mStation
V2 Review: MP3.com
NEO Car Jukebox
Rating 5 = Great Product
The Skinny:
An MP3 player at home in your...home, car and PC? Yep. First off, read our NEO Home Jukebox review. It will tell you all about the heart of this truly impressive new product from SSI America.
The Chubby:
OK, got that review digested?
Instead of tackling the Car Jukebox in our garage, we opted for professional installation by a car stereo/alarm shop. This can cost about $25 to $75, depending on the shop's location and the complexity of the installation. Be warned, however, that some shops won't install products they don't sell due to contracts with the manufacturers of lines they carry. Make sure you get an installation guarantee if you go this route. (You can read a PDF version ( 2 Megabytes ) of the butchered-English installation and instruction manual to get an idea of what it takes. If you're not experienced at 12-volt installations, believe us when we say having a shop do it was well worth the cost.)
Everything was quite straightforward for our four-door sedan: Mount the frame out of sight in the trunk, then run all cabling under the carpet to the fused power line under the dash. The corded remote LCD can be affixed to your dash or elsewhere with the included Velcro strips. We decided to just prop ours on the center console, right below the dash. That way, we can hold the included infrared remote in one hand and aim it at the LCD while driving. That's right: You can use navigation buttons on the LCD itself or the remote to advance tracks, change volume, fast-forward and perform all other functions. It's really a blast and your aim doesn't even have to be that accurate. To avoid prying eyes, we tuck the LCD under the passenger seat and toss the remote in the empty ashtray when the car is parked.
Since the Car Jukebox plays through your car's sound system, you have several amplification options:
If the system has auxiliary RCA input jacks, plug the NEO directly into them and play it through the amp. If you have a tape deck, get a cassette adapter. Let the installer know about this so he/she can install the adapters/connectors that let you play the NEO directly through the deck. (You might have to buy them yourself at someplace like Radio Shack, but they're pretty inexpensive.) If you have an FM stereo radio, use the included FM modulator. It will broadcast the NEO's output to an unused frequency you can store in memory.
We had the installer hook up the tape deck and FM modulator options, since our system has no input jacks. The tape deck method is far superior to the FM, which picks up static, hiss and extraneous signals, and is capable of much less amplification. Having auxiliary jacks would be the best situation, so if you have a system with inputs, go for it! Your sound quality will only be as good as your amp and speakers, of course.
Driving around with the NEO installed is quite an experience. We loaded about 1,500 tracks into 6GB, which leaves another 24GB available. Road trip, here we come! The remote LCD is easy to read in all conditions except direct sunlight, and at night it truly shines. We tend to program the beast for Random All -- kind of like listening to random radio stations forever. If you don't want to hear a particular song, just fast-forward to the next.
Even mounted in our chassis at the top of the trunk opening, the NEO never skipped a beat. We took it on an urban torture test over potholes, speed bumps, curbs and uneven roads with NO memory lapses. When's the last time you could say that about an in-dash CD player? We looked under the NEO's hood and the found hard drive encased in a thick rubber sleeve. This baby is ruggedized.
Back in the NEO Home Jukebox frame and our PC bay, the hard drive worked flawlessly. It even bookmarks the exact spot in the track playing when you cut the power, and resumes there when you start it back up at home -- vice versa, too.
So, it looks like SSI America has yet another hot item on its hands with the NEO Car Jukebox. Once you take it for a spin, you won't want to it to stop.
Saturn Computers, 9 Ivanhoe Rd, Merlin Terrace, Hogwood Lane Industrial Estate,
Finchampstead, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 4QQ
Tel: 01189 73 33 73 | Fax: 01189 73 53 73 |