MediaMonkey forum

i copied my post in lockergnome's forum to post here. as i thought most were not knowing about lockergnomes forum. in case your wondering yes i use media monkey to play the songs i also use winamp and the djamp plugin it has so i can have a dj annouce the songs like a real station.



the url at lockergnome is

http://help.lockergnome.com/index.php?showtopic=29369

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some time ago i was asking about the old fashioned transmitters you could put in to the cassette tape deck and transmitt your songs to your car radio if you did not have a tape in the radio.

some one here mentioned something i am not sure what it was now. but this is what i got. as a christmas present.

"Irock Beamit model 400Fm wireless music adapter."

was bought at radio shack

it runs on 2 triple A batteries or on a lighter plugin for the car that takes the 12 volts down to the 3 volts the adapter needs.

the companys email is Support@fidinc.com

this is the review now.

1. nice fit in hand easy to see and understand where to press the on / off button.

2. nice small footprint.

3. easy to put batteries in.

4. sound transmtting is fcc compliant.

5. advertised distance of 10 to 30 feet.

6. 4 fm freqs. to choose for transmitting on.

7. ease of connection.

8. my finding is 60 feet transmitting through walls of wood drywall and brick.
depending on the volume of the sound on the sound file being played, and quailty of reciveing radio.

9. place of connection should not be the sound card on the back of the computer. but rather should be the head phone jack on the speaker unit. the speaker unit should be a amplified one. as this will filter out the static caused by low signal from sound card to the transmitter.

10. volume of player ( winamp. wmp, media monkey, music match) or any other one should be set to full volume with automatic volume level and equilzer turned on.

11. computer volume in system tray of computer should be sat to 75 to 85%.
volume of speaker the transmitter is pluged in to is CRITICAL it should be adjusted low as about 30 to 40% or you might over feed the transmitter and make the sound on the reciving radio sound bad.

12.once you have all the sound adjusted to where it sounds good at a low volume on the reciving radio you can then adjust the reciveing radio to what ever volume is your likeing on the reciver. turn off any other speakers on the computer that the transmitter is not plugged in to.

you are now ready to enjoy your own little radio station. just remember that things like refridgerators and microwave stoves and ac units will interferier or block the signal from the transmitter.

and that the volume of the sound that was saved in to the song file your playing, will also effect the distance of the signal. a lower volume on the song file will cut the distance to 30 feet or less and a louder one on the song file can send it to 60 feet.
you just need to make sure you do your adjustment of the volumes on your media player, your computer tray, and your computer speaker used for the transmitter properly.
and make sure it is set up so the louder volume on the song file does not overfeed or over drive the transmitter. which you can tell as you will hear bad sound when it is too loud.

enjoy. this little product works great.

editing this in.
just found my duracell batteries lasted 14 hours and 45 minutes and then died like dead door nail.

no warning but the led was to flash maybe it just flashed too fast?

roving cowboy / keith hall.


in the post below that i did as guest. the page url to see the image of the power adapter has changed. here is the new url.

the old product id number is in the blow post 22 505
this new link has the id number as 2102505

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... age=search

adding in this information also.



for those of you that were wondering about how to use it in the house with out batteries.

i have the information here straight from the company that made the product.

they say this.

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The AC adapter for 400FM:

Output voltage: 3V

maximum output current >200mA

The diameter of the plug 0.1 inch

The 400FM only accept the DC input around 1.8V~3.6V. If the input voltage is

higher than 3.6V, the unit will shut itself off due to its internal over

voltage protection circuit. On the other hand, the unit can't work properly

if the voltage is below 1.8V.

Also it requires the center tip of the DC input jack is positive, otherwise

it will shut itself off due to its internal polarity protection circuit.

This one works well

AC-to-DC Portable Power Supply


$21.99 Brand: RadioShack

www.radioshack.com



http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?c ... Fid=22-505

the dang url on the bottom of the last message did not copy right from the lockergnome page here is the url to get to see the proper wall plug adapter.


http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?c ... Fid=22-505


it is getting harder to just copy links from web sites anymore.

roving cowboy / keith hall.

I eye I eye I eye yie yie yie. YAHOOIE!!!!!!!!!


now that i got your attention let me say this.

i tested the distance again in this and as before it does depend on the quialty of the reciver and the sound files.

1. portable pocket radio

15 feet through one wall must have new batteries in it.

2. portable camping, television, radio, flashlight, compass combonation


60 feet through 3 interior drywall's and one exterior brick wall

3. Automoblie radio reciver.


250 feet to 300 feet through 3 or 4 interior drywalls one exterior brick wall,

just remember - this is nice for convenience, but the sound quality is TERRIBLE compared to a real line-in...

Try it sometime if you have a really long cable, or a laptop you can move up close to your stereo... the difference is huge...

I have an airPlay for my iPod and for the hell of it I thought I'd do side by side comparisons using that, and then the dock connection, and the difference in sound quality is gargantuan... Even my girlfriend who is not remotely close to an "audiophile" was like "wow, that FM thingy sucks"...

Difference From HiFi and FM can be listen if you RIP same track to ~170 VBR mp3 (for Hi-Fi) and 80 CBR mp3 (for FM).
When both played you'll get aprox. hearing difference between them.

yep steve you can get some cheap fm transmitters. but this one i have is not a run of the mill cheap sold on tv item.

this is really doing good and like peke said it depends on the byte rate of the file your playing and the know how of the song editor in how much sound you get between the two. i use 320bps ogg files i have a few mp3's and a few oggs at 160bps.

but not since 1998 have i made any with that low a byte rate.

in my messages post some where i said it depends on the sound volume of the song file, most the ones that have loud sound volume also have been run through a good editing process to get the best sound you can get.

and the sound quality i get is not bad as it also depends on the reciveing equipment and weather or not you run it through the equilizer like you would for any radio signal. having the equlizer on media monkey and on the stereo unit take up the quality a lot.

i did try the patch cord but got heavy power humm's throught it,

i do use the patch cord to put the songs in the computer from the portable boom box i use.

and your right about the convince now if i can just find a portable radio that is as good as the car's radio i could then mow the yard and hear my music which is one reason i am doing this.

just thought i would bump this incase anyone else is interested in it. again

and connect to the stereo via the cable. Works well for me!

1x1 wrote:and connect to the stereo via the cable. Works well for me!

Ditto.

The only button on my stereo that gets used anymore is the power button.
Everything is operated from the laptop next to the stereo nowadays

yes a patch cord that does not have a power hum is good and always prefered, unless you are doing what i am doing you should do that.

but i am trying to hear the radio out side the house.

while mowing the lawn or working out side on the car.
which a patch cord does not work in those cases.

thus was the reason for the title of this thread.
it also helps if your house is large and your stereo is in one room
which is the one you don't want to be in at that time you can turn
on the other radio in the other room.

wireless music piping otherwise known as Radio Broadcasting.

i have been doing this all year now and it has never degraded the sound from the files.

as the prior thread posts by peke and me say the sound file needs to be of high quality and have loud volume which will help in the sound when it is transmitted to the radio recivers.

most wav files when opened in the wav editor show you the volume of the song by the height of the spikes shown, which in most cases are of so small of a height it is not really a good song.

the reason they are even heard is the computer is boosting the volume. all wav's sould be showing the highest spike in the song just about to touch the top of the wav editing window and not overlaping the other channels sound spike.

that is the loudest any song should be on the file it will then not need as much boosting.

(SIDE NOTE : when converted to an mp3 or other format that you play on the portable players it will not use as much batterie power for boosting the sound.)

it should also have been coverted to the highest bps you like as long as it is over 196bps and lower then 330 bps.
mp3's lower then 196 bps have some sound issues anything over 320 bps is taking up too much room.

when you edit the wav of the song you should also re add in the sound that is lost when it was made in to digital file from the analog file.

that is explained on my tip page at my music site. too much to say here.

http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/rovingcowboy/truck.html

look for the restoreing tip page.

after doing all the that i have great sound it even sends the surround sound signal to the radio so the transmitter is a good one.

rovingcowboy wrote:but i am trying to hear the radio out side the house.

while mowing the lawn or working out side on the car.
which a patch cord does not work in those cases.

That's what my portable player is for

Cowboy,

no matter the bitrate of the files being broadcasted the quality of what you hear with radio broadcasting is limited to something like 80kbps. That is what Peke was talking about. This has nothing to do with the hardware (transmiter-receiver) you use. It's the FM protocol that reduces quality. Even if youse the most expensive transmiter outthere (like the big radio stations do) you wont be able to achieve the quality you get using a cable to connect your stereo to the laptop, or even using a portable player.
The FM doesnt has enough bandwidth to support bitrates more than 80Kbps (more details here).
Anyway besides that i really think that radio broadcasting is a cool solution for some needs, like yours for example.
As for song's volume, you can always use the MM's volume leveling with a value of 88-93 for a nice boost without distrotion

oh i did not know as you seen that was the limit for fm bandwidth.?

well i guess with what i been sending the transmitter it's had more then enought to choose from for getting that 80 kbps

but sounds the same to me on my stereo as it does on my computer?
how big of sound card would 1982 home stereo units have in them?

since it sounds the same as my computer
i am guessing it is around 16 bits.

or less?

yes i use the sound analyizer of media monkey but i also set the volume in the sound files.

the less it is boosted from the computer the less chance of bad power hums in the background, could be wrong with that too but that is how i look at.

rovingcowboy wrote: but sounds the same to me on my stereo as it does on my computer?
how big of sound card would 1982 home stereo units have in them?

Oh, you're starting a big conversation here....
It depends on the stereo... actually most of the 1980's stereos dont have a sound card or anything digital in it....
It is all pure, sweet, analog technology which might be the reason for your FM transmited songs playing that good... Especially if your stereo has a good quality receiver and an amplifier of similar quality.

Anyways, most of the home stereos today don't even come close to the quality old stereos deliver. Offcourse we are talking for stereos costing less than 300-400$.

That is a nice conversation and if you like to continue it maybe its better to create a post under the off topic section