I would agree with you on the FM trasmitter side, but disagree with that view on the cassette adapter side. The frequency range on the cassette player is much better than FM transmission and wouldn't be suprised that it would have a range from 50-15k in frequency response. The sound noise floor (measured in db's) in a car interior would pretty much eat into any meaningful range above and below the 50-15k range, especially while moving. Most compressed portable audio files wouldn't have the frequency response to take advantage of the 50-15k range anyways. To my ears, my Zune playing through the adapter via the 3.5mm headphone jack into my factory premium Nav audio system (music ripped at 192kb vbr, compressed) sounds equal to the CD playing through the factory CD changer.

If you want the "cool" factor of having it built in, there's no argument on that side.

Just my humble opinion, of course

 

Wierd, as my adapter has lasted me easily 5 years plus.

 

Guys I have a 2003 gs300, just tried the cassete route. hooked it to the car and the sound is very very crappy. very low and no bass at all. am i doing something wrong?, I have the scandisk sansa mp3 player. please help

 

I'm not familiar with the Sansa player, but I would look for 2 things:

1) the headphone jack volume.....have you tried to turn up the volume of your player so you don't have to crank the volume on your stereo system ?

2) does that player come with any tonal/equalizer modes to address the low bass issue ? What does the bass sound like with regular CD's ?

Since you are outputting the signal from the headphone jack, if that output sounds thin or weak, it's going to sound the same thru your cassette adapter. You might also want to run a cassette cleaner on your deck to be sure that the heads are not dirty.

 

Thanks
Will try the cleaner. I found out it was a faulty adapter, now it sounds like the cd's except for a scratchy noise. I think its coming from the adapter, but will try cleaning the head first since i never used it since I bought my car used