Customer Reviews

Walkman Car Connecting Pack for MD Walkman and CD Walkman (Model# CPA-9C)

5 star:		(280)
4 star:		(106)
3 star:		(44)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(67)

 

 

I originally purchased this cassette adapter to listen to CD's in my Neon which did not have a CD player. This served its purpose well- great sound quality, the cassette was not loud in the cassette deck as a previous one had been, and I was finally able to listen to CD's in my car during the commute.
Eight months ago, I traded in the Neon for a Jetta which had both a CD and cassette player, so the cassette adapter wound up collecting dust along with my old cell phone and other assorted items in my electronics graveyard. But this week I purchased an iPod, and I also got an iRock FM transmitter to listen to my MP3's at work and during the commute. Unfortunately that is not the best product in the world. I contemplated exchanging the iRock for a Belkin FM transmitter, when it was suggested to me that I try a car cassette adapter. I dug through the electronics graveyard, and almost thought I had thrown this out when I found it. I plugged it into the headphone jack of the iPod, then played the cassette on my stereo. The sound quality is excellent on this as well.
This is an excellent product if you have a car with only a cassette player, and want to listen to CDs, or if you have an iPod and want to listen to MP3's cheaply and easily.
A piece of advice, though for those who need the adapter for their CD player: you may want to opt instead for an actual car pack, which has a cigarette lighter adapter for the CD player, otherwise you'll be burning through the batteries like crazy.

This cassette adaptor couldn't be easier to use for playing music through car or stereo speakers. Cut the adaptor out of its plastic packing, stick it into a cassette deck, plug it into the headphone jack of your portable music player, and, voilà, music. It's really as simple as that. The adaptor requires no assembly or adjustments to work perfectly right out of the box.

This device works only with cassette decks that load with the tape to one side (not front loading), as the cable that connects to your portable device comes out of a short side, so check your cassette deck before purchasing this. The best part is that it works silently, allowing your music to sound as clear as it should. You can adjust the sound through your stereo or through the portable device itself.

I've used this both with a regular iPod and an iPod mini with great success. It's much better (and cheaper) than buying one of the FM stereo broadcasting devices because it's never dependent upon available airwaves and never needs re-tuning as you move from one radio zone to another.

Highly recommended if you plan on listening to digital music in the car. As long as your car has the correct kind of cassette deck and your portable device has a standard headphone jack, it will work without a hitch.

Update to review, several months later: This adaptor started making a clicking sound, and occasionally makes a terrifying electronic buzz that nearly scares me into accidents. It did spend the winter in the car, although my garage never gets below freezing. Unfortunately, I can't tell if this noise problem is because of my old car stereo or because of some electronic defect in the adaptor that cropped up after heavy use.

UPDATE: When I first wrote this review, reviewers were not allowed to edit the number of stars, so this remained a five-star review until today. Although I no longer use this product, it worked great for several months (five stars), but then developed the noise noted above (1 star). I gave it an average of three stars.

This is one of those products that simply works great. I've been using mine for about a year with my Apple iPod and I couldn't be happier.

You simply turn on your car stereo, insert the adapter into your cassette player as if it were a tape, insert the plug into your MP3 player, and start up your music. Easy! In fact, I never even looked at the instructions that came with it.

I think the sound is pretty good and it always works.

I had tried an FM transmitter and, maybe because I live in a very populated area, could never find a free FM frequency for the iPod, so threw it away.

One of the reasons I bought the car I did was because it had a cassette player so I could use a cassette adapter. Some cars are starting to come with inputs for MP3 players, so I expect that will be the way to go in the future.

Being able to play my iPod in the car for my long work commutes has saved my sanity!

Cassette adapters are generally better than FM transmitters, especially in urban areas. The problem is that the cassette player in your car has seen better days, played many tapes and is magnetized. The solution is easy: buy and run one of the cassette head cleaner / demagnitizers on the market. A good one is Maxell A450 Cassette Tape Head Cleaner, $2.95 on Amazon (through Office Depot). It's done wonders in my car.

A final word about expectation management: any non-direct hookup, either through FM or via cassette adapter, offers limited performance BY DESIGN. Frequency response and dyanmic range for FM radios and magnetic tapes are by far inferior to what you can get with CDs and MP3 players, and the additional signal conversions (analog to magnetic and back, or analog to RF and back) don't help much either. So expect a good solution from a cassette adapter, but don't expect CD quality.

I originally purchased a Monster tape adapter for my wife. It was great the first time we used it. Then every other time the unit itself was very loud. You had to have the volume up very high to drown out the noise from the adapter. I took it back and got this Sony. Wife tells me she can barely hear the music, even with the Nano and radio controls all the way up. She also says the unit is very noisy like the Monster. I tinker with it physically in the tape slot. The tape player changes direction and my eardrums burst. Apparently, one of the tricks to these things is to make sure the tape player is operating in the standard direction. Most tape players have the ability to rotate their wheels either direction. These tape adapters work best in the standard direction. I guess that is why people have either been rating this product as 5 stars or 1 star. Make sure you use it with the tape player in the standard direction. I left it at 4 stars because there is a slight operational humming noise, but I still think this is much better than an FM transmitter, especially in cities.

I found this a great way to hook up my iPod to my rather ancient car stereo. The sound quality is suprisingly good, considering that it has to be trasferred across several interfaces. The bass is a little weak sometimes, but I'm not sure if that's the fault of this device or my stereo.

I am a Sony devotee, I love Sony and it is my brand, and I was enjoying the product for what it did. I was able to listen to my ipod in my car and it was great, but recently I started to hear clicking. A regular ticking with a pretty consistant period, and it drives me crazy. I tested my ipod with headphones and it played perfectly, my radio played perfectly so it wasn't my speakers. I just find it frustrating that it only lasted for 5 months or so.

I have used the FM modulators-not useless, but close. Continual fussing with them is a real pain and sound quality is poor to fair. Tried several cassette adaptors--If I hit a bump with one the left had side of the stereo would go out. Then I'd have to eject it and push it back in to get both channels working again. One adaptor my tape player didn't like and would try to switch from side to side-autoreversing direction because the deck thought the "tape" was over. My old Sony cassette adaptor have the manual adjust thing to eliminate cross talk which was more fussing that made it not worth it. This new cassette adaptor from Sony has worked perfect--no more cross talk, no more losing a channel when I hit a bump, no more of my deck thinking the "tape" is over. It does really seem to be self-adjusting. I wish there was a better solution for me to use my iPod in the car like the new adaptor that BMW sells. It would be great have it hard wired directly into the stereo and safely stored in my glove box able to control it from the head unit. Until that solution comes, this is a very cheap and surprisingly decent alternative.

Very impressed. I was looking for something to hook my mini ipod to my car stereo. I was looking into fm transmitters but had read that most people were unimpressed with the sound quality and lack of free air waves to tune it in. I read a review of this and for the cost I thought I'd try it. It sounds great, no background noise or interference, just good quality sound. I would highly recommend this to anyone

i bought this unit out of a best buy. i chose the more expensive sony name because my previous adapter's wiring was becomming faulty, and i thought i could count on the name to deliver a better product. turned out to be a bad idea.

not only is the previously-mentioned dull hum noise absolutely mind-numbingly frustrating after about 5 minutes of play, but the volume is so low. the treble is way to high, and the bass portion is bearly audiable, even when messing around with the mp3 players controls or the deck's controlls manually. turning up the volume on the deck only makes the humming get louder. turning up the volume on my mp3 player does nothing but waste battery life. other people have said that you can't expect so much out of a tape deck, but out of the 3 cassettee adapters ive owned (the others being cheaper and lasting for at least a year) this has definately been the worst.

this is the first review ive written, but i had to contribute after this disappointment.