[Phatnoise Review] Car MP3 Player installed - Emulates stock CD Changer!
08-21-2001, 10:16 AM
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[Phatnoise Review] Car MP3 Player installed - Emulates stock CD Changer!
Well, I picked up my Phatnoise player and installed it this weekend. For those of you not familiar with the product, the Phatnoise player is a car mp3 player which emulates a CD Changer and talks the CDC protocol so it can be used with your existing headunit. It uses a standard 2.5" ATA 100 drive with a shock-absorbing suspension system in the drivebay. My preview unit came with a 6gig cartridge. Check out <A HREF="http://www.phatnoise.com" target="_top">http://www.phatnoise.com</A> for more details.
INSTALLATION: A++
Install was a super easy. The Phatbox is about the size of a small amp (I think they even used an amp body for it) and fits nicely in the smuggler's box position for the Audi factory changer. I ended up mounting the Phatbox using velcro strips as the mountholes in the Phatbox are set in the wrong horizontal/vertical orientation for our mounting bracket. But, I view this as a plus since the velcro is a buffer against direct metal-to-metal contact and will reduce vibration to the unit. I will post some pics later (gotta borrow the digicam from work).
The unit came with a Blitz adapter which plugs into the cable from the Phatnoise box and then into the pre-existing CDC cable that my car came with (even though I didn't buy the Audi changer). It really amounts to a single cable connection, and grounding the adapter. Very nice, very easy. Power is pulled off the CDC cable bus.
EASE OF USE: B+
Plug it in and it goes. Just select CDC on the Symphony stereo, that simple.
One caveat though. The Phatbox supports up to 99 playlists, and each playlist appears as a "disc" in the changer as far as the headunit is concerned. But since the A4 only supports 6 discs, they've come up with a kludge interface workaround.
The 6 preset buttons which would normally select disc are now "mode" buttons which alter the behavior of the track/seek buttons. The track/seek buttons are "action" buttons which actually change playlists, advance tracks and seek through tracks depending on which "mode" you have selected. It's a bit much to memorize really.
FEATURES/QUALITY:
It supports Mp3 files up to 320k and VBR as well as WMA and OGG files... pretty flexible. The sound quality is excellent.
I've noticed that songs will 'pause' for a moment when I change 'modes' using the 1-6 presets - I'm hoping this is going to be fixed in later versions of the software.
I've also seen the player switch mode settings back to mode 1, without me pressing any buttons. Further inspection of the manual shows this to be normal behavior. I don't know how I feel about that.
The PC interface is only _okay_. It's a bit busy and I don't like the fact that changes to playlists aren't saved to the cartridridge until you 'eject' the cart.
That said, however, the software comes with encoding built-in and it looks like their planning on building in support for cd-burners and the Nomad mp3 jukebox as well. Also, it looks like they may be working on a music file sharing/searching network (just a guess, there is no real information available about this "PhatNet" feature).
The dynamic playlist generation is definitely very cool. The music manager software can automatically create playlists based on various filter criteria such as Artist, genre, etc from the ID3 tags. Whenever you add new music on your PC in a directory scanned by the software it will automagically add those new mp3s to the dynamic playlists.
OVERALL: A
My overall impression of the unit is good. I'm definitely satisified with my purchase and am looking forward to my first long roadtrip with 6gigs of mp3s in my trunk.
It seems like there are a few software bugs that need to be worked out, but again this is a preview release and I expected as much. This is definitely worth investigating if you're a music lover!
-Brian
INSTALLATION: A++
Install was a super easy. The Phatbox is about the size of a small amp (I think they even used an amp body for it) and fits nicely in the smuggler's box position for the Audi factory changer. I ended up mounting the Phatbox using velcro strips as the mountholes in the Phatbox are set in the wrong horizontal/vertical orientation for our mounting bracket. But, I view this as a plus since the velcro is a buffer against direct metal-to-metal contact and will reduce vibration to the unit. I will post some pics later (gotta borrow the digicam from work).
The unit came with a Blitz adapter which plugs into the cable from the Phatnoise box and then into the pre-existing CDC cable that my car came with (even though I didn't buy the Audi changer). It really amounts to a single cable connection, and grounding the adapter. Very nice, very easy. Power is pulled off the CDC cable bus.
EASE OF USE: B+
Plug it in and it goes. Just select CDC on the Symphony stereo, that simple.
One caveat though. The Phatbox supports up to 99 playlists, and each playlist appears as a "disc" in the changer as far as the headunit is concerned. But since the A4 only supports 6 discs, they've come up with a kludge interface workaround.
The 6 preset buttons which would normally select disc are now "mode" buttons which alter the behavior of the track/seek buttons. The track/seek buttons are "action" buttons which actually change playlists, advance tracks and seek through tracks depending on which "mode" you have selected. It's a bit much to memorize really.
FEATURES/QUALITY:
It supports Mp3 files up to 320k and VBR as well as WMA and OGG files... pretty flexible. The sound quality is excellent.
I've noticed that songs will 'pause' for a moment when I change 'modes' using the 1-6 presets - I'm hoping this is going to be fixed in later versions of the software.
I've also seen the player switch mode settings back to mode 1, without me pressing any buttons. Further inspection of the manual shows this to be normal behavior. I don't know how I feel about that.
The PC interface is only _okay_. It's a bit busy and I don't like the fact that changes to playlists aren't saved to the cartridridge until you 'eject' the cart.
That said, however, the software comes with encoding built-in and it looks like their planning on building in support for cd-burners and the Nomad mp3 jukebox as well. Also, it looks like they may be working on a music file sharing/searching network (just a guess, there is no real information available about this "PhatNet" feature).
The dynamic playlist generation is definitely very cool. The music manager software can automatically create playlists based on various filter criteria such as Artist, genre, etc from the ID3 tags. Whenever you add new music on your PC in a directory scanned by the software it will automagically add those new mp3s to the dynamic playlists.
OVERALL: A
My overall impression of the unit is good. I'm definitely satisified with my purchase and am looking forward to my first long roadtrip with 6gigs of mp3s in my trunk.
It seems like there are a few software bugs that need to be worked out, but again this is a preview release and I expected as much. This is definitely worth investigating if you're a music lover!-Brian
08-21-2001, 10:31 AM
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Where'd you see OGG support and Symphony support?
The website didn't mention either?
Man, this is exactly what I need for my car, if it actually does support OGG (since all my CDs are in OGG format, not MP3)
Man, this is exactly what I need for my car, if it actually does support OGG (since all my CDs are in OGG format, not MP3)
08-21-2001, 12:50 PM
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Re: Where'd you see OGG support and Symphony support?
It's listed in the support compression formats of their Music Manager software.
I presume this means that the player supports it as well, though I don't have any files in OGG format. I should convert one of my existing files and check it out.
As for the symphony headunit, many moons ago somebody else posted a link to Phatnoise when this was nothing more than a concept and they were taking a list of "preferred customers" which really just amounted to telling them your email addy and want kind of car/headunits you wanted support for.
They sent mail specifically indicating that this was preview release for the Audi A4. Apparently for both the Concert and Symphony headunits.... At least it's working with my MY00 Symphony.
I presume this means that the player supports it as well, though I don't have any files in OGG format. I should convert one of my existing files and check it out.
As for the symphony headunit, many moons ago somebody else posted a link to Phatnoise when this was nothing more than a concept and they were taking a list of "preferred customers" which really just amounted to telling them your email addy and want kind of car/headunits you wanted support for.
They sent mail specifically indicating that this was preview release for the Audi A4. Apparently for both the Concert and Symphony headunits.... At least it's working with my MY00 Symphony.
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08-22-2001, 01:33 AM
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Says OGG in the faq... but thats only the phatman.
If they mean that the phatman does ogg -> mp3; which THEN goes on the cartridge: That would suck.
The hardware faq says *phatbox* supports mp3, wav, and wma, not OGG. ;(
Then again, its Linux based, which means I'm sure its easy to add codecs.<ul><li><a href="http://www.phatnoise.com/community/faq.php">http://www.phatnoise.com/community/faq.php</a</li></ul>
The hardware faq says *phatbox* supports mp3, wav, and wma, not OGG. ;(
Then again, its Linux based, which means I'm sure its easy to add codecs.<ul><li><a href="http://www.phatnoise.com/community/faq.php">http://www.phatnoise.com/community/faq.php</a</li></ul>