Originally posted by: VaG
Originally posted by: zodder
Just pop the cassette adapter in instead.
What are the chances of an ipod owner still having a cassette deck in their car?
Actually a lot of nice cars come witih cassette players...I own an ipod and a 2003 car and it has a cassette player and a CD player just for versatility. I mean...sometimes you might wanna use your old tapes and shit...or taped lectures from class or something. No reason not to have everything under the sun =)
I think a lot of nice cars also have both...although there is a trend on newer cars to just drop the cassette but if you think about it it's mostly for cost reasons, meaning that not that many people would benefit so they try to slim costs down. But otherwise it's nice to just have the option to play a cassette and use your old cassette adapters...no?
The 2004 Lexus ES 330 has a cassette player in it:
Features listing
As does the 2003 IS 300:
here
It seems that lexus no longer mentions the cassette player in the new 2004 LS 430 but previous it had a cassette player. I'm not sure if it's just not mentioned anymore, but if you search on lexus' homepage with their search feature for cassette the LS 430 is the first listing to pop up but when you look at it the word is nowhere to be found...I'm guessing from 2003-2004 they removed the cassette or just don't mention it anymore.
Mercedes Benz' S600 also comes standard with a cassette player:
S600 features for audio
And of course that is a $122,820.00 car(base).
Eh...so it's not cheap cars that have cassette players nowadays, but rather nice cars that can afford to have stuff that not everybody uses just because there's the chance that their owner wants it.
So yes, ipod owners can in fact, have cars that have cassette decks and are not POS. If you think that having a car with a cassette deck means your car is out of date it's probably because you're used to newer cheaper cars versus older cars. If you look at the nicer cars of the current year you'll find that a LOT of them have a cassette deck standard. I think the reason Lexus no longer has it on the LS430 is because they made the mark levinson audio package standard and along with the nav system I don't think you can really fit in a cassette deck since the cd-changer uses the other space. I might be wrong and it might also be because the whole audiophile setup doesn't flow with the cassette but that never stopped any of the other luxury marques and brands before, so it's probably just one of those space/look/ergonomics issues. You don't really want to jam in a cassette that's totally out of place and difficult to use when you charge people $70K for a car.
And no I don't drive a Lexus or a Mercedes actually...I just have a decent 2003 car...but I don't appreciate the insinuation that anybody who happens to own an ipod and drives a car with a cassette player drives some outdated POS.
Now, as I was saying, which DOES have the better audio quality, a cassette adapter or an FM transmitter?