The new and nifty and much more usable product design of the Griffin iTrip (with LCD) led me to try FM transmitters once again for enjoying my iPod in my car. I have a CD only sound system in my car and had tried numerous FM transmitters when I first bought my iPod about a year ago.
Living in a major metropolitan area might be the first big hurdle, but I just could not find success with any of the transmitters I had tried in the past. I tried the Monster iCarPlay, the Griffin RoadTrip and one other that I can’t remember. None worked well and were barely listenable when they worked at all. Strangely enough the Monster unit picked up every single bump in the road. The main body of the transmitter acted like a microphone and amplified taps to its case and wire. It also only had eight stations to choose from, so if your local area was crowded in the lower part of the FM band, you were out of luck. Even when it did find an empty enough location on the FM dial, the sound was worse than the worst FM station you had ever heard. It was dull and flat and noisy.
Even though the Griffin RoadTrip allowed you to try your FM transmission on any station available, and even though it didn’t suffer the sensitivity to bumps like the iCarPlay, it sounded just as nasty at all times.
My buddy Rudy had the original Griffin iTrip and said he was pleased with its performance. With the old iTrip, you had to complete some complicated maneuvers on your iPod itself to choose a station and begin play.
The new Griffin iTrip with LCD makes that entire ritual painless. It’s a joy to use. Just find an “empty” station on your car stereo, then turn the chrome ring on the right of the iTrip to that same station, push the chrome ring in, press play on the iPod and you’re in business… well, almost. You best have the volume set just right on your iPod. Too loud and the sound will distort, too soft and you’d have to turn your car stereo’s volume up and the sound will be too noisy. Actually, it’s noisy even when you get it just right. I found that I also had to set the iPod’s EQ to “Treble Booster” to get a sound that was almost acceptable.
And that’s just it… get everything right: clear and empty station, volume level and EQ on the iPod, and the sound is just barely acceptable and only just when moving and the road noise can mask most of it. I’ll keep my Griffin iTrip for when I’m completely desperate to listen to what’s on my iPod, otherwise I’ll just burn CD’s for my 6-cd changer and be much happier.
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