AUDIOVOX FMM100 FM modulator with isolation transformer

Alright, this just came in a few days ago. (props to car toys, shipping time wasn't bad at all, given that the product was shipping from Washington, and I'm in Jersey.)Anyway, I installed this product today, and was pretty impressed. Installation was a breeze, I didn't use the proprietary plug for the power, I snipped and stripped the wire and wired it to the fusebox under my steering wheel. Overall, installation took about 15 minutes. 10 of those 15 minutes was the disassembly of my center console and getting the actual stereo out. The cable diagram was extremely easy to understand, and it is very much possible to go through the installation through common sense alone without use of the instructions. It's simple, take out your antenna, plug it into the modulator, plug modulator into the antenna. Then find a power source and a ground.Sound quality was pretty good. I expected it to be worse to be honest. In comparison to the tape deck I was using beforehand, it did fall slightly slightly short. To the casual ear, the difference is completely unnoticeable. I only state that there is a slight difference because I'm one of those people who can tell the difference between 320kbps and 256kbps mp3. Basically, you can make up for the loss in sound bandwidth by upping the intensity of the EQ in your stereo and having higher quality mp3 files. With this product, i was able to just barely match the same sound quality of a griffin smartdeck by just bumping the bass and trebles a few notches higher than where they were previously at. There is still that very subtle "emptiness" so to say. I'm very picky with my sound quality, but I'm 100% sure that most people will be satisfied with this product.I mainly bought this because I was sick of the mechanical noises my tape deck made whenever it was in use (clicking, scratching inside) and it was easily noticeable over the music unless you cranked up the volume, which obviously isn't what I wanted to do ALL THE TIME. My tape deck was also beginning to fail. It would randomly switch sides of the tape and cause my music input to not play. Also, I hated that ugly wire coming out of the tape door.This product gave me everything I expected it to give me:1. no background noise (clicking tape deck)2. ability to hide wires and keep everything neat and organized3. deliver consistent good sound quality for a low priceEase of use gets a 4, because it is extremely easy to use once it's installed, but the installation itself may be a turnoff for some. The fact that you have to tear open your dashboard, get behind your stereo, and tap into your car's electrical system may be daunting for some. Not everyone hardwires radar detectors and head units for friends all the time like I do. It's not a difficult installation by any means, but if you feel uncomfortable doing it on your own, then find a friend who can do it for you. Just don't pay someone to do it, because anything less than $5 would be a ripoff as it's 10-15 minutes of work at most. A little more if you put the effort to hide the wires and mount the switch and an actual input port behind your dashboard to make it look legit. For now, I'm leaving all the wires hanging around and taped under the steering wheel to somewhat hide them. I'll save the wire hiding and hole drilling and such for another day.I would rate sound quality as a 5, but the quality isn't as good as say, a legitimate auxiliary port on a stereo. Obviously the bandwidth limitations of FM limit the quality of the sound more than a tape deck does, and there is a subtle "hiss" in the background, and I stress that the difference is there, but not noticeable for most people. If I were to analogize in terms of video, I would say the difference can compare to that of normal RCA video (the yellow video cable) and S-Video (the round circle cable). If you're an audiophile, the difference will be night and day. If not, it'll sound well more than adequate. Either way, it's a great way to have the convenience of an auxiliary input for your stereo which doesn't have one, without the need for a new stereo head unit and it doesn't put a hole in your wallet. All in all, I'm very happy with this product.

Before placing the order for a FM modulator, I spent a great deal of time researching what FM modulator would work in my Chevrolet Malibu 2004. Even so, I received a modulator, which I could not connect to the GM car stereo. Unfortunately you will only find out about the compatibility in the middle of the installation, after having removed all of the front trim, glove box, and car stereo. The antenna plugs of this FM modulator do NOT fit on the plugs of the 2004 Malibu (too big). After this frustrating discovery, I first went to Radio Shack (based on another review) to buy adapters: none found. Only with the help of my coworker, an electrical engineer, I was able to replace the plugs of the modulator. This required soldering the tips of the plugs, cutting off the plugs, assembling the right plugs, including more soldering. At least the FM modulator works very well: not CD quality, but much better than the wireless FM transmitter. So if you don't mind to spend several hours installing the unit, I would recommend this product.

Pro: 1) Does the job far better than those junky FM transmitters that everyone tries first. Here in the crowded FM spectrum of Chicago other stations were always overpowering my Sirius radio, but since installing this unit there has not been a peep of interference. 2) Reasonably priced on Amazon at about half the ridiculous retail price at Best Buy. (Similar, but not identical products.)Con: 1) To install it you have to take the dash apart, drill holes in the panel, etc. If you happen to be good at such things (or if you don't care about cosmetic blemishes from not being so good) then OK. This is a whole Saturday afternoon for the average consumer. 2) The connector for the power on/off toggle switch is cheap and allows the pins inside to float around far too much, for an intermittent connection. I had to take the dash apart AGAIN and use a tiny screwdriver to align the pins precisely so I could tape the connector and make it solid. 3) The signal input to the unit is via RCA connectors, the designers assuming we would be tapping off of an amplifier, when it seems obvious that what most people want is an AUX IN 3.5 mm stereo jack for playing ANY external source that has a headphone jack. I bought one at Radio Shack and wired it in myself, which again is fine as long as you have the expertise. I guess given the name "Movies to Go" maybe they intended the product for playing the audio of portable DVD players over the car stereo, but a headphone splitter for each kid in the back seat seems like a much cheaper and easier solution. They should have included a 3.5 mm jack in the kit to give us our choice. 4) Could be louder. Spoken word sources such as audio books and podcasts are barely audible over traffic noise, at least in my car. Music seems better. This is using the same iPod, by the way.Overall a good unit and I'm glad I bought it.