Product Description

Why shuffle through stacks of CDs and tapes to find the song you want while you're driving? Your iPod puts all the music you want just a dial and click away. Best of all, the Monster iCarPlay Wireless gives your car stereo great sounding, wireless access to those tunes, and at the same time charges your iPod to keep the music playing. Plug the iCarPlay Wireless charger end into the 12v outlet (cigarette lighter) in your car and plug the other end into the dock connector on the bottom of your iPod. Select an FM station on the iCarPlay Wireless, and find the same station on your car stereo; pick your favorite song on your iPod and you're ready to roll. Your music transmits wirelessly to your car stereo using FM radio frequencies.Monster Smart Digital Charging technology rapidly charges your iPod, and then switches to a trickle charge to optimize its performance. You'll never have to worry about running out of power while using your iCarPlay Wireless.The newest generation of iPod lets you store even more music than before, up to 10, 000 songs on a 40GB of memory. Enjoy every minute of it while you drive, with the ease and safety of Monster iCarPlay Wireless.

Product Details

• Brand: Monster
• Model: AI-IP-FM-CH
• Dimensions: .30 pounds

Features

• Plug the iCarPlay Wireless charger end into the 12v outlet (cigarette lighter) in your car
• Select an FM station on the iCarPlay Wireless, and find the same station on your car stereo
• Or pick your favorite song on your iPod, and you're ready to roll
• Your music transmits wirelessly to your car stereo using Fm radio frequencies
• Monster Smart Digital Charging technology rapidly charges your iPod, and then switches to a trickle charge to optimize its performance

Amazon.com Product Description
You already love your iPod. But think how much better it would be if you had the ability to use it in the car. Monster Cable's iCarPlay wireless FM transmitter gives you just that: great sounding, wireless access to your entire multi-gigabyte collection of tunes, right through your car stere's FM radio. At the same time, the iCarPlay charges your iPod to keep the music playing.

Plug the iCarPlay's charger end into the 12-volt DC outlet (cigarette lighter) in your car and plug the other end into the dock connector on the bottom of your iPod. Select an FM station on the iCarPlay (choose from 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7, 88.9, 89.1, 89.3, or 89.5), and find the same station on your car stereo. Then pick your favorite song on your iPod and you're ready to roll. Your music transmits wirelessly to your car stereo using FM radio frequencies.

Monster Smart Digital Charging technology rapidly charges your iPod, then switches to a trickle charge to optimize its performance. You'll never have to worry about running out of power while using your iCarPlay wireless transmitter.

Customer Reviews

Decisions, Decisions.....
Three months ago, after doing some reading in the web regarding this subject, I went to BestBuy looking for a system for my car. At that time I had narrowed down my options to either the Griffin iTrip FM transmitter for dockable iPods or the Moster Cable iCarPlay wireless FM iPod transmitter/charger but was not totally sure so I decided to ask for advice to a salesperson at the store (bad decision) and he recommended the Monster product.

He claimed he had one in his car and he loved it. He also highlighted the advantage of charging your iPod while you listen to your music.

About the same time, my son bought the Griffin product and he has been using it since then.

Well, I began using the Monster system for about 6 weeks and then switched with my son and began using his Griffin gadget and after gaining experience with both products I can say the following:

1) Because the Monster Cable system has only 8 pre-set FM stations you can use to send your signal to, you have to make sure that there is at least 1 free FM band in the city where you are using this product. If not, you are out of luck. Here in Indianapolis, after much work I found only one FM band that is not being used by a local station so I got lucky and my system works fine. The Griffin iTrip FM transmitter for dockable iPods has much more flexibility since it allows you to tune to any of over 100 FM stations in your FM dial.

2) Even if you find a "clean FM band" to use your Monster Cable FM iPod Transmitter/Charger, you will find that when you are riding your car using the system, you will hit some spots where you will pick-up considerable interference or "static". I have not yet lost my iPod signal when this happens but this situation is quite annoying. For the Griffin iTrip FM transmitter for dockable iPods this problem seems to be much less significant (but not totally absent as they claim in their manual) and this seems to be related to the fact that they use digital technology (versus analog technology which is used by competing products) to beam the signal to your FM radio and this apparently makes the quality of the signal better, stronger and cleaner.

3) The "Charge while you Play" feature is quite a plus for the Monster Cable product. The gadget does charge efficiently and very quickly and it keeps your iPod battery fully charged at all times. For long trips this is quite an advantage that the Griffin product does not have.

4) The price of the Monster Cable product is considerably more expensive than the Griffin iTrip gadget. At BestBuy, where both, my son and I bought these products, the Monster Cable iTrip product was $69.99 while the Griffin iTrip was $39.99.

5) Don't forget that another difference is that with the Monster Cable product you have a cable connected to your iPod all the time and this takes away flexibility and makes it very visible in your car. The Griffin product is wireless and thus there is no connection so you do not need to worry about hiding it when you park your car in oublic places.

In summary, these are two innovative products that allow you to listen to your own music in your own car in a practical and flexible manner. If you are mostly going to use this equipment in the city, while you comute to work and back to home and willnot make long car trips, save yourself some money and some headaches and get the Griffin iTrip FM transmitter for dockable iPods. On the other hand if keeping your iPod charged at all times is a must or if you make long, long trips on your car and want to listen to your iPod during these, consider the Moster Cable iCarPlay wireless FM iPod transmitter/charger.

Works well - even in big cities
I was hesitant to buy the iCarPlay - I had an FM transmitter several years ago and it was miserable. I was afraid I'd get in an accident while fiddling with the dial. The iCarPlay, however, has present stations, making it easier to change the station should you pick up some static.

That problem doesn't happen often though. I live near Washington, DC, and rarely have to change the station because of static. Sure, the quality isn't as good as if you have a direct line-in port on your car stereo or a cassette adapter, but for those of us with plain ole CD players, the iCarPlay works well. It also does a great job of keeping your iPod charged.

Another plus is that the cord is long enough that you can pretty much put your iPod wherever you want. I also read some great reviews of it on the Apple message boards.

It might take you a while to get this product, however; I was on the Amazon's waitlist for over a month before I found it elsewhere and cancelled my order here.

Best FM adapter yet, but it's still an FM adapter...
Of all the ways to plug an iPod into your car stereo, an FM transmitter is the worst, sound-quality-wise. A good line in to your aux input will, without exception, yield better sound. However, if this is too daunting a procedure, or if you lack a standard aux input (or the ability to add one -- my situation), the iCarPlay is an excellent product. I have used the Belkin Tunedock, the Transpod, and the iTrip, and iCarPlay manages to be the best solution among them.

Compared to other FM transmitters, the iCarPlay has a number of design advantages: It is powered from your car's DC adapter (a.k.a. the cigarette lighter plug), so you don't have to worry about batteries (as with the Belkin transmitter). Unlike other transmitters which are car-powered, this one also has a pass-through to recharge your iPod while it plays. The iCarPlay and Transpod are the only two products which provide this sort of integration.

Controls on the device are simple: A button switches between the available frequencies (which are limited, so if you're in an area where all the low-band FM stations are taken up, you will get very poor quality sound), and a red LED notes which frequency you're on. The LEDs are bright enough to let you (barely) read the station on the device at night. Other than that, you just plug it into your car and into your iPod and control your iPod as normal.

Physically, the iCarplay is adequately well made, but for such an expensive product, it feels a little too "plasticy" for my tastes, and seems that it could easily crack if abused. Compared to the flawless and solid plastics of the iTrip, it seems downright chintzy, although certainly no more so than the Belkin adapter. The iCarPlay's longish cable proves to be an advantage, as you can pick up the iPod and change songs, without losing transmission. I wouldn't mind a longer cable, but already, the 3' or so provided sometimes gets tangled up on the shift stick, so I'm not sure that would be ideal. The cable is long enough for most use.

Signal strength is excellent, better than any other transmitter I've used, and it can usually overwhelm the transmission of any not-quite-received stations, and even makes a good effort at coming in over a local FM station, although the interference is severe when it does this. There's a certain amount of FM "hiss" when it plays, which seems more pronounced than that of other transmitters (particularly the iTrip which has an amazingly clear transmission, but a comparatively weak signal). The hiss isn't enough to bother me, with my poor factory stereo speakers, and again, if you're really serious about audio quality, you'll use a line in of some sort. Placing the transmitter as far away from the radio as possible (the DC jack in the hatchback of my Subaru -- a good 6'+ away) did not impair the signal quality.

In the end, the iCarPlay offers an elegant and practical way to play my iPod in my car. It's priced a little high, but there's only one other device that comes close (the TransPod) and it's even more expensive and, to my mind, less useful. Still, for $70, you can easily add an aux jack to most stereos (except car factory stereos), and for a little more you could buy a low-end head unit with a built-in aux input. But, if you can't stand to take your dashboard apart, this will get the job done and do it with a minimum of fuss.