I want to play the music on my laptop and make the sound come out to my stock speakers in the car.
I have premium sound with eq and amp ect ect which was stock on the 20th anny.
I need to know if you guys can suggest how to do this.
I was thinking that the speaker out cable from the laptop would run back to the audio input of the amp.
After that, it seems that my radio has to come on at some point and thats where im stuck because then there would always be a station interfering with me. Perhaps use a cassette to enable the tape player then proceed. I dont own an mp3 player and likely i never will.
There is a cd changer in the trunk but the guts are gone. maybe just get one of those? I dont remember seeing any cables going to or out of it but maybe there is.
I see a couple of problems with what im trying to do but i dont want to over think it. I have enough electronic gizmos i tote around with my work and since i use my cell phone bluetooth for internet while driving and getting emails,, I just figured i could run my winamp in the background for tunes.
Besides,, if i dont get some music soon, ill be stuck on talk radio AM 530 big talkers since that stays in range for hundreds of miles.
is there a power amp in your system anywhere?
sorry, i meant non stock amp
Cassette-to-MP3 player adapter. $10, no rewiring necessary. Done. :)
Didn't know they made one.
I have one in the '84. You can get one practically anywhere...Wal*Mart, Radio Shack, anywhere that MP3 players are sold. It's essentially a cassette with a wire hanging out the back. Plug that into the speaker out 1/8" stereo mini jack on the laptop, push the cassette into the player, and there ya go.
Signal-to-noise ratio is, predictably, not that great. But a lot of the sound problem has to do with the original stereo equipment in the car. If the factory tape deck doesn't do that good of a job with most cassettes, then this adapter won't work miracles. In my case I'm dealing with 1984-spec speakers and the buttstuffog cassette deck (slide dial baby!), which probably dated back in design a few years before that. There are no amplifiers in this system...just the deck and 4 speakers. And wow, do they ever underwhelm. There are moments when I pray for the sound of nails on a chalkboard when I'm listening to the radio in that car, because at least that would be better than most of the regular sounds coming from it. It's as if your head is in a tin can. At least the receiver can lock in some stations good enough.
Anyhow...the factory premium sound amp and speakers help out a lot. I had that in the convertible the first summer, and even with the top down I was able to get decent sounds from that setup. Hopefully that's the case here.
so your saying plug an mp3 player adaptor to my laptop?
if i had another amp i would have said so, i dont like to mis lead.
so am i lost,, did i just get told to buy an mp3 player or did i miss something?
ahh,, i re-read,,
your saying to just get the adaptor
you can also use a FM Modulator. google it!
i guess the fm modulator is out because i will be on the road when this is in use and i dont want to change the least likely frequency all the time.
"Install your new component and make all of the audio connections at the FM modulator. [COLOR="Red"]Determine which of the available modulation frequencies is least likely to be shared by a strong local radio signal and set it on the hideaway box before you mount the unit [/COLOR](on some models you can change this setting on the fly)."
im thnking the cassette to mp3 adaptor mentioned by eric is the best.
Ill get one and let ya'll know what happens. I just fab'd up a laptop holder bracket thing a ma jig that holds my laptop in the car. Its nice to cause i can see my map using the gps MS Streets and trips. Ill try to get a pic of it because im pretty proud of how its done and how i did not damage any exterior parts mounting my bracket.
I would say the adaptor is your best bet.
I did a similar thing with my portable cd player back when they came out. but i made a 2-1 splitter. and connected it between my receiver and amp. of course it was an rca jack, it made it simple to make and connect. it must have been before those tape adaptors. or I would have bought one of those.
Yeah if youre on the stock stereo system the tape adapter is the best bet. They have been around forever, before MP3 players.
If you go the FM modulator route, simply remove the antenna and all of your interference issues are gone.
I have Sirius in the Tib and no matter what station I set, I would get interference. I disconnected the antenna and now I get no interference and the sound is CD clear all of the time.
now why didnt i think of that,,, too simple i guess:D
Our if u really wanna go wild lol, Forget the head unit, the PC is your head unit now lol. Simply use a PC's Speaker system center * The place where the speakers all plug in * Make sure its a 4 speaker system, you also gotta get the plugs for it and slice the Speaker wire with the plugs to go into the speaker system. Only thing u will bbe missing is the amp tho, unless u have it going head unit amp to each speaker.... Just throwing out another idea :p
Running speakers in a car would be dumb, not to mention you would have to run a converter to power them! Tape converter is what we used in my dads 88 t bird and used my bros labtop, no problems at all!!
well,,,
the cassette to mp3 adaptor works fine. I just ran with it using my sons sony vaio with no problems. Now i have to get my music off of it and to my work pc with my 1g thumb drive.
Best Buy sells an in-line modulator for audio input. it plugs in the back of your head unit where the antenna plugs in, then you plug your antenna into it. very good sound, no interferance. and you can still listen to the radio if you want.
I dont have local resources like that. zip 24941. besides, the cassette to mp3 does the same for 10bux.
Yeah, I've been playing MP3 player and/or laptop (when tuning) through cassette adapter input for years. Wicked flexible - all three cars have a cassette deck which makes it economical.
Wow you guys are in the stone age lol. I have an alpine head unit that I plug my Ipod into and I can control it fron the deck, I just throw the ipod into the glove box, lock it, and forget about it. Its a lot safer to have control from the deck than to have to use the Ipod to change albums/songs/playlists. I'm looking at a new deck that doesnt even have a CD player in it. You could do the same thing with your laptop by just leaving a short length of the cord to plug into the speaker output in the glove box, or wherever you wanted to I suppose. Two problems I can see, one that I don't know of any deck that can interface directly with a laptop as an external media, and two it wont charge the laptop like it does my ipod so you'd have to have a car charger or an inverter to charge it up for longer trips.
My HD MP3 player has a remote control so I put in under the seat and simply clip the remote to the shifter - so there :P
:D
I'd like to do the new head unit/MP3 player integration thing in the '84...it would save a lot of aggravation. But I'm trying to keep everything stock. Yes, even the py radio. So the cassette adapter, while not perfect, gets the job done.
Now the convertible is a different story, but it never fails: as soon as I get a new head unit for that car, another HU comes out that has more features. I can't win LOL. It has been about 3-4 years since the last one, though...I'm definitely due...
well, here are a couple pics of my laptop bracket and stuff. The main part is a simple piece of aluminum angle bolted to the underside of the console controls. I welded up the actual laptop holder though and it works fine. I need to do up another part for stability on ruff roads but on smooth highways, it floats like a dream.
The bracket is removeable so the only thing that remains is the angle iron which is not normally visible just peeking in the windows. I think its a decent job so no interior parts are damaged because of the mounting system.
Wow all that work for a car that most of us would put plastic over the seat before sitting in.. Gross...
Must be to "simple" of an idea to clean a car.
you eat too much salt