If you’ve got someone wearing driving gloves advertising the record player available in your cars, there must be confidence in the anti-skip.
I actually like it better this way, and if I had to pick a problem, less is more. Recently I bought a truck with no CD player in it. It’s got AM/FM, but no antenna on the fender and no adapter to plug it in even if it were there. Luckily, I’m familiar with the compact convenience of the flash drive USB way of storing massive amounts of music in a small space, and it just so happens to have that feature in the cheap, previous-owner-installed radio. It also has a cassette player in the console I bought at the wrecker, for what it’s worth (no additional charge for obsolete electronics). As long as the USB setup keeps working, I’m golden, but I still miss the days of the big binder full of bootleg CDs. Remember those?
There were two types of people: those with the big ninety-six-capacity one that was the size of two stacked pizza boxes, and those with dozens of smaller ones scattered throughout the car that held ten discs each. Me? I evolved from the small ones to the big ones and actually still have the big one sitting dormant by my knee as I type this. I’m not quite old enough for the cassette era and almost too old for the Bluetooth era, so CDs and flash drives fit my world perfectly. Vinyl? Personally, the music I listen to doesn’t require whatever exactly the “vinyl sound” is, not to mention how big, inconvenient, and expensive it is. Also, it was never readily available in a car, at least not since Dodge took a shot at it in the fifties and sixties.
First off, how absolutely ridiculous would the carrying case have to be for a road trip? Forget a binder; you’d need a filing cabinet to carry your music. Second, if memory serves me correct, records can warp in extreme heat, such as the interior of a Dodge in Arizona in July. Regardless, Dodge offered a record player installed under the dash, known as the “Highway Hi-Fi,” a catchy name for a product that never really caught on. It opened like a glove compartment door, with a slide-out tray that held the record player and six records underneath. Apparently, the compartment was shock-proof, passing extensive tests for skipping during cornering and vibration. I’m impressed, but I’m also skeptical, as I remember when CD players would throw error messages when going over train tracks or even on bass-heavy songs if enough wattage was present. I understand that in-car vinyl is being tried again today due to the resurgence of vinyl on the music market. I’ll stick with my CDs and flash drives, no question. I’ve got the stock, the understanding, and I’m still learning how my twelve-year-old computer mouse works.
Have a question or comment for Kelly? Post it at lmtimes.ca/kirk
