The Upstate Life

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Planet of Sound

Was it true that The Upstate Life didn't post a damn thing yesterday? Sorry to say that this is true my friends, but please try to understand it was for your own good as there was practically nothing TUL could really get his hands to blog about on Wednesday. Sure, I could've wrote some filler piece that might've been two or three sentences just to say, "Hey look, I posted that day" (I was this close saying Interpol sold out despite not even being posted on the 9:30 website, which is I guess somewhat noteworthy), but you see, I was looking out for you, the common TUL reader. Honestly, would you have received any sort of self-satisfaction reading something that minuscule? Then again, the comments section has been pretty dead lately, so maybe I'll take some blame as well.

Anyways, because The Upstate Life loves his technology, and more specifically his iPod, last night I received the Monster Ultra-Low Profile Charger in the mail. I actually got it through eBay with a final bid price of $20, roughly half of what it would cost for full retail at somewhere like Circuit City or other online stores. Not only was it a brand new, sealed unit, but it arrived in less than a week. Gotta love the best/worst idea ever AKA PayPal.

The best part about this magnificent device is that it has a line out jack on the dock connector. Now if you already don't know, the iPod contains only a headphone jack for audio output. That's just fine if you're only going to be using a pair of headphones while riding on the Metro or what have you, but if you want to hook it up to your car stereo or home theater, this jack simply will not suffice. You see, the headphone jack uses a built-in amplifier which employs variable audio output, so if you're connecting the iPod to your car stereo, not only do you have to adjust the volume from two different sources (iPod and your car receiver), but the level of output the iPod is giving is a distorted, non-direct level of sound which in case forfeits some high quality music you bought the device for in the first place. Enter the iCarCharger. It has a gold-plated Mini-jack line output which you can easily plug your cassette adapter or FM transmitter into just like you were using the headphone jack, but with much better results. The Upstate Life tried it out in his Buick by plugging the tape adapter into the Monster charger, and the outcome was simply amazing. The sound was immediately crisper, the bass had a lot more punch, and the hiss decreased dramatically. Also, TUL discovered that you can use the line-out jack even if the charger isn't plugged into your cigarette lighter, so it's basically like the PocketDock sans the FireWire port but with a car power adapter attached instead. If you haven't bought a car charger yet, The Upstate Life highly recommends this device if you want to get the best sound out of your iPod when you're driving on the Beltway or plugging it into your friend's stereo. Oh yeah, and the charger works pretty well too.

Posted by Brett at 1:07 PM |