iPod FM Tuners / Transmitters

Reviews: Multimedia

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Mark Korff
Kurtis
DLO & Kensington
Sep. 4, 2006

Specifications

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Testing

Radio Tuning

Operating the two products in FM tuning mode was very easy. You just plug the nano and headphones in, use the appropriate buttons to tune the radio to your favorite station, and listen away. Pretty simple. The results varied for each unit considerably depending on where I was inside my house, and even how I was holding the unit both inside and outdoors. Both units were able to pick up all of the major stations in my area. After listening to a multitude of stations both inside and outdoors, I was able to notice a few minor differences between the two.

The Kensington was a little more picky about how I held it or where I was in my house, although oddly enough, when it did lock on to a signal the audio seemed to be slightly cleaner than with the nanoTune. The nanoTune on the other hand tuned into stations a little better, and its audio quality didn't seem to vary as much with how it was held. Again, keep in mind that the differences we're talking about here are not extreme.

iPod Radio Transmission

This is the big feature for both products, the ability to transmit the music on your iPod to your radio. Again, operating both products was very similar in that you simply switch the "mode" to "transmit" and then tune to a "clear" station to broadcast on. The test I performed was done using the stock radio in a 1998 Ford Taurus. I was able to find a "clear" station on the car radio, and then I tuned both products to broadcast at that frequency.

In an odd reversal from the radio tuning test, the nanoTune initially had worse transmitting quality than the Kensington and was more sensitive to changes in location throughout the vehicle. I was not satisfied with the nanoTune's transmission quality at all, but I decided to give it a try with the standard iPod earplugs connected at the same time, and it made a huge difference. With the earplugs acting as an antenna, the nanoTune was almost totally immune to changes in location and audio quality was vastly superior. I tried the same trick with the Kensington and got slightly better performance, but nothing near as extreme as with the nanoTune, although the Kensington was already pretty good to begin with.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Impressions
Page 3: Testing
Page 4: Conclusion

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