Mp3 players like the iPod have truly changed the way we think about portable music. No longer is it necessary to bring cases full of CDs around town, cluttering up the backseat of your car. With an mp3 hookup, you can have hundreds of albums and thousands of songs at your fingertips throughout the day. While there are many ways to connect your iPod to your car stereo, there is no better method than using a 3.5 mm jack to jack connection. Let’s talk about why this is the case.
In the advent of the technology, connecting an mp3 player to your stereo was not an easy process. Often, the most accessible and inexpensive method was to connect through a radio transmitter. Radio transmitters allow you to broadcast external devices over a radio signal, which you can tune in on your car radio. For many people, this method was functional, but didn’t offer much in terms of fidelity. Because of the fact that the music is being routed through a radio signal (which is already quite weak), the music that emerges is only a shadow of what it should be. Clearly there must be a better way.
As mp3 technology began to become the standard, car companies began to consider what would be the best way for drivers to connect their mp3 players. This came in the way of stereos with digital displays that allowed you to access your library. While effective, this technology was very expensive and was considered to be rather hard to use considering the small size of the text that came out on the display. Again, more progress had to be made before the perfect solution came to be.
With 3.5 mm jack to jack connection, many people believe that the perfect solution has indeed finally been found. Connecting an mp3 player to your car stereo has never been easier, and fidelity has never been higher. Think of a 3.5 mm jack as the male piece to the mp3 player’s female headphone output. When you connect headphones to your iPod, the music is outputted directly to the headphones. The same goes for when you use a 3.5 mm jack to jack connection for your car stereo. Basically, you’ll need a 3.5 mm cable with two male heads, as one will plug into the device and the other will plug into an outlet the same size in your stereo.
What happens when you connect an mp3 player in this way is that signal degradation becomes almost negligent. Because the signal does not have to filter through a variety of sources, the direct result will be similar to listening to music directly through headphones, except the music will be pumped through your car speakers. Highs will be high, lows will be low, and static should be nonexistent. Also, your mp3 player will in effect act like a remote, as you will control the music, volume and settings the way you would if you were listening to the device through headphones.
Hooking an mp3 player up to your stereo is a great way to enjoy a large variety of music on the go without cluttering your car with CDs. By utilizing a 3.5 mm jack to jack connection, you can do so without losing any fidelity whatsoever. Just remember that your stereo will need a female port in order to accommodate such a connection. Fortunately, most new stereos come fitted with the port you will need to connect your mp3 player via a 3.5 mm jack to jack connection.