You really have to reach back to remember how THIS worked in your car
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Two cars ago I had this. I had a MiniDisk player to go with it. I felt like the coolest young adult.
Then I got another car that had a CD player with no AUX port. Had to get a RF adapter. Worked well.
Then the FCC put limits in the RF adapters and they sounded worse.
Replaced my radio after that one with a shamcy one. Got my AUX cable back!
... Now they took my AUX cable away from my phone.
Get a Bluetooth AUX receiver.
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Get a Bluetooth AUX receiver.
Those didn't exist yet. It was amm FM Transmitters. They might've been around but too expensive.
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I would have had to reach forward, because I never understood them until this thread. Now I can pretend to understand them and just frustratedly say, "It's basically electromagnets, to oversimplify it" next time someone mentions these.
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My 2000s-era cars don't* have tape decks, unfortunately. I say "unfortunately" because they also don't have line in, USB, or Bluetooth, so their AM/FM/CD car audio units are, in 2025, objectively inferior to the AM/FM/cassette ones in my 1990s-era cars.
* Present tense because I still own cars from the '90s and 2000s. I refuse to own any car capable of violating my privacy, which is every new car.
You may want to look into a GROM audio subsystem. They work remarkably well. Buddy installed one in his 2004 Volvo and you'd never know it was there.
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Let me introduce you to the Citroen Ami/Opel Rocks-e/Fiat Topolino, where the entertainment system is a literal bluetooth speaker in a cupholder.
It'd have to be a long-distance relationship, because those aren't sold in the US.
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I refuse to own any car capable of violating my privacy
Is this you?
No, but he's right.
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My 2000s-era cars don't* have tape decks, unfortunately. I say "unfortunately" because they also don't have line in, USB, or Bluetooth, so their AM/FM/CD car audio units are, in 2025, objectively inferior to the AM/FM/cassette ones in my 1990s-era cars.
* Present tense because I still own cars from the '90s and 2000s. I refuse to own any car capable of violating my privacy, which is every new car.
A lot of CD units from the 2000s were wired to connect to a 6-CD changer mounted in the trunk, and you can get an adapter cable that provides an AUX input this way. I drive a 2001 BMW and I'm able to play music from my phone over the car stereo with one of these (cost around $50).
This worked a lot better before I was forced to buy a new phone without a fucking headphone jack. I have a USB adapter that works but the signal level is much lower than a normal headphone jack so the maximum volume is a lot lower.
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They are still around. They even come in Bluetooth flavour now so you don’t need the cord.
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These adapters were perfect... The only problem was that personal CD players of the same era skipped when you looked at them wrong.
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Like how did these even work??
Technology connections explains it very well
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They are still around. They even come in Bluetooth flavour now so you don’t need the cord.
Perfect for my Bluetooth Discman.
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These adapters were perfect... The only problem was that personal CD players of the same era skipped when you looked at them wrong.
I remember shopping for diskmans that had the longest anti-skip.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote on last edited by [email protected]
The best thing about the 1997 Volkswagen Jetta I had was it had a 12-disc CD-changer in the trunk. Why it was in the trunk, I don't know, but I had updated the front side deck (which was also cool because it was just a box you could plug into the front and not have to get deeper into the wiring or anything) so it could read MP3 CDs, so 12 of those in the trunk basically held almost everything my iPod could.
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We were using this well into 2010 or so. Better audio quality than an FM tuner as long as the electromagnet wasn't overheating.
The best option though was to get an inline FM injector and plug it in where the antenna plugged in. Perfect audio.
Tape adapter should be just as good. If it's not, you probably have dirty heads or are using it wrong (wrong side, NR on, etc).
The tape adapter is legit just a wire that connects to a tape-head inside the cassette body. That's it. It's head-to-head.
Most of the noise and artifacts in tape are a result of the tape itself. No tape, no noise. Consequentially if your tape deck has Dolby Noise Reduction or a similar feature, it should probably be turned off.
Relevant Technology Connections: https://youtu.be/dH4n8fUjtLQ
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This post did not contain any content.wrote on last edited by [email protected]
I’m gen z - though on the older side - and I remember using these
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2018 here lol
What were you driving cerca 2018? That's amazing
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The best thing about the 1997 Volkswagen Jetta I had was it had a 12-disc CD-changer in the trunk. Why it was in the trunk, I don't know, but I had updated the front side deck (which was also cool because it was just a box you could plug into the front and not have to get deeper into the wiring or anything) so it could read MP3 CDs, so 12 of those in the trunk basically held almost everything my iPod could.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I had an Acura with the disc changer in the trunk, I imagine the moving parts right behind the firewall would not fare well for long in high heat, as well as the discs. You’re right though, the move to burning MP3 CDs felt like you had almost infinite space for all your bands
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These adapters were perfect... The only problem was that personal CD players of the same era skipped when you looked at them wrong.
I remember buying a Sony mp3 CD player with 5-second skip delay for $80.
Everyone was still using regular CD players with their 80 minutes of audio, carefully holding their precious device.
While I was living like a god, playing over twenty hours of music, dropping my player over and over, without losing a beat.
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That, plus a portable CD-MP3 player, was the bomb.
I still have my iRiver iMP-350, a portable CD player that could read mp3 and wma files off a CD-R or CD-RW, allowing way more than 74 or 80 minutes of audio. Damn thing still mostly works 22 years later too, thanks in large part to them including a 2x AA battery dongle in addition to the gumstick-shaped rechargeable batteries in the main unit which have long since leaked.
When they started selling head units with aux in ports, I had to have one in my car. And when they started putting iPod connectors in head units, perfection.
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My 2000s-era cars don't* have tape decks, unfortunately. I say "unfortunately" because they also don't have line in, USB, or Bluetooth, so their AM/FM/CD car audio units are, in 2025, objectively inferior to the AM/FM/cassette ones in my 1990s-era cars.
* Present tense because I still own cars from the '90s and 2000s. I refuse to own any car capable of violating my privacy, which is every new car.
I refuse to own any car capable of violating my privacy, which is every new car.
To be fair, any car with a license plate too. But still your point is well taken.
