Customer Reviews

Virtual Reality Sound Labs Mod Pod Wireless 4 in 1 Power Inverter and FM Transmitter

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is the Swiss army knife of car entertainment. On first encounter it seemed too good to be true - a power inverter, an FM transmitter with 15 presets, and a USB charger (charge your iPod) - all for such a low price? Skeptical to the max, I bought one anyway. And to my surprise, it works well!

We recently completed a 10 day road trip where the unit was used to power our laptop for watching DVD's and send the audio to the car stereo via the FM transmitter. On a few long hauls the kids watched 4 movies in a row and the laptop kept going, no problem. The sound is FM quality, and the many MR presets allow you to avoid interference. The fan does make a sound, but you notice it only when the car is stopped. Also, the shape is rather funky and too top heavey for supporting itself when plugged directly into a cigarette lighter - I suggest getting a cigarette lighter extension cord and resting the VR3 unit on the floor.

Followup a month later: After the glowing review above, we went to plug in the unit for another weekend trip and ... nothing. The unit had died in its sleep. No power out, no FM signal, no display. We had the unit for just under two months but the warranty is only for 30 days so looks like we're out of luck. Was nice while it lasted, but it didn't last too long. In retrospect, I'd give it only two stars.

This has a very noisy fan. I had to open it up and put oil on the fan bearings before i got it to become quiet. There is no rubber stop so i had to glue an oil cover in place. other than that this is a very good product. the fan should also have a temp limiter so it shuts off in cold weather.

I bought it and once used during the trip to Grand Canyon.
The power inverter is OK but noise, however the transmitter function is really bad. The signal by the transmitter was so weak, it was only functional when we was Grand Canyon without any interference by public radio. After trip, the transmitter function stoped to working any more.

This only lasted about a month and then the 12v section fell apart! i have since tried to contact manufacture and they will not uphold warrenty. so it is in the DUMP..... DONT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY invest in something Better

I could not believe how people find this one a good quality product. I got it and almost could not hear my music. A lot of noise in the background. The fan is too loud. Not recommended.

I wanted a device that I could carry in my laptop bag - this one is very light and I'm impressed at how tightly engineered it is... it's very thin and overall compact for an inverter. Maybe someone would complain that it doesn't feel sturdy - it's so light - but that's a big selling point compared to the brick I had before. The USB port is a great feature, too, allowing me to keep my phone charged when I'm using it in GPS mode. Or I can power my iPod - the FM transmitter performed well when I tried it. Pricewise, it's hard to beat this since it combines an FM transmitter for an MP3 player and power for both an AC device and a USB device - I've seen units that do just one of those for more!

I just bought this unit, tried it out over the weekend...so far so good. I read the other review that said it died after a month, i'll have to see. It sounds like the may have blown the fuse, they did send a spare with it, and also you can pick them up online here or at many harware stores. Hard to say what happened. Anyway, It works great with my mp3 player and DVD player, and the brodcast is good, but i do wish it was a full fm range and not just 15 stations. I do have another transmitter, and when i got into larger cities, I used the whole range. But, for the versitility, you can't match this unit. It's universal for anything player, Ipods, zune, gigabeat,zen because it is a plug in, it has USB charge as well, is even has a lighter adapter for another device as well. Look around, you'll be back to get this one.

The photo being shown is NOT the unit I am writing about. The unit I am writing about is the Virtual Reality Sound Labs Wireless 4 in 1 Power Inverter and FM Transmitter model VRTP4N1COS and is probably only sold at Costco.
My first unit lasted about 2 months before the fan became too loud, so I returned it to Costco. My second unit lasted about the same length before it became defective. I had to move it back and forth on its hinge to catch the right spot to keep it working or it would cut out. Along with that problem its fan became too loud so I returned it and bought another one. Why do I keep buying one? Because when they work, they work better that a lot of the other stuff out there which also cost a LOT more. Two more broke when I plugged in the wire. I bought 2 more. This time I treated the first one very carefully and it has lasted about 5 month so far. The other one is still in the box. I also bought one of the cheap VR3 transmitter only from ebay it was useless. This company makes well designed products on the cheap. The unit pictured might do a good job
because it doesn't look flimsy. Give it a try and let me know. The one I reviewed does not seem to be available at Costco anymore. Probably too many returns.

Purchased the item September 7th 2007.

Put it in my 2007 Chevy Silverado for an FM transmitter for my Dell Axim X30.

Had a $15 cheap no-name fm transmitter from CompUSA that worked OK, but fell apart.

First thing I noticed was the loud fan. Sounds like an old noisy CPU fan. Doesn't seem to have any temperature sensing since it fires up right away and stays at full power. Rotated it to redirect the sound, but ended up getting an extension and sticking it in my console. I can still hear it over the HVAC fan and road noise (stereo off).

Next I tried the FM transmitter and found that it was clipping badly. I am running the Replay Gain Handler (No clipping) Plugin for Pocket Player (which fixed my clipping problems in the past) and fiddled with the gain to minimize the clipping. In the end, minimizing the gain and lowering the volume seemed to fix the clipping issue which lead to the next problem.

With or without content being sent the transmitter adds a low hum to the sound. This is not present on standard radio stations and wasn't as loud on my old cheap-o transmitter. Between the low volume/gain on my Axim and keeping the stereo volume low to avoid the hum, it can be frustrating.

Last issue... The USB plug was installed crooked. I had to twist the white wedge to get the plug in. It moved with a snap... so I don't have a lot of confidence in its longevity. It does work though.

Haven't tried the inverter.

Hope this helps other purchasers.

Pretty sweet. Had a little issue with initial hookup like it has to be plugged in before car is on or something. It also continues to use power when not in use. There is a fan that runs on it which is not loud enough to be annoying, but would be better without it. A little large compared to others so may need mounting.