The first thing my fellow Edmunds.com editor said as he handed off the Hyundai Azera was, "There's no aux output." This was another way of saying, if you have an iPod you're out of luck. But we found that the Azera does have a throwback to earlier years -- a cassette tape deck. We plugged in a tape adapter and had an eighth inch jack into our iPod so we could play it through the sound system on our 16 hour drive to Denver. With the iPod up and running we listened to my son's Christmas play list as we cruised through Western Colorado on Christmas Eve.
Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor, 3983 miles
briancam says:
07:58 PM, 12/28/06
Cassette players are getting to be the stuff of luxury cars - curious how things change, or, uh, don't change....
autoboy16 says:
07:57 AM, 12/29/06
There is nothing cheap about the iPod. from $20 car chargers to $399 speakers. Not to mention the best system IMO is the $149 nano. I never noticed these things until i started buying my own stuff with my own money. I MISS BEING A KID!! -Cj
comp386 says:
10:04 AM, 12/29/06
And that's why you get the Creative Vision M . $125 at Discovery Store for a 30 gig video player back a few weeks ago. I never understood why computer audio makers never got more involved with vehicle audio systems. I want EAX in my next vehicle .
alpha01 says:
10:40 AM, 12/29/06
Bizarre oversight in a 2007 car.
firstwagon says:
05:45 PM, 12/30/06
I'm amazed anyone even makes a stereo without an AUX jack these days. It's cheap and easy to add and everyone I know has an MP3 player of some sort.
I love mine, way better then leaving a stack of CD's in the car.
rsholland says:
06:21 PM, 12/30/06
MP3 player? I don't own one, nor do I have any intentions of getting one. Only one of my two 20+-year-old kids have one, and they're both into music.
thebigal says:
01:41 PM, 12/31/06
I think what is stranger still is that cars are even coming with cassette players still. Are cassettes even still produced? I mean with the ease that a CD can be burned and recorded and even they are becoming archaic, I would have thought that the cassette would be long gone - like the old 8 track. The last time I used a cassette player was in high school 8 years ago. I don't even own a cassette player today.
What I would really like to see in cars is the ability to read memory cards. That in my opinion would be much better than an Ipod or MP3's burned onto a CD. You cold load up a 1 or 2 gig memory card that could silp right into a deck and not have a extra accesory laying on the dash or cords running all over...
Of course if the Ipod ever became Bluetooth compatible a car's stereo the same and were able to control the Ipod from the car's stereo wirelessly - now that would be cool. Then you wouldn't need an AUX jack.
genius163 says:
01:01 PM, 01/ 2/07
I use the Griffin iTrip FM transmitter for my iPod. It works well and is more versatile since most cars don't have tape decks anymore.