First International Digital irock! 300W Car FM Modulator

by First International Digital

Product Details

Product Manual [272kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• ASIN: B00006BAKJ
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (126 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,049 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The irock! 300W wireless music adapter lets you listen to any portable music device over any FM tuner and speaker setup, without a clumsy or constricting cable hookup. It's the perfect way to simply and efficiently listen to MP3s, CDs, minidiscs, and other formats in the comfort of your car or living room. Just plug the irock! 300W into the headphone jack of your portable device, tune your radio to one of four preselected frequencies (88.1, 88.3, 88.5, or 88.7 FM), and crank up your tunes. The irock! 300W's operating range (limited by FCC regulations) is 10 to 30 feet, depending on environmental conditions and the quality of the FM receiver.

The tiny (1 by 2 by 3 inches), lightweight (2.5 ounces) irock! 300W is powered by two AAA batteries (not included). It features a simple on-off switch on the front and a red LED that lights up when the unit is on. It comes with a six-foot flexible antenna that folds into the irock! 300W to protect its plug when not in use.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Useful, but needs work..., July 20, 2002

By 

D. Snider "Blogger / Podcaster / Tech Geek" (Fishers, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: First International Digital irock! 300W Car FM Modulator (Electronics)

For the money, this is a nice, inexpensive way to hook your computer to your stereo, or play your MP3 or other portable music player through the car stereo when you're on the road.

On the other hand, if you're a stickler for sound quality (like me), you'll most-likely be disappointed. The signal is not consistent, fading in and out with various hisses and pops. In addition, the device picks up interference from just about everything, including the device it's plugged into, so you really have to fiddle and adjust positions and frequencies to minimize the static. It's not so bad if you're using it around the house, but extremely annoying if you're on the road where the sound quality and interfering signals may change every couple of miles.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Weak power output, December 11, 2002

By 

B. Burnes "BDB" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: First International Digital irock! 300W Car FM Modulator (Electronics)

I bought this unit to use with an MP3 player. It has four different frequencies to choose from (88.1/88.3/88.5/88.7 MHz) and uses two AAA batteries. It simply plugs into the headphone mini stereo jack with a very short cable and has a simple power on/off button with LED indicator.
I found that for my car stereo to receive the signal from the Irock! it needs to sit within 2-3 feet of the antenna. This requirement leaves me only one choice for placement and that is on the passenger side dash. Unfortunately the placement means that every time I turn a corner the Irock! and my MP3 player slide across, and often off, my dash. If I had a car with the antenna in the back this would have been useless.
The low power of this unit allows even very distant FM channels to interfere with reception and causes me to retune to one of the other channel selections often. Also I expected longer battery life, while I can get up to 6 hours on a set of batteries I find that the power output drops quickly after the first 2 hours and requires new batteries or the 2-3 foot antenna distance drops further.
While usable I would not recommend it to any one traveling where there is a possibility of moderate to strong FM in the units operating frequency range.

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Y settle 4 it as it is? Fix it!, May 30, 2003

By 

A. Surgant "MST3K fan" (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: First International Digital irock! 300W Car FM Modulator (Electronics)

Based on the reviews, I decided to try it and then return it if/when it didn't work. Of course, it didn't work, even with the one unused FM station slot in our area. But before I took it back I decided to take it apart to see what made it (not) tick. Turns out that the thing might work if they'd just made the pigtail a little longer, one of the wires in the cable is an antenna -but it's way too short. So I just soldered some 24 guage wire to the circuit board pad where the antenna attaches, fed it out the door of my car, wound it around the car antenna and stuck a piece of electical tape around it. Viola! Works perfectly, in stereo with no residual noise or static and I can even overpower active stations. And, since I left the plastic button out when I reassembled it I don't have the inadvertant turn-on problem. For a permanent installation I'll probably just run the antenna wire along the car antenna and cover the whole thing with heat-shrink tubing, or I could put an A-B switch in line with the antenna cable and hide it under the dash. If you are uncomfortable with taking the thing apart, you might try just winding a coil of wire around the pig-tail cable and then to your car antenna. Good Luck!