brew s/w even lets you use additional external drives, though you have to power them. When you turn off the car, the machine saves the spot you were at. You just leave it in the car, except every month or two when you just add whatever mp3's you have aquired.

Negatives: You still have to look at the display to select songs. You can't play any of the DRM'd formats that are used for audiobooks and so forth. The display is weak - same problem with all but the more recent players - simply not enough characters to display Classical music properly. If you sell your car you have a lot more uninstalling to do.

I have the aux in split in my car, and I frequently just bring my portables into the car when I want to listen to something specific, rather than pulling the hard drive and loading it. But I love that I don't have to think about it and I still have tons of music in the car. Overall I'd be almost as happy with an iPod I just leave in the glove box.
posted by mzurer at 8:31 AM on December 21, 2006

Thanks, mzurer -- that's exactly what I was looking for!
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 1:08 PM on December 21, 2006

Sorry I forgot to mention - Please note that it is not a head unit. You need a head with an AUX in to interface with it.
posted by mzurer at 2:41 PM on December 21, 2006