Radio Controlled
All the driving I've been doing lately has gotten me thinking about my car's stereo. It's a decent enough stereo, but I know it could be so much cooler. Right now, the radio doesn't even have a cd player. Usually, I just listen to the radio on short trips, because the ipod is just too big a pain to deal with if I'm only going to be in the car a few minutes at a time--although it is much easier than the portable cd player I used to use. On long trips, the ipod works great, but the sound is noticebly flat. It would be very nice to have a direct line in or a cd player.
I've often thought about just buying a cd deck, but a new one from the manufacture would cost $600, and there aren't any aftermarket decks that would allow me to use my car's built in steering wheel radio controls, which I'm not willing to give up. Every once in a while, I'll check ebay and the junk yards for a cd deck taken from another car. But I've yet to find any good deals, and I'm not totally sure who I could get to install it. I replaced the original radio (with a tape deck model) on my old 1986 Bonneville myself, but I haven't the slightest idea how to take apart my current 2000 Grand Prix's dashboard. I think someplace like Best Buy might do it, but who knows what they would charge.
However, what I've decided is that what I really want is a hard drive premounted in the stereo that I can load all my mp3s onto and that can be voice controlled. Wouldn't that be awesome? To just be able to say, "Car, play songs at random." or, "Car, play the album 'Out of Exile' by 'Audioslave'," or "Car, play the song 'Free Fallin' by 'Tom Petty',"and have the stereo do it?
I think the technology to do this must be there, the only hard part would be indexing the song/artist/album/genre names. In fact, my iBook is pretty close to being able to do it already, the voice control built into the system is pretty good. Unforunately, the built-in controls don't extend to itunes and ones I can find on the net are fairly limited.
In the end, it's probably best that I don't spend enough time driving to actually attempt this.
-Tim
I've often thought about just buying a cd deck, but a new one from the manufacture would cost $600, and there aren't any aftermarket decks that would allow me to use my car's built in steering wheel radio controls, which I'm not willing to give up. Every once in a while, I'll check ebay and the junk yards for a cd deck taken from another car. But I've yet to find any good deals, and I'm not totally sure who I could get to install it. I replaced the original radio (with a tape deck model) on my old 1986 Bonneville myself, but I haven't the slightest idea how to take apart my current 2000 Grand Prix's dashboard. I think someplace like Best Buy might do it, but who knows what they would charge.
However, what I've decided is that what I really want is a hard drive premounted in the stereo that I can load all my mp3s onto and that can be voice controlled. Wouldn't that be awesome? To just be able to say, "Car, play songs at random." or, "Car, play the album 'Out of Exile' by 'Audioslave'," or "Car, play the song 'Free Fallin' by 'Tom Petty',"and have the stereo do it?
I think the technology to do this must be there, the only hard part would be indexing the song/artist/album/genre names. In fact, my iBook is pretty close to being able to do it already, the voice control built into the system is pretty good. Unforunately, the built-in controls don't extend to itunes and ones I can find on the net are fairly limited.
In the end, it's probably best that I don't spend enough time driving to actually attempt this.
-Tim
posted by tjmcardl | 10:38 PM
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