Playback Through Car Stereo?

[Adam Z]

Is there anything I can use with my Thunderbolt that would get my music to play through my car stereo? Thanks.

 

[Chrisy]

Does your car have an aux in? You just need a cable to plug into the device to the auxiliary. I got one at Walmart.

 

[EricWiz]

If you have Bluetooth in your car you can do that and if not if you have a cassette you can get a cassette adapter.

 

[Ricom1]

There's also a FM transmitter (several actually). I have one and it works pretty good. Ironically, it works differently on different cars. Some cars make the static very noticeable, where another car it's almost perfect.

 

[bthomp21]

Looks like everyone has posted a solution for you.

AUX cable (headphone jack to stereo)
RCA cables, buy the cable with the 2 rca (red and white) that switch to the headphone jack.
Bluetooth, your stereo must support A2DP to allow media bluetooth streaming
FM transmitter, quality wont be as great but it will do the job.

what kind of car do you have? some newer cars have the bluetooth feature or "sync"

 

[Adam Z]

Thank you for all the answers. My best bet is a FM transmitter. Any suggestions?

 

[SoDev]

I'm just go to Amazon and search FM transmitter, compare the reviews and get the one that is the best value by money and review. They are pretty cheap price wise. I used to use and old Belkin one, worked fine, nothing special. Go by reviews. Also if you live in a city you will not have good results because of too much interference.

The real solution is to buy a new cd player for your car with an aux input. They can be had anywhere from $80 to #130 and up. Buy from Crutchfield.com and install it yourself if you can.

 

[Custom Trendz Inc.]

I plugged mine into a usb headunit and it reads files off my sd card and charges at the same time. I have a alpine cda105. If you had a ipod working via usb chances are you could have the thunderbolt do the same in sd card mode with debugging.

 

[EricWiz]

I plugged mine into a usb headunit and it reads files off my sd card and charges at the same time. I have a alpine cda105. If you had a ipod working via usb chances are you could have the thunderbolt do the same in sd card mode with debugging.

Right! Forgot about that one

 

[bthomp21]

Thank you for all the answers. My best bet is a FM transmitter. Any suggestions?

what kind of car/cd player do you have?

 

[rcpa]

Thank you for all the answers. My best bet is a FM transmitter. Any suggestions?

I use the Motorola T505. I listen to talk radio podcasts with it. I've heard that bluetooth stereo audio in general, and FM transmitters in specific, do not live up to the standards of audiophiles. So if you are particularly picky about audio quality, you may not be happy with the bluetooth FM transmitters. But for talk radio podcasts, it works great. I think it sounds fine for music too, but I'm not an audiophile.

One hint, for both the car bluetooth transmitters, and for stereo bluetooth headphones, you have to turn the phone volume all the way up. If you instead leave the phone volume low and turn the car stereo volume up, you might be hear static. This has the downside of having the media volume cranked all the way up when not connected to the bluetooth, which can be embarrassing at times.

I solved this by using Tasker to set the volume high when an A2DP device connects and then back to a low value when the A2DP device disconnects.