Home > Consumer Reviews > Belkin Tunecast 2 Fm Adapter Black F/ iPod Pda Cd

The idea of transmitting to radio is great: this bit of kit is rubbish. The batteries go flat if you leave them in the unit, even when it is turned off. The only time I got it to work was at home, when I set it up to play Sony Walkman (8gb) through my old FM radio player. Even then I get hiss. Have to have the MP3 player turned right up to activate the transmitter (otherwise it goes off). Couldn't get it to work in the car at all. This may be a function of the the power of the MP3 player and the effectiveness of the radio (it's a T reg Mazda with avg FM radio). Really: don't waste your money on this trash - I guarantee you will be disappointed.

I bought one of these recently so's I could use my MP3 player in the car. I wanted to use it to play both the MP3 player and the CD Walkman through a decent pair of speakers at home, too. The sound quality is good, and it is true stereo! Watch out for cheaper alternatives, many of them don't broadcast stereo, they only broadcast mono, so you get the same mono sound through both speakers. I didn't want that... This unit broadcasts proper stereo, there's no ignition whine in the car even when using the cigar-lighter lead, and it covers most of the FM VHF band so you can always find a clear frequency.
I would recommend always to find a clear frequency by manual tuning. The instructions suggest you find a weak station by scanning, but there is a problem with this. That weak station can get quite strong depending on your movements, the topography, if an aeroplane flies over, etc. When that happens, my car radio gets confused; it's receiving two stations at once, and it mutes everything. So if you get periods of silence for a few seconds at random intervals, its the car radio, not the Tunecast, that's causing the problem! Find a clear frequency and you'll be ok.
I have great faith in Belkin products, and this one re-inforces that feeling. I have absolutely no connection with Belkin or any of its employees, I am just a happy customer.

Much cheaper than replacing your radio.

I have had no problems whatever.

Just make sure that the tunecast is well positioned and that you are not using a frequency that's too close to local radio stations. If you have so many that there's no space left for this device, then you've got a much better choice than I have. There also seem to be local hotspots for spectrum pollution that affects many transmissions, but you can't blame this device for that.

Almost completely useless.
I tried it with my Philips Go! MP3 player, and could only hear the audio with the volume turned full up on the player and car stereo, and even then it was swamped in hiss and other noises. I couldn't cope with it for more than a few seconds. I got the same result when trying it with another radio receiver.
However, a friend then tried it with his iPod (but same car, same stereo) and the sound level was more acceptable. Therefore it may depend on the output level of the MP3 player itself. Then again, as this product is marketed as being for all players, that should have been considered in the design.
As a final insult, when I came to test the device with something else a few weeks later, the batteries (Duracells!) were totally flat. I think I've since seen another reviewer mentioning something about the device's auto-off not actually stopping the batteries from running down. What a useless design!
I'm now reluctant to buy any similar devices until I've tested them with my own player and stereo.

This has to be one of the worst electronic devices I have purchased. On the face of it a simple but effective way to listen to music from your MP3 player on a car radio. However the sound quality is so poor you won't want to listen to it for very long. As previously stated you will have to either turn your MP3 player or your car radio up very loud to get any sort of volume. Back ground noise can be heard during moments of silence and is obviously still be there when the music is playing but not so audible. Amazon offer this paired with the excellent Creative Zen Vision M which quite frankly is an insult to the Zen. The one star is because it worked straight out of the box and came with two batteries that I can use for something else. Save your money or make a donation to charity!