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this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Spoiler, they're incredibly simple and quite clever.
I had one that turned 1/8" into it's own radio frequency. It was really shitty but it worked!
Edit: just looked and they still sell them! https://www.amazon.com/Transmitter-Adapter-Built-iPhone-Players/dp/B076X3GSMH
I built one myself!
~~Probably~~ definitely way more powerful than the legal limit, practically making it a pirate radio station...
I built one, but by that time our local FM radio waves were so saturated that there was no good frequency to use.
Kewl
U need help? I did one myself with icecast and shit
You can't even pass people the aux anymore
Spotify Jams now. But passing the aux is a lost bonding experience
I got one of those USB dongles that can charge and output analog sound to aux.
There's a whine that matches my RPMs because the thing doesn't isolate the voltage from the charger and the audio signal that well. Luckily it isn't very audible when it's being driven (the sound, not the car). Oh I also need to unlock my phone before it even drives it and it takes a bit for it to switch over.
The phone needs to convert to analog to drive the speakers anyways, just fucking stick a mux on that to decide whether it drives the speaker amp or an aux wire. If the jack was too thick, imo it would have been better to introduce a new smaller analog jack standard.
Grandma, what's an iPod?
I had a fuckin boombox in my back seat for a while, then I upgraded to one of those portable ipod docks and plugged that shit into the cigarette lighter. Actually was pretty decent lol
I remember showing mine to a friend once and she straight up was like "Oh wow! I wonder if they make these for CD players instead of cassette tapes."
🤦♂️
I remember excluding cars with CD players from my purchasing decisions for this reason! Should either have a tape or aux in.
Mmmm... did somebody say pudding?
And this meant that car audio systems with a cassette slot were more future proof than car audio systems with only a cd slot.
Aux cable is the pinnacle of car audio sharing technology.
Until the to the fucking jacks out of the phones
Bluetooth is nice too since you can use the media controls on the steering wheel. In case your mix contains tracks which aren't fire. Ok I see where I made the mistake. Aux is sufficient.
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*scuttles out of the sewer*
my linux phone had an FM transmitter so I could just override any station with my jams
*scuttles back into sewer*
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They make these things with bluetooth now believe it or not.
Pair the tape
Stick it in a cassette player
Play music on your phone.
Pair the tape
I can't even, why is this so funny?(◕‿◕')
Love me some anachronism stew.
God damn it. Another thing I have to charge.
I feel like this could work using a tiny generator attached to the drive's motorized wheel, but that's probably too complex to be cost-effective for something like this unfortunately.
That is a great idea.
I think they might use AAAs
Down to you if that's worse or better.
I can see the use if you're for example driving an older car with mostly original kit and don't want an anachronistic stereo in it. So you pair up your fake cassette to your modern phone and can still play Spotify or w/e with the original kit.
There's even an 8-Track version of it.
Also buying a whole-ass new car stereo (+ installation) is much more expensive than a bluetooth adaptor from China
So if you're driving an ancient car out of necessity rather than for the aesthetic, this can help you get music into it.
F'course
Most cars from the age of tapes nowadays are relics. "Old cars" in the range that poor people drive out of necessity are from the CD age instead.
Am poor still driving my 1997 truck, it has an aux tho
You'd be surprised, I've seen cars from as late as 08 that still had cassette. Though that's probably heavily dependent on manufacturer, model, region, and sub model type. But my point still stands, hell id wouldn't be surprised if there was a car or two manufactured in 2012 that still came stock with a cassette deck.
...used to be folks also made adapters with FM micro-transmitters for cars without tape decks; might still do...
They still do. This is how I play stuff in my '03 Jeep.
How does that work from the fake cassette to the player? Does the fake cassette record what's streaming to it to a loop of tape and let the player pick up the audio?
adjusts 🤓 glasses
So a cassette tape works by using electromagnetism. Ferric Oxide (AKA, literally rust powder) has a property that if exposed to a magnetic field, it will create a weak version of that magnetic field within itself
So the record head of a tape machine is an electromagnet that changes its field based on the actual audio signal, translating audio frequencies directly to magnetic directions and strengths, while the read head is a passive electromagnetic coil that picks up that weak magnetic field on the rust-coated plastic tape while a small motor runs the tape past it and emits it as a soundwave.
The tape adapter skips 90% of these steps —
— It just has an electromagnetic coil of its own, positioned so it lines up with the play head, and when you feed it an audio signal, that audio signal gets directly translated to a magnetic field just by running it through the coil. The tape deck picks it up and doesn't even realise there is no tape running through
Those were great. They did a job for everyone that couldn’t afford the latest tech in the car. Now you’re lucky to get a head unit with an Aux plug, much less a CD player.
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I had one of those too. I don't miss it at all, though, because the sound quality was dogshit. Now get off my lawn, damn kids!
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Psshhht. I used to have a microphone that let me SING ON THE RADIO. It literally put me on the FM airwaves. You may have heard some of my stuff.
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I had a lil radio emitter that plugged into the iPod so it would replace the local stations !
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If the car was old enough you could plug a cassette adapter into an 8 track adapter.
Good god. That's three or more generations of electronics just dragged kicking-and-screaming into the 21st century. I love it.
All that's left to do is send the receiver output to a PC or RPi, and serve it as a self-hosted streaming service.
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