• PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    I still used one of these daily until at least 2009 to play music from my 2006 5th gen iPod video on my 1993 Buick regal because it sounded 100x better than any fm transmitter could produce at the time.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    5 months ago

    That’s new tech. I had a Radio Shack adapter to play cassettes that plugged into my car’s 8-track system.

      • CptEnder@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        This is blowing my mind lmao. At what point just buy a new radio deck. They make modern ones that look vintage. Has HD radio and BT…

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      These comments are blowing my mind. It’s like no one here knows that you can easily upgrade the stereo to a modern one. Plug and play in most cars with the right adapter.

      • Bizzle@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Ha! Nope actually, not in my old Cadillac or my Mercedes. Those both had anti theft. That would have been nice though.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I drive a 2001 which is in that dead zone after cassettes but before aux plugs. I still had to be burning CDs a few years ago but eventually stumbled across an adapter that tricks the car stereo into thinking my phone is a 6-CD changer in the trunk.

  • AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I was still using one of those til 2012. That’s what I get for having an old car. I did upgrade to a mini disc player tho.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Why didn’t you just upgrade the radio? A decent head unit with an aux jack and bluetooth can be purchased for as little as $40-50, and takes less than an hour to install in most cars with the right adapter. Literally plug and play in most vehicles.

      • AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It was one of those times when you already have something that’s working for you just fine and it wasn’t important enough to change it.

  • Texas_Hangover@lemy.lol
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    5 months ago

    This shit blew my mind back in the day, much like how I can plug a dongle into my cigarette lighter and somehow Bluetooth my phone to my old ass stereo.

  • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Get a poorly made one and it doubles as an AM radio too, or I should say it is only an am radio since you get nothing over the speaker but Am interference.

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    The cassette player in my old car had a cover that was also a display panel. It folded out, then you put the tape in and flipped the cover back so it locked, then you could play.

    Got one of these adapters to plug in an iPod. Stuck it in, then went to close the panel. The wire got in the way so it couldn’t lock. No way to jam it without damaging the cable.

    No return policy back then. It sat in the dashboard until the car died many years later.

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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    5 months ago

    I was using one of these, and then later a short-wave radio to play on my car radio that was too old for USB but didn’t have AUX-in either.

    • Polemische_Pflaume@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Still use this to this day in my car - although the Bluetooth variant. The only downside is that you need to recharge it from time to time. That problem has been recently solved by the purchase of a second one :)

      • RGB@lemmy.today
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        4 months ago

        Wouldn’t it be easier to have Bluetooth but have it plug into the cigarette lighter plug and run into the player like the other ones do? I feel like that could have been easily done by the designers

        • Polemische_Pflaume@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Technically an option for sure. With the Silkroad-special model sold through Amazon the manufacturer decided to have the adapter turn off during charging. So listening to music while the adapter being plugged in is not possible unfortunately.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I always thought these things were brilliant but was never sure how they worked. They basically had a recording head that sat against the playback head of the tape player and sent a signal into it, right? I was never even sure of that.

    • Johanno@feddit.org
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      5 months ago

      So normally the magnetic tape would spin by the reader in the player. However instead of a tape they put an electro magnet there. Then they use the same technique to simulate a magnetic tape. Tadaa you made digital audio into electromagnetic audio

      • pixelscript@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        There’s actually no digital audio involved anywhere in this process. It’s all analog.

        A magnetic tape cassette holds raw wave data of the sounds it records. Just like a vinyl record, except the groove is in the magnetic field instead of physically etched into the surface of the tape, and the needle is an electromagnet instead of, well, a needle.

        An audio cable using a standard 3.5mm jack also transmits raw wave data. It has to, because the electromagnetic pulses in the cable are what directly drive the electromagnets in whatever speakers they’re hooked up to. If it’s coming out of a digital player, the player has to convert the signal on its own using an onboard digital-to-analog converter (a DAC).

        The neat part is that since a tape deck read head is looking for an analog wave signal, and an analog wave signal is what an aux cable carries, the two are directly compatible with one another. If you actually crack one of these tape deck hacks open, you’ll find the whole thing is completely empty, save for the audio cable wires going directly to the write head that mimics the tape. Beyond that, there’s no conversion equipment, no circuit board, nothing. It’s a direct pass-through.

        The body of the thing is nothing more than an elaborate way to trip all the mechanisms in the tape deck to trick it into thinking it’s holding a valid cassette, while simply holding the write head fixed in the proper spot.

        I’m sure you already know all of this. I just think it’s really cool and I enjoy talking about it. Analog tech is amazing.

        • Persuader9421@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          And the best part is, because the signal is so clean, and there’s no crappy tape grinding across the head adding noise, the audio quality is damn near on par with just connecting the aux directly to the amplifier.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That’s what I always thought - I think it would work to use a recording head as the electromagnet, treating the player’s playback head like tape.

    • MrShankles@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Respect. The casette-aux is way better than the radio transmitters, if you don’t have bluetooth nor an aux input. I was using one up until about 2015 (with my ipod instead of a cd Walkman though), before my car finally gave up the ghost. Now I just use bluetooth

  • ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    “Let me put my my burned CD of mp3s into my discman that is connected to a tape adapter.” Me, until about when Zunes hit,Woot for$99.