Recommendations for a USB FM transmitter

[Guest]

Having our elderly kitchen system finally give up playing CD's and with the dire offerings on R3 at the moment, I needed some alternative. To cut a long story short, I have stuck a Squeeze player on the iMac that can be controlled using iPeng on my iPod Touch and it works flawlessly.....nothing like an LMS convert !......this then feeds an old USB FM transmitter that I have and to which I tune to on the kitchen system.

Downside is that there is a bit of a background tone on the FM and so I was wondering if anyone can recommend a better USB FM transmitter?

[MrGongGong]

Do you ever actually listen to music ?
rather than spend all your time fiddling with codecs and other malarkey ?

[johnb]

Do you ever actually listen to music ?

Qué?
<smiley for scratching head in puzzlement>

[Dave2002]

Having our elderly kitchen system finally give up playing CD's and with the dire offerings on R3 at the moment, I needed some alternative. To cut a long story short, I have stuck a Squeeze player on the iMac that can be controlled using iPeng on my iPod Touch and it works flawlessly.....nothing like an LMS convert !......this then feeds an old USB FM transmitter that I have and to which I tune to on the kitchen system.

Downside is that there is a bit of a background tone on the FM and so I was wondering if anyone can recommend a better USB FM transmitter?

Presumably you mean some of those FM thingies which are used with iPods and MP3s to drive FM car radios, so you are looking for something around £20. I can't recommend any of them particularly. Cheapie ones are like this one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/JSG-Accessor...ref=pd_cp_ce_3 which has almost as many bad reviews as good ones [you have to watch out with Amazon reviews - if there's a big spread particularly it's still possible for the average to come out OKish, but with a lot of 5* and a lot of 1* reviews] - but nevertheless a fair number find it OK. I have a Belkin one somewhere, but we hardly ever use it - don't need to much now.

Otherwise, if your kitchen kit has an input, then I believe an Airport Express might help - but at a price (around £80) - http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC...irport-express Not tried it myself, as don't need it, but some who have say it's good. I assume it has the appropriate outputs for an amp or kit with an appropriate input/set of inputs.

The other issue about that, is that I'm not sure that you can then drive iTunes or LMS on your Mac using iPeng, and feed the music to the Airport Express - it might just not work software wise.

[Stunsworth]

Airport Express has analogue and digital output.

[Resurrection Man]

Thanks for the suggestions but unfortunately the kitchen box doesn't have an audio input. That would have been TOO easy! And, Dave2002, you are right ...I am after one of those FM thingies but willing to pay a fair price to get a good one.

[Dave2002]

I think this is similar to the one we have - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-TuneC...ter+car+belkin

There seem to be varying opinions - one high rating - works straight off, and a few low ratings, plus a couple which suggest using mods to the aerial, which it seems improve things considerably - allegedly. Read the reviews and decide.

I think I already pointed out the JSG model - http://www.amazon.co.uk/JSG-Accessor...io+transmitter -which has a fair number of poor reviews, but one reviewer of the Belkin model suggested that the JSG is better. Maybe it, too, works better with aerial modifications.

Last idea - does your kitchen kit have a tape player? If so, there are also tape units which either work with FM or with cable.

[Resurrection Man]

I think this is similar to the one we have - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-TuneC...ter+car+belkin

There seem to be varying opinions - one high rating - works straight off, and a few low ratings, plus a couple which suggest using mods to the aerial, which it seems improve things considerably - allegedly. Read the reviews and decide.

I think I already pointed out the JSG model - http://www.amazon.co.uk/JSG-Accessor...io+transmitter -which has a fair number of poor reviews, but one reviewer of the Belkin model suggested that the JSG is better. Maybe it, too, works better with aerial modifications.

Last idea - does your kitchen kit have a tape player? If so, there are also tape units which either work with FM or with cable.

Thanks for those. I have (somewhere) the Belkin unit modified to take external power. IIRC that was reasonable but it was a long time ago and not too sure where it is. The JSG looks identical.

Yes it does have a tape player and I used to have one of those gizmos that plugged into the cassette slot in the car (those were the days...contact breakers). The drawback is that the tape is a top-loader and I'm not sure how the wire would come out. Worth a try, maybe. I'm currently thinking about taking it apart and seeing if I can jury rig an audio input in lieu of the CD player.

In the end may bite the bullet and get the Roberts unit which I am told can, unlike the Philips of comparable price (£200+ gulp), play gapless audio CDs properly but I'd still need to double-check.

[Dave2002]

RM

Odd that you have a similar problem to one of ours. We have a rather nice boom box player which we use in our bedroom. Around 6 months ago or more the CD player stopped working - I don't know why. It just doesn't seem to power up - might be a trivial fault, but could be more serious. We still use it for radio and tape, and I'm loath to take it to the tip because it's actually rather good compared with most of the others we have, or others which might still be available. I might try the FM solution with a portable CD player to see if that would help when we want to play CDs. I have mentioned this before - just not got round to dealing with it. In "the old days" there would have been repair people who could have slipped a new CD unit in, or done a bit of rewiring for not too many £££s, but I think those days have largely been and gone now.

[Resurrection Man]

RM

Odd that you have a similar problem to one of ours. We have a rather nice boom box player which we use in our bedroom. Around 6 months ago or more the CD player stopped working - I don't know why. It just doesn't seem to power up - might be a trivial fault, but could be more serious. We still use it for radio and tape, and I'm loath to take it to the tip because it's actually rather good compared with most of the others we have, or others which might still be available. I might try the FM solution with a portable CD player to see if that would help when we want to play CDs. I have mentioned this before - just not got round to dealing with it. In "the old days" there would have been repair people who could have slipped a new CD unit in, or done a bit of rewiring for not too many £££s, but I think those days have largely been and gone now.

Yup..ours is a Panasonic player with good sized loudspeakers in a sort of bass reflex arrangement. It is the second one that we've had...the first one lasted a long long time but finally died...again the CD player. And like you loath to get rid of it as the sound quality is so good. Last Christmas I spent (wasted?) days and days going around trying to audition a replacement machine and found it very hard to do since the internet took over from the high street. In some ways I found that these machines were over-specified in terms of 'features' that I neither wanted nor cared for. Trouble was the cost of these features' impacted on the amount of money spent on more key components such as loudspeakers. And then when I had finally chosen a machine - the Philips - I discovered that it was incapable of playing something like an opera CD without a noticeable and unlistenable pause between tracks. That little story was posted on another thread.

I have a sense that, even with careful cleaning etc, the laser in these devices start to lose efficiency over time. Couple that with poorer error-correction algorithms compared to today's devices means that both you and I are seeing this problem. We are in exactly the same situation with film library DVDs. Our main system is centred around a Sony DAV system but bought probably 15-20 years ago together with a Sony plasma display. A friend of mine was a Sony dealer at the time and because he had to churn through models on display in order to maximise his discount from them, we bought the whole system at cost. And, to be fair, we have certainly got our money's worth over the years. Even if I have had to buy two replacement secondhand DAV systems off eBay! But now this latest 'replacement' seems to be having problems playing some DVDs..again probably simply due to laser age. The backup DVD system (aka another Sony hard drive/PVR/DVD burner) also has problems....so much so that the last DVD I watched I ended up scrunched over the iMac watching it there.

Therein lies the rub though. That Sony system is totally integrated and if I had to replace the DAV system, I need to replace the whole system..speakers and all because the speakers are a very low impedance. Then you discover that you don't necessarily have all same connections such as SCART which then knocks on to the TV ....and suddenly you are faced with renewing the whole system. More time....more cost. Plus learning a whole new technical dialogue of HDMI etc.

Sometimes I think that life is a bit too complicated!

Back to the original thread, I have bought a couple of FM transmitters from Keene and will see how they go. As for your own suggestion of using an FM transmitter with your CD player, I think you will be limited to that Belkin model as it has the 3.5mm audio jack input. The ones I have been looking at are USB.

[Don Petter]

Downside is that there is a bit of a background tone on the FM and so I was wondering if anyone can recommend a better USB FM transmitter?

I sometimes use the Pure Highway from the car in the house, powered from a mains adapter. It works well with a picture rail aerial, and can feed FM receivers anywhere in the house (and garden!).

[Resurrection Man]

I sometimes use the Pure Highway from the car in the house, powered from a mains adapter. It works well with a picture rail aerial, and can feed FM receivers anywhere in the house (and garden!).

Not sure how I'd get the signal from the iMac into that, Don. Does it have a USB input or 3.5mm jack?

Ouch....just seen the price.

[Stunsworth]

If you fail to find anything suitable you could always try something like this...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-SC-AP01E-K-Wireless-Speaker-Airplay/dp/B0083EO1O6/ref=tag_stp_s2_edpp_url

There seem to be plenty of similar devices, this was the first that I found.

[Resurrection Man]

If you fail to find anything suitable you could always try something like this...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-SC-AP01E-K-Wireless-Speaker-Airplay/dp/B0083EO1O6/ref=tag_stp_s2_edpp_url

There seem to be plenty of similar devices, this was the first that I found.

Nice idea, Steve, but the sound quality on the ones I've heard are a bit (well, more than a bit!) bass light. The speakers are always tiny.

[Don Petter]

Not sure how I'd get the signal from the iMac into that, Don. Does it have a USB input or 3.5mm jack?

Ouch....just seen the price.

I misunderstood that you wanted to use the iMac signal. This uses its own aerial, and, as you say, is not the solution for you at the price anyway!

The info might at least be useful for others who use a Highway in the car, and hadn't thought of house use.