Rio 600 Car Cassette Adapter MP3 Best Buy

avoid - 09 Sep 2006

2 out of 2 found this review helpful.

As with most of the these adapters, they are not meant to last but this one truely declined at a good rate of speed. If you buy these types of adpaters , you really cannot expect much to be honest.

If you have an ipod there is "Griffin RoadTrip 4031 - FM Transmitter & Charger for iPods - Black" note - i do believe it is illegal in the UK but still sold on Amazon, basically you attach to ipod and it broadcasts an FMsignal that your can tune you car radio to.

It's cheap for a reason - 10 Jan 2004

13 out of 14 found this review helpful.

I bought this to go with my Rio 800. It was okay to start with but after less than a year the cable is going and the cassette adaptor squeaks a lot as it's running, easily ruining some songs. The cable takes about 10 minutes of pratting about with before I can get proper sound, but then if I turn a corner it goes again. Very annoying. I paid about £18 at the time, but I'd say £5 is about right, because it's cheap rubbish. Avoid. I wouldn't recommend a Rio player either, look elsewhere there's plenty of choice.

Expert in Audio electronics no included - 15 Oct 2003

42 out of 43 found this review helpful.

although the Rio cassette adapter is useful, the cable is far weaker than that of other cassette adapters. i bought 2 for friends and both have stopped working due to wire in the cable breaking. i work in a music shop so i was able to repair the item myself by replacing the wire with a higher quality one. My advice is if u need one quick and cheap come here and be very very careful with the way you use and abuse the wire - especially watch the entrance to the cassette and the 3.5mm jack socket. Unfortunately, however careful you are with it you may end up replacing the wire.

Briefly Excellent - 22 Sep 2003

24 out of 26 found this review helpful.

This product does what it says on the tin: it lets you play CD, Minidisc or Gameboy sound through your car Tape player.

I found it excellent, with good sound quality and couldn't be easier to use.

But the build quality is very poor (I'm surprised at the review that says this is one of the BETTER quality versions!). The connectors rapidly deteriorated and the sound is now very poor.

The wires are so prone to internal cracking that after 6 months, my version requires a good 5 minutes of careful balancing before the sound comes through in stereo.

Overall I wouldn't discourage you from buying it, but don't look at it as a £5 purchase. Look at it as an ongoing £5 per six month rental, as you need to buy frequent replacement units.

A useful adapter for anyone with music players. - 22 Aug 2002

26 out of 29 found this review helpful.

This is an extremely practical device that allows you to listen to CD, mini disc and of course mp3 players. In fact this device can be used to play anything, with a standard headphone output, on a car stereo without the cost of installing an expensive car player.

There are however some simple problems with the cassette adapter: the cable is very delicate and easy to break, however it needs to be small enough to enter the cassette deck of a car stereo system. A small slit at the bottom of the device allows some protection to the cable when inserting the adapter and this means the adapter can be inserted "a" or "b" side without too much complication. The cable is long enough to reach any little cubby-hole or cup holder to hold your audio player (it can reach my glove-box no problem).
Also on some cassette decks i have noticed that the adapter rattles as the car stereo attempts to play the cassette shaped adapter. This is because of a cogwheel system inside the adapter, which is made out of plastic components that rattle against the side of the adapter.

Apart from these minor problems the adapter is a reasonably good package, in some cases achieving higher quality sound than a normal cassette due to a digital source. To keep this sound quality the magnetic head of the adapter should be kept clean of dust and dirt, as does the head of the car cassette deck. This can be done by inserting a "cleaning cassette", available at many stores.

Other uses for this product could include a makeshift hands free set for mobile phones by slightly modifying the adapter cable to connect with a particular model of mobile phone (if you are prepared to shout at the phone when driving). You can even let passengers play there own music on a car stereo whether it's a CD, mp3, or mini disc. This is one of the better adapters I've seen, but it could still be better and is slightly expensive compared to other adapters.