Rockford Fosgate cd player

LI Titan · 03-05-2004, 11:20 AM

Does the Rockford Fosgate play MP3 CD's ?

Skipete · 03-05-2004, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LI Titan

Does the Rockford Fosgate play MP3 CD's ?

No but you can use an external player plugged into the aux inputs. There are other threads on this. You can search for these.

bestatchess · 03-05-2004, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LI Titan

Does the Rockford Fosgate play MP3 CD's ?

No, but it has an aux jack that fits 3.5mm plugs. I have an MP3 player with a 40 Gig Hard Drive that holds about 10,000 songs (about 800 CDs) plugged into it and it works great.

Bayou Titan · 03-05-2004, 07:15 PM

I can't for the life of me understand why a high dollar, premium sound system like the RF doesn't have Mp3 capability built in.

If you go to Best Buy or Circuit City you will see a lot of CD players with Mp3 capability that cost a lot less than the RF. Mp3's are the wave of the future. I only had to pay about $30.00 extra to get a CD player with Mp3 capability when I replaced the cassette player in my wife's car. A lot of people listen to Books on Tape, and they now have the books on Cd's that are in the Mp3 format. Six or seven of the Cd's will fit on one Mp3 CD. This eliminates the hassle of constantly changing out Cd's. CD's are a lot easier to pass around at work also.

bestatchess · 03-06-2004, 05:19 AM

I would go a little further. CDs themselves, even with mp3 format, need to go the way of the 8 track tape. Instead of the 6-disc changer, the RF should have had an in-dash hard drive mp3 player with a module that you could yank and connect to a PC to add/delete/organize/set playlists. Also, it would have been nice to have another module for satellite radio that you could yank and connect to your home stereo. By eliminating the 6 disc changer, there would have been adequate space for both an mp3 player with a 240 Gig Hard Drive and a Satellite Radio module. (Instead of crawling under the dash and spending an entire day dissassembling the vehicle to install a satellite radio unit)

And on the topic of high capacity formats, why don't they have a DVD player compatible system so you can put 4 Gigs of mp3 format songs on a single disc?

Further, as far as formats, mp3 is now inferior to other, lossless, compression formats. I think the changeover to a better format could be accomplished on hard drive based mp3 players by a fairly simple firmware change.

I believe that the main resistance to mp3s stems from (1) an association with piracy and (2) the desire of the record companies to maintain a customer perception that a dozen songs on a CD for $17 is a good value (this is tougher to sell when in mp3 format, as the CD is 95% empty). They maintained this perception pretty consistently from the progression from vinyl, to 8-track, to tape cassettes, to conventional CDs. But now they have huge resistance to mp3 because a dozen songs is a drop in the bucket. Also, the mp3 format is associated with the "ala carte" purchase of songs, which makes it difficult to sell a CD with a dozen songs for $17 when all the consumer might really want is one song they can download for 88 cents.

I do think that there is a corporate "conspiracy" on this topic, because all of the big car companies seem to be aligned in not putting mp3 player or mp3 format CD players in their OEM car audio systems.

Also, I think that CDs are an environmental problem in view of the labels, jewel cases, plastic wrappers, and CDs that will increasingly clog landfills. This is a huge waste in view of the fact that you can put the equivalent of racks and racks of CDs on a hard drive that will fit in the palm of your hand.

O.K., enough ranting. I'm sure that the 2015 Titan will have a nice system where I can just say "computer, play "Born To Run"

bvstone1 · 03-06-2004, 06:42 AM

No, it should simply have bluetooth capability to upload, for headphones, cell phone integration, etc..

no wires.. wires are so 1980s.

Bayou Titan · 03-06-2004, 07:07 AM

Good points Bestatchess. The points you stated are extremely valid and are the reasons I did not buy the RF system. I am holding out for much improved technology in the near future. The "standard" cd player in my Titan is plenty good enough for now and I will wait until until there is significant technology improvement before I replace it.

You're right. Why should you have to take the dash apart to get satellite radio? Shouldn't things be made modular so that they can be upgraded easier? Why can't Nissan make access panels ( similar to empty bays on a computer) on the Titan for easy upgrades. They could camouflage the front of the bays so it doesn't look like the dash is "missing something". The point you made about the hard drive is good too. Most of the computer manufacturers (Dell, Gateway, etc) are making desktop computers that are entertainment like systems that store video on their hard drives like Tivo does and sends it to your TV wirelessly. I can easily see this happening to car audio in the near future. You download songs on your desktop computer at home, arrange the songs in the order that you like, put them in folders, and then beam the songs wirelessly to the receiver/ player in your Titan sitting in the garage.

I can see this system being tied to the navigation / DVD screens as well. You sit inside your cozy computer room at home and beam address lists, shopping lists, to do lists, menus, calendars, maintenance schedules, to you Titan in the garage or carport. The Titan should have Wi-Fi capability as well.

All of the stuff I've mentioned is not even cutting edge technology.It would probably add just a couple of hundred dollars over the cost of the "standard" cd player. It's stuff that's been around now for several years that just needs to be assimilated in a vehicle.

Ooops! now I'm starting to rant!

bestatchess · 03-06-2004, 08:15 AM

"The Titan should have Wi-Fi capability as well."

Outstanding concept! You could log in and listen to the stereo in nearby cars on the highway if you got tired of your own. A list of available wireless networks pops up on the NAV display, and you elect to log in, chat and swap a few tunes with the cute girl in the Corvette convertible that looks like the car wash girl in Cool Hand Luke. Meanwhile the RIAA police pull out from behind the billboard and turn on their lights and siren.

bvstone1 · 03-07-2004, 09:10 AM

USs WiFi technology is so far behind that of other countries.. When we do catch up all you need is a laptop for music, internet, navigation, movies,etc..and you could get 4 laptops for the price of the DVD and navigation packages... and have much more functinality.

That's why I mentioned bluetooth wireless technology would be really cool, especially for hands free cell phone. I am betting you could figure out a way to plug the cell intothe aux input in the stereo, though.. or maybe there will be a bluetooth device you could plug into it so it would work with other bluetooth devices.