Customer Reviews

Belkin TuneCast II FM Transmitter for MP3 Players (Black)

5 star:		(83)
4 star:		(112)
3 star:		(65)
2 star:		(107)
1 star:		(168)

 

 

After reading the reviews I was a bit trepidacious about this item. It seems like a lot of people have difficulty getting satisfactory performance, but I really wanted to be able to use my mp3 player in the car so I grabbed one with the expectation that it might be marginal. Sure enough, out of the box it had pretty poor FM reception in both of my cars. I moved it around in the car and tried various 'blank' stations, but the unit would dropout and could be static-y even when reception was relatively good. Moving it around in the car has a big impact on performance, so the problem is pretty clearly just low transmistter power competing with big city radio interference (I live in the bay area, which has a LOT of radio stations). As an engineer I'm generally OK with working around the limitations of a gadget but I found this product pretty trying in its virgin state.

So I decided to see what sort of 'enhancement' it would take to bring it up to snuff. My first approach was based on the observation that the physical size of the device was too small to get decent antenna performance at FM wavelengths. I guessed that the cable to the mp3 player might be functioning in part as an antenna, so maybe adding an extension cord would improve the transmission efficiency. So I got a 6 foot headphone extension cable (the smallest one at my local store) and used it between the player and the transmitter to stretch out the antenna length. That pretty much solved the problem for me. I spread out the new 'antenna' by tossing the transmitter in the back seat, put the player next to me in front and it works much better and I'm happy with it now. It works well in both cars and the quality is more than good enough for my audiobooks and pop music. I use rechargeable batteries in the unit to avoid having to plug it into the lighter socket, and I generally just disconnect the player and leave the transmitter in the car - it turns itself off automatically 60 seconds after I disconnect the player.

I had been looking for a good FM Tuner to use with my Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra. I had heard good reviews about this product so I picked it up. Now, I wasn't expecting crystal clear CD-quality sound, but I was expecting something listenable, which explains my dissatisfaction with this product.

The product is easy enough to use. You plug the Belkin into the headphone or line out jack of your player, then find a poor quality radio station, tune your Belkin to it, and hit play. The Belkin can run on 2 AAA batteries or off your car's cigarette lighter. My first problem with it, is that the cigarette lighter adapter would not fit securely into the Belkin. It fell out at the slightest touch, as the hole in the Belkin was just too big. I either had to tape it in their, or had to run off the batteries, which run down surprisingly quick.

My next problem, is with the general size of the device. The cord that connects the Belkin to your audio player is about 3 inches long, which means you have to keep it right next to the player. You can't attach it to your dashboard or anything like that. It made it very awkward to change the song or skip through something on the player because I had this tuner hanging down from it.

My final, and biggest problem with the player is the poor reception. I tried it with three different vehicles, and two different MP3 players. I tried every single radio station I could find. I tried every tip I found on the Internet to get good quality. I adjusted the volume on the player and in the car. I turned on the radio first, and then the player, and vice versa. I just couldn't get a decent sound from it. It would sound okay for a few seconds, and then static.

Something to note, is that the poorest quality station won't always give you the best sound. I sometimes found that I received the best sound from a station that I could somewhat get a broadcast from, even though the manual tells you to look for the weakest stations. The other problem is that if you're in your car, the signal strength of the radio stations change depending on where you are, so the sound quality is going to always vary. I also found that I could only get real good quality when I held the mp3 player and Belkin in my lap, and held onto it. As soon as I let go, I get a little bit of static. The range for this thing in a car is realistically about 2 feet.

One thing I did get a good reception with was with home stereos, where the quality was decent enough to use. But this was pretty pointless for me because I can simply plug in my mp3 player directly into the stereo anyway.

Bottom line, if you can live with sub par quality and don't mind the awkwardness of the Tuner, this is probably the best tuner you will find out there today. Unfortunately, that doesn't account for much until technology provides for better reception in the future.

I picked the Belkin Tunecast II up a few weeks ago before driving cross country from Brooklyn to Wisconsin (about a 14 hour car ride). I had recently bought a Rio Karma mp3 player and wanted to use it on the journey. Having just got back from my trip, I couldn't be happier with how the Belkin performed. I was driving a 1994 Saturn SL2 with a Sony Xplod CD player and placed the Rio/Belkin devices on the passenger seat where they would be in easy reach if I had to change the radio frequency. Surprisingly, the Belkin was tuned to 88.3 without incident for my entire journey through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin (including several major cities such as New York, Newark, Chicago and Milwaukee). I was expecting a lower sound quality filled with the occasional burst of static, but that was not the case. My entire car ride was static free and the music could only have sounded better if I had brought along my CD collection. Needless to say, I'm very happy with this purchase and recommend the Belkin Tunecast II to anyone considering an FM transmitter for similar purposes. A word of caution: as another reviewer pointed out, different cars may have different antennae/shielding issues so you should probably test this product in your car before buying if possible.

This unit requires two things to work well.

(i) The unit's internal Rohm FM transmitter IC needs a good level of audio signal to drive the stereo encoder, otherwise you will hear a lot of channel noise in your radio speakers.

If your MP3 player does not play very loud in headphones then you will be disappointed. An iRiver 790 MP3 player is an example of a loud unit and the TuneCast 2 then produces a pretty good noise free stereo signal.

(ii)The only way to get a good hiss free signal in your car radio is to cut the internal wire coming out of the unit's internal ANT connection, and then extend it with 27" of external flexible wire. The signal is still well below FCC limits for unlicensed transmitters, and now will work well with car rear window antennas and also provide a good stereo signal through at least one house wall.

The digital Phase Lock Loop is rock steady and the ability to set to any frequency is absolutely essential in a busy metro area. The ability to remember any four frequencies is good for long commutes.

i've never written a review of any of the products i've bought from amazon before, but i felt pretty compelled to write one about this.

if you consider the price and utility tradeoffs for this transmitter, its of good value. of course you can't expect to get cd quality transmission from this, but it works pretty well for the most part. the only bad thing i've found so far is that even on stations where i get the clearest signals, there is some static in the background. this static is only audible when a song is at a quiet part or when there is no song playing so it isn't as bad as you may think. other than that, the sound quality actually kind of surprised me. btw, i live in los angeles where almost every station has some sort of signal, which is also why i am surprised that the product works as well as it does.

overall, i am pleased with my purchase and although i haven't tried any other fm transmitters out there, i would recommend others to buy this if you can't use a cassette adapter.

Having used the Belkin for a month now, here is an update to my last review with a more comprehensive rating.

Tradeoff in quality for quantity
--------------------------------
There is a tradeoff in quality for quantity. Although you can get more tunes on your mp3 player vs. CD, you cannot get CD quality. At best, you can only get great FM sound quality.

Things that hamper FM quality
-----------------------------
Weather - Changes in weather bring out better reception for radio stations on channels that were empty for you one day, but that are now inhabited by a commercial station, ruining your previous beautiful reception. Fix - Find another free channel.

Part-time stations - Some stations broadcast only a few days. If you get their channel empty, it may not be on say a Thursday. Fix - Find another channel

Volume of song - Raising your volume on your mp3 player may cause distortion. Another problem comes from my music production experience. Todays music is highly compressed or limited. A tune from the 80's may not distort while a tune compressed today will distort. Fix - lower the mp3 player volume, or if you are like me, normalize your tunes below 91% to avoid the distortions in the tune.

High background hiss - this is usually due to the mp3 player volume being too low. Fix - Increase the volume of the mp3 player if you can.

Best Reception occurs when
--------------------------

You have batteries in the device and run the device via your car lighter. As soon as the batteries die, expect a decrease in reception and replace them. I don't know why, but the batteries seem to support the power of the car lighter enough to be noticable when they die. And they do die as if being used.


What you can expect
-------------------

Expect at least good FM quality music (that is, a decrease in the clarity of frequencies in the ear ranges of 250-8k vs. CD quality.

Expect to change channels from time to time and more often if you travel long distances over 1 hour.

Expect some background noise between songs. The device filters this out during playing, but not between.

Expect your ears to adapt to the quality with a certain disdane for differences in mp3's qualities which are noticable in FM quality.

Expect yourself to love the freedom of variety and fair quality you get with your mp3 player through this thing to actually wonder if it's worth the time to burn and swap your CD's in your CD player anymore just for that awesome sound.

If you want variety now and can't wait for technology to give you awesome sound then this is your device.

I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this. I guess I thought that somehow it would be better than using a cassette adapter. What a mistaken notion! I admit that I didn't do much research on these things before buying one. I first heard about them about a year ago and thought, "Less wires, cool!" But I didn't buy one because I was contentedly using my cassette adapter. Then I lost my adapter and after several months of driving around listening to the radio I decided it was time to bring the old mp3 player back into the car. So I splurged on the Belkin Tunecast II.

I should've just bought another tape adapter. Here's why:

1. Poor reception. So far I've used the Tunecast II in three diferent cars and I have not been able to maintain decent signal reception in any of them. I've tried various frequencies, various volume levels, various positions throughout the vehicles. Some combinations of the aforementioned variables work better than others, but in my experience none produce sound quality anywhere near as good as using a plane old cassette adapter.

2.Batteries. The Tunecast II requires two AAA batteries to operate and they run out quickly. When they do run out you have to interupt your driving to either swap in a new set or plug in the power adapter. If you're using the adapter your mobility is as limited as it was with a cassette adapter, the cordless appeal is lost and you're stuck with the worst of both worlds- no mobility and poor sound quality. But why do need mobility in the first place? The only time I use this thing is in the car; how much mobility does a person need while they're driving a car?

3. The cord. There's a three inch cord that connects the unit to the earphone jack in the mp3 player. I didn't see this as a big issue untill it developed a short near the earphone end. Granted, this may be my fault for leaving it wound up in my coat pocket for several days, but maybe not. In any case the signal now varies from satisfactory to very weak and I have to fiddle with the cord while I'm driving to maintain a strong signal. Very annoying.

I can't see a good reason to own one of these. The sound quality is poor, the mobility it offers isn't very necessary and it adds another set of batteries to have to worry about. I guess if your car doesn't have a cassette player and you just have to listen to your mp3 player while you're driving then this type of unit is your only choice. My sympathies. I'll be purchasing another cassette adapter real soon.

I'm not sure why Amazon and even the Belkin website indicate that this item hasn't been released yet. I just bought it 2/6/2004 @ a Best Buy store in Columbus, Ohio. They had several in stock of the new F8V3080 unit.

Let me just say now that this product is an awesome purchase. I was very leery at first to buy it based on the limited reviews of this new model and the sub-par reviews of earlier models. I'm very glad that I spent the $49.99 to get it though. With this model you get the whole spectrum of FM stations to broadcast on. Even living in a capitol city (like me) there are at least a few stations that are unoccupied or are too far away to broadcast clearly.

What really blows me away about this unit is the sound quality. I am very conscience of sound quality and can easily tell when the music's quality has diminished. However, with this unit it is hardly noticeable. There is the ever-so-slight fuzz in the background that you get from any radio station but I've noticed so far that if you max out the volume on your MP3/CD/MD player then it cuts down on the fuzz noise.

For best results I've also noticed that it's good to first surf the radio and find a station that is nothing but fuzz or not broadcasting very clearly. Keep your radio tuned to that station and then turn it off. Next start up your MP3/CD/MD player. Once the music starts the FM transmitter will kick on, and then you can turn on your radio. Starting up the transmitter/mp3 player when the radio is already on seems to make for some odd interference. As far as range is considered this unit seems comparable to previous units. I've tested it in my car and with my home radio. To get great reception you still need to be within 10 feet.

For my review above I am using the F8V3080 FM transmitter with a Sony NetMD MZ-NE410 MiniDisc player/recorder.

Well hope this has helped, make sure you go out and buy one today!

I used to have an old-school iRock FM transmiter in my car to play my MP3 player through, but good as it was, it only ran on battery power. In the long run, that's a real drain on the wallet.
I found this little baby about 3 weeks ago, and for the money, I'd say it's worth just about every penny. It works every bit as well as the iRock (if not better), and it will probably last longer too.
Here's the rundown:
THE GOOD:
--Works on ANY unused station on your dial, from 88.1 to 107.9 MHz. (The iRock could only use four stations on the low end.)
--Four presets. You can store up to 4 stations in the memory and toggle through them with the touch of a button.
--12V DC power adapter. The TuneCast runs on batteries as well, but this is a moneysaver in itself. And with an automatic on/off, you don't even have to remember to turn it off when you leave the car.
--Compact. The iRock is about the size of a laptop mouse. The Tunecast's size is about 2/3 of that. With the help of a little Velcro, I was able to "hard mount" it neatly out of the way of everything.
THE BAD:
--When the Tunecast powers off, it doesn't remember the last station it was on when power is restored, even if it was a preset. It goes back to 88.1. Little bit of a pain when I'm taking off in the car, but a quick touch of the memory button, and I'm back in the groove.
THE UGLY:
--Nothing ugly about it. It's an all around keeper for sure.
All told, I'm very happy with this little tuner. If you want to travel with all your tunes, I think this is the way to go. Sure, it's a little pricey, but you get what you pay for.

I live in Boston and found a decent frequency with which to use the Belkin Tunecast 2. I actually received the best sound from a frequency that had slight bleeding from another station (go figure). It was impossible for me to find an interference free frequency. Even with the best frequency, I can always hear some extraneous noise during quieter parts of songs. It also took a bit of driving around before I found the best frequency. A station that worked well in one part of the city had problems in other areas.

The main problem with the Tunecast 2 is that it usually sounds slightly worse than the strongest local FM stations. I don't consider myself a huge audiophile, but I can tell the difference between a good quality MP3 and an FM broadcast. There's no reason for me to maintain a collection of 192 kb/s VBR MP3s if I'm going to play them at FM quality.

Another minor annoyance is that the Tunecast 2 doesn't keep track of your last preset station; every time you turn it on, you have to hit the preset button.

From an audio quality perspective, the Belkin Tunecast 2 is probably the worst solution for playing an auxiliary source through your car stereo. Even tape adapters sound better. Before you resign yourself to this option, check into getting a new head unit. I was surprised to find that, Aiwa has a surprisingly inexpensive line of in-dash CD players with a front auxiliary port. However, for someone without a tape player, looking for a relatively cheap solution, the Tunecast 2 is your best bet.