MP3 Tape Adaptors, NOISY???

[Boon]

Don't worry Z, not the usually Beaten topic.

So I just got my new awesome Griffin Ipod dock tape player. The controls on the dash and steering wheel don't seem to do anything, but worse than that the thing is SUPER SUPER NOISY. It sounds like the thing is in Fast Forward the entire time.

Anyone else having this problem with any of there tape adapters? Are they super noisy when they are playing, like you can hear the tape moving very fast in the player noisy? It's not speaker noise, or whine or anything like that, it is the actual sound of the player playing the tape.

Please let me know. Thanks................ Boon

[nmgoodthing]

At least you only paid 12 bucks for it. That would suck forking out like $100 and is sounded like garbage. I saw that Griffin had a different one on their website. It was black and uses the Ipod or other MP3 players. Did you get the white one?

[szh]

Don't worry Z, not the usually Beaten topic.

No problem!

So I just got my new awesome Griffin Ipod dock tape player. The controls on the dash and steering wheel don't seem to do anything, but worse than that the thing is SUPER SUPER NOISY. It sounds like the thing is in Fast Forward the entire time.

Anyone else having this problem with any of there tape adapters? Are they super noisy when they are playing, like you can hear the tape moving very fast in the player noisy? It's not speaker noise, or whine or anything like that, it is the actual sound of the player playing the tape.

Please let me know. Thanks................ Boon

Tape adapters can have higher electrical noise unfortunately (reduced signal-to-noise ratio). Albeit what you are describing sounds like mechanical noise Did they not properly load the take-up spool in the cassette player for this purpose, so that it did not spin uncontrollably (the cassette player assumes that the tape is moving and it justs keeps "tension" on the tape take-up spool)?

In the electrical noise case, what happens is that the high-level signal (on the order of millivolts to volts) from the iPod (or CD player or whatever) is reduced to what the head in a cassette player expects from tape (on the order of microvolts to tens/hundreds of microvolts). Including electronic wave-shaping to correspond to the tape characteristics.

This reduction from the high-level signal to the low-level signal reduces the noise level too, but there are floors (resistor shot noise, etc.) below which it cannot go. Thus, the effective signal-to-noise ratio is reduced.

Second, the tape head amplifiers are not the best in the world. They might give you about 50 to 60 db of signal-to-noise ratio (where the original signal from the iPod or CD might have been closer to 80 to 90 db - depending on the way-original source material). Cassette amplifiers are thus also not designed for the ultimate in sound quality, since they assume normal tape noise characteristics.

The end-result is that it is a "working" solution to use a tape-adaptor in the car to feed in an iPod or CD player output. You do not get the signal to noise ratio that you would get from a direct high-level connection.

The bottom line: given that I am a bit of an audiophile, I have always found that the environment of a car is simply not conducive to outstanding sound and will never get there frankly. My approach is thus simpler: keep the car unmodified, don't expect the best from an external CD/iPod connection, and spend your audio money on improving your home stereo system to the max.

I know this is not a widely held view, but it has served me well for over 40 years of music listening!

Z

[Sazar]

I bought some 30 buck jobbie at best buy about 4 months ago and it is very silent. Only time I ever hear it is when I start or turn off the car and the tape deck activates and goes through the motions. Completely silent when it is just in the deck.

Unfortunately, some of the more expensive adapters ARE quieter so you do have to spend for them.

[Boon]

Thanks guys. I went to Best Buy and bought a sony one to see if it was the tape, the player, both, neither. It ended up that it is just the tape cause the sony one doesn't do it, unfortunately it doesn't sound that good. I will keep looking. Thanks...........

[Sazar]

Thanks guys. I went to Best Buy and bought a sony one to see if it was the tape, the player, both, neither. It ended up that it is just the tape cause the sony one doesn't do it, unfortunately it doesn't sound that good. I will keep looking. Thanks...........

I presume you have an Ipod?

I have the Zune 80GB and I found that I have to get the volume to 10 (on the player, half way up), make sure that Dolby thing is NOT on on the tape thingy and then just adjust volume as normal. It sounds GREAT, almost as good as in my brother's IS350 Lexus with an Auxiliary cable.

[Boon]

Cool, thanks for the good info Saz. I will give that a try. The thing was that the griffin one actually sounded good if not for the loud tape noise coming from the tape player. The sony with the same settings sounded noticably different. I did notice that if I adjusted stuff it sounded better. I will give your method a shot, thanks.