3月26日
Zune Home Kit good. Zune Car Kit bad.
The Zune Home Kit is excellent... charge while listening or viewing your content on the TV! Comes with another remote control--like I need one of those--but it looks and works like a little mini-Zune. I like it because I don't have a music system in my bedroom, but of course there's a TV, and it has decent stereo sound. Finally, acceptable tunage in the boudoir! (DirectTV's music channels up in the 800's are as insipid and underwhelming as commercial radio). Now to make a loooove mix or two. Dad, eeew!
The Zune Car Kit is awful... shun it! There are plenty of blog sites that rant about the FCC severely limiting the power of in-car FM transmitters, and the Zune Car Kit is no exception. Number one, it's been impossible for me to find a station that receives the signal without bleed-over from a real radio station. There's always static or even overlapping talk/music breaking through the Zune's transmissions. Sometimes I can find a relatively clear spot, but only by holding the Zune or the transmitter a certain way. But the static always comes back, in city or country. It's intolerable. Since I'm past my 30-day return period, I might look at modding the transmitter to put a little antenna on it. But then there's the second drawback: even at its best performance with no static or cross-talk, the frequency range is limited by FM modulation. The clearest sound I've heard via the Car Kit is still far worse than listening to the Zune using direct wired speakers. Don't go down this path!