I have an MP3CD-playing stereo in my car – a Jensen MP3310. I got it for ~$125 2 or 3 years ago. I have been using my MP3 CDs in it, but with the advent of podcasting, I have been using my Lexar USB drive with a Lexar Jumpgear and the car stereo’s AUX input to play podcasts off my USB drive. Makes it easy to just delete them after I listen to them.
Today, I saw Best Buy had on sale an MP3CD-playing stereo that also has a USB jack on the front to play MP3s off of USB drives (and it has an AUX input)! I have been saying that somebody should do this for years and now they finally did. So I went to Best Buy to check it out and took a bunch of MP3 CDs and my USB drive filled with MP3s. It played all of them flawlessly except the latest episode of The Bitterest Pill which is at 22Khz frequency – it played that too fast. EVERYTHING else it played perfectly. So I bought it. Price was $99 on sale. Here’s the Best Buy page on it.
I’ll be installing it myself next weekend – too busy this week to do it. It comes with “free installation” but they charge you $25 for the wiring harness and labor. It’s not worth $25 to let them do it. I’ll do it myself.
I’ll post my thoughts and a review once I have installed it and played with it a bit. It’s an “Insignia™ 40W x 4 CD Deck with CD-R/RW/MP3/WMA Playback and Wireless Remote Model: IN-MP101”.
Also, I should be able to use it to play MP3s off of memory cards like SD cards by using my USB card reader. I’ll have to test that out too once it’s installed.
UPDATE: Full review has been posted.
