Accessories Supplies
Soundfly SD WMA/MP3 Player Car Fm Transmitter for SD Card
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C_Meister
October 21, 2012 at 4:11 pm
What a great FM transmitter.,
I’ve had an VR3 FM USB Car Transmitter for two years. It had no remote unlike the Soundfly, but I loved using it. However, there were things that I found most
frustrating when using it and I didn’t realise this until after I’d purchased it.
VR3 MP3 Player FM Transmitter frustrations:
1) It wouldn’t remember where I last was listening to.
2) I couldn’t fast forward nor rewind. Arrgh! You could only skip between tracks. This was frustrating because I have a habit of rewinding to listen to parts of my audio tracks again and again and of course I can’t fast forward through averts. It was especially frustrating because of point 1 above as I would always have to start listening from the beginning of a track. Particularly annoying when listening to long tracks.
3) No remote – Please note most FM transmitters don’t come with FF or RW functions on the remote’s either.
4) It was white and it was ugly.
5) Limited frequency range. A lot of these devices only allow you turn use the upper and lower FM frequency ranges.
6) It takes USB dongles and SD cards but the SD cards are limited to 2GB.
Now for the Soundfly SD:
1) The SoundFly SD remembers exactly where you were last listening to. This is so refreshing as I can just turn off the car and when I next climb back in and start the car, with the SoundFly SD plugged into the car lighter socket, it just starts right of from where I left last. Awesome! Bear in mind I have a new model car less than four years old, but a lot of these devices just die when a car is started and the device has been accidentally left in. I’ve not had a single problem with using the Soundly this way, and I believe I have no reason to worry about it. You even have a bookmarking facility.
2) I can fast forward and rewind to my hearts content. Even with the remote.
3) The remote is is actually quite handy, especially when driving. You can certainly use the controls on the device itself, but the remote is easier. It’s not too difficult to remember the position of the keypad buttons, so using the remote while driving is quite easy. Don’t crash.
4) This FM transmitter is black. The device itself is a heck of a lot more attractive than the VR3 I have. It’s even smaller.
5) You can tune into all the FM frequency range in single steps, so there’s no shortage of places to find a gap in the FM range. The Soundfly can remember up to seven bookmarked spots. As for the strength of the FM transmitter, it’s certainly no worse than the VR3. But unlike the VR3 I have a much broader spectrum of FM frequencies to try to find a clear spot. Much better.
6) The device takes USB dongles & SD cards. But this device takes the High Capacity ones up 32GB.
Other points to note. You can also connect your iPod or MP3 player via the supplied cable. You also get a 10A fuse. In case you can’t figure out what it’s for, and it’s not stated in the instructions, the device has a fuse inside the part that pushes into the lighter socket. That should blow before the device does. Handy if you leave the device in all the time. If the device stops working, check the fuse. You unscrew the end. The instructions are clear, but one point of note is that it doesn’t show you how to change the fuse.
I’m so happy with this FM transmitter and highly recommend it to anyone who’ll listen. The only thing I can think that is lacking with this is Bluetooth. I would love for this device to be able to communicate with my phone or Bluetooth headset (if I had some), or or an MP3 player that had Bluetooth.
W. Wilson
October 21, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Why Sound Fly? Who is Satechi?,
I ordered this curious thing online to solve one of my most insane driving frustrations, ADVERTISING! Instead of corporate tripe interrupting my peace of mind every few songs, I set my home PC to record choice streams for hours on end all night and save them on my SD card. Who hoo! For less than the cost of a new radio for 3 vehicles, and without the hassle of carting around a bunch of CD’s life is good!
The sound fly works like it should, like you’d expect and it’s really simple, intuitive. I can play MP3’s off my cell phone with the little adapter cable they include. The plug in unit is flexible for easy visibility, though the only drawback might be the red LED display is washed out in bright direct sunlight. I find this a very fair trade off for the ease of visibility at night. I plugged this FM transmitter into my car and could receive the signal in my truck 2 or 3 parking spaces away, *more* than good enough! I do not need Blue Tooth so this is perfect for me. After reading the minimalist instruction sheet, I realized I had to name my music folder ‘MP3’ and put the files in a subdirectory, then the Sound Fly automatically can search and skip to where I want. I love the Bookmark button on the remote since my files are sometimes 500m or more, it saves where I stopped it and restarts without having to fast forward 2 or 3 hours.
My unit arrived in an astonishingly short 3 days. I had a small inconvenience with the nifty remote control being inoperative, but I must absolutely commend Satechi and their people in San Diego for being VERY VERY prompt, trusting and sincere in their customer service by promptly sending me a working replacement. I got email replies from them within 24 hours or less. I’m sure the bad part situation was one of those darn one in a million things that just happens. I highly recommend that you can trust them to deliver what they offer…a good product and professional service. I should also say the USPS did their job too, they surely could have lost it for us! If you misplace or lose the remote yourself, the unit is still quite functional, though you lose bookmark and fast forward functions.
I’m a happy guy! Thanks. W. Wilson
PS. You might like Somafm or RadioParadise, two of my favourite streams that have NO advertising.
UPDATE March 15 2010
Still working great. Here’s a couple things I wish I had been able to know before I bought it. It can accept USB drives, the socket is on the bottom edge, center. The audio cable is a MINI stereo style on the left side near the top and the supplied cable is kinda short so I bought an extension at my local radio rip off store…so I could look at my BlackBerry to select files without bending my face to the dash. If you have the audio cable plugged in, the USB and the SD sources will not play and this *may* cause you to panic and think the unit died…which it hasn’t! You HAVE to understand and follow the file folder structure and it’s limitations or it won’t play. Top folder should be ‘MP3’ or ‘mp3’ . I have not used ‘soundfly’ which is suggested also. There is a VU meter function, when music plays, the display ramps up and down with the beat. It WILL work without the remote, but not as nicely. When fast forwarding/ or reversing it has several speeds, indicated by display maquee style with a bracket which roughly imitates an arrow (A really nice feature) The unit will remember the last song playing when the power is turned off, but it will start at the beginning of the file again. If your file is really really long, you will prefer using the book mark feature to make it start at the same point within the file when it powers up. If you pull out the USB or SD card, it will forget your place and have to initialise again, which I should mention can take like 30seconds with a big card. I used an 8gig SD and it seemed like forever for it to scan and index / initialize. The limit I think is 500 files so anything more than 2gig is kinda overkill in my opinion. I just keep several 1gig cards with different genres of music on them. You can hot pull and insert the SD or USB cards. Switching SD cards while driving is okay and easy to do. The SD card inserts from the right side with a positive spring loaded catch feel, no doors, covers or fumbling. The unit is pretty rugged. The head tilts to accommodate your socket angle / visibility and after all this time of yanking it still holds its place without drooping. My one gripe is that it doesn’t fit all lighter sockets tight. I have to do the *fold up a receipt into a little shim and insert it as I plug in the unit to the car* trick. Maybe it was intended for foreign/ etc cars. I drive a Malibu, a Chevy P/U and a Saturn and a F-550 and they all are a loose fit. One road bump and it loses power. One paper shim and it will run all night, playing away looping around to the beginning of the file list again and again. It gets a bit warm, but not…
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Darryl Pierce "RadioMan"
October 21, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Nice Sound and Features, limited transmission range,
I bought this unit with a specific purpose in mind using the RDS functionality. I just recieved this unit yesterday and it is pretty impressive considering the low costs and RDS functionality.
1. Sound – This is tricky. The sound is good using USB and SD cards as your source. However, the sound is great when you use the Analog input(2.5mm input I would have expected the sound to be better with USB/SD cards. I was blown away when I played my Sony MP3 player thru the input jack. It sounded great. 4.5 Stars here)
2.) Power – This is powered by a 12v cigarette lighter plug. I wanted to use it in the house and power it from an AC outlet. I used a litte converter specifically designed for that purpose. On other units, as soon as you plug the unit into AC, you get a nasty little hum, and sometimes static. When this unit, it is very clean, no hum at all. Five Stars for that)
3.) Ease of Use – This unit has a very simple display that can be cryptic if you don’t read the instructions. It is easier to use via the remote control,than the buttons on the unit. Most notable is the equalizer display which also doubles as a Volume Unit VU) meter. The instructions don’t mention that, but that is how it works. There is also a volume control on the remote, but not on the unit itself. You can save up to 7 FM freqencies in memory and use the remote to scan the frequencies, pretty cool.
4.) RDS – This is the feature I was most curious about. The instructions say that RDS only works with the USB memory port, however that is not true. It also worked with the SD card port too, which was a nice surprise. The SD card hides away neatly. When you use a USB Flash drive, the flash drive sticks out and takes away from the compact form factor. The unit displays the name of the Song, track number and folder name. It also displays ” Musicfly” intermittenly when a song is playing via SD or USB use. It displays “Musicfly” continuously if no song is playing. I am assuming this is an advertising splash screen from Sound Fly). Didn’t see anyway to get rid of this.
Here is another operational quirk not mentioned in the intructions. If you decide to use the Analog input, but leave a USB or SD card in the unit,t he unit will keep playing and displaying the Song information on your RDS radio screen even though the audio switches the Analog Source. This was actually a plus for me because it means I can search through memory cards while listening to another audio source.
5.) Transmission Range – This is the only area where I was dissappointed. In all fairness to Satechi, it is advertised as a personal transmitter, and is probably not designed to transmit very far. That being said, I have other personal units that will transmit over 75 ft. line of sight) with no problem. This unit may give you 15 ft, but operates best within 10 ft of your radio. If Sound Fly would add just a little bit more power to this unit, it would be a great unit.
Summary — The sound is great on the Analog input jack, Sound is good using SD or USB input. The remote control is very useful and adds some functionality that you can’t do with buttons on the unit. don’t loose your remote) It can be powered with AC/DC converters sources without the worry about HUM and interference. The RDS display works well if your radio is so equipped. I have only been able to find, 1 other RDS capable transmitter(Kennsington) and it is for the Ipod only and costs twice as much as this one.)
The only downdside for this unit for me is the transmission range, but that should not be a problem for anyone using this in a car.
Would I buy another one ? Yes
Update – 8/14/08
I did finally take this unit out an use in my car driving around town and it worked flawlessy most of the time. The only propblem, as I mentioned earlier, is power. You get a litte bit of hiss on the radio at various times, and I also noticed that if you pass another car that may be using a similar device, you will get interference from that passing cars’ transmitter. As we use to say in the old days of CB radio, other transmitters just ” step all over” this device. I don’t have this problem with my VR3 transmitter. So again, if Satechi would add just a litte more power, this would be a 5 Star Unit.
Update – 11-10-08
This unit is great and has quickly become my favorite player transmitter. The sound is great and I only seem to have interferrence in heavy traffic or downtown Atlanta) settings. This unit is so easy to use. I also want to correct something I stated earlier, you can adjust the volume without the remote. You just have to press the right sequence of buttons to do it. I plan to order two more of these for Christmas Gifts.
Update – 10-21-09
Still love this transmitter. Take it with me when traveling because it works great in…
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