Review: FM Transmitters: Roadmaster VRFM8/VRFM9, Kensington Pico

We started out reviewing the VRFM8 from Roadmaster, which is an FM transmitter for wirelessly broadcasting music from your iPod, USB stick or other music source over your car’s stereo, but then also got the VRFM9. At about the same time, Kensington was good enough to send us a Pico FM transmitter, so this review turned into a bit of a comparitive review. Other vendors that produce FM transmitters declined to send us review samples (although we did review a Belkin TuneBase late last year). Since the Kensington Pico is built for an iPod Nano, that’s what we used for the majority of the review. The VRFM8 and VFRM9 also take USB thumbdrives which plug directly into the units, so we tested those as well.

VRFM8 and VRFM9

All of the available VR-3 models (4 total) from Roadmaster plug into your car’s cigarette lighter and connect to your iPod or other music source via a cable or via the USB port if the music source is a USB stick. The VRFM8 is quite similar to the VFRM7 ($29.99), but for $5 more also features a ratcheting neck, shuffle, last station recall and last song played for USB sources. The VRFM9 adds a more detailed LCD display including the ability to read the ID3 tags on MP3s on the USB stick and an SD card slot. I don’t quite understand why the price ($69.99) is so high though.

I had the chance to test all of this out in a Lexus with the Mark Levinson Premier sound system, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t blame any sound quality issues on the car’s stereo system. (You should hear what a dynamic song like Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill” sounds like with the volume turned way up!) At any rate, I used the same songs for comparison on both the units and the car’s stereo.

The instructions for the Roadmaster products say not to plug the units in before turning on the car, which I promptly ignored. Really – who is going to follow or remember that? They say that the unit can be damaged and there’s also a change that it may drain your car’s battery. Well, after having the VRFM units plugged in for a few weeks, I can say that both the units and my car battery still seem to work. However, if this is a real issue, Roadmaster would do well to build more resilient products.

The VRFMs are decently compact units and both models I tested had the ratcheting neck feature. The VRFM9 did make a horrible clicking noise when ratcheting up, but it wasn’t a showstopper. Although the VRFM9 had a more detailed LCD display, it was harder to read and I didn’t really need to know the song I was listening to since it was my iPod/USB stick to begin with. I preferred the larger, clearer display of the VRFM8 as well as its larger buttons.

Onto the listening tests. Before taking the units on the road, I decided to test them out sitting still in my garage. I first found a frequency that wasn’t picking up any broadcasts or anything on adjacent frequencies and set my VRFM and stereo to that freq. I plugged in the supplied cable to my iPod Nano and started firing up songs (AAC encoded at 192kbps VBR). My initial reaction was not good. I can’t find a way to put it nicely – the sound quality was terrible. Worse than regular FM transmissions. The sound was bassy, muddy, lack of brightness, with no dynamic separation, which was really apparent in songs with quick transitions between quiet and loud passages. I also found that I had to turn up the volume on both my iPod and car stereo in order to get to a normal level. (Don’t forget, like I did, and switch to your car stereo without turning down the volume first!) I then thought to adjust the equalizer setting on my iPod. Normally, I have it set to Electronic, but found that setting it to Treble Booster improved the sound quality marginally. I found that the quality was really lacking on most of the music I tried, although it’s somewhat bearable for hard rock/metal that is essentially thick drums/guitar/bass.

I also ripped some of the same songs to a USB stick (MP3s at 192kbps VBR). Interestingly enough, the quality was noticeably better than when the source was the iPod. While I think that AAC encoded songs sound marginally better than MP3s, the difference wasn’t as stark as with the cable vs the direct USB source. The cable and/or its input into the unit seemed to me to be the problem. Now while I thought the quality was better, it was still pretty bad, but this time it lacked much of the distortion I found with the cable solution.

Kensington Pico

The Pico FM Transmitter ($54.99 list) is really aptly named – it is a very small, lightweight unit that plugs into the bottom of your Nano. It is as wide and thick as your Nano and only adds about an inch to the overall length. There is a small click-wheel on the right-hand side of the Pico that lets you change the broadcast frequency. I had a bit of a hard time plugging it in all the way, because of the rubber skin that I had on my Nano. Even with the skin removed, I also had a tough time keeping it on, as the Pico does not have the clips that the Apple-supplied USB cable does. However, once on, the Pico was a breeze to set up just like the VRFMs. A display comes up on the iPod and you can select the FM frequency that you’d like to broadcast on. Since there are no cables, you can place your Nano/Pico combo anywhere in your car. But this is harder than it sounds. While you’re holding it, your body acts as a natural antenna and improves the transmission; when you release it, you may find that the quality isn’t good at all, with a lot of static and distortion.

Once I found a good spot for my Nano/Pico combo, I started running through the same set of songs and listening tests, and switching out the Pico for the VRFMs for direct comparison. I found the Pico to have marginally better sound quality than the VRFMs. This is not really saying a lot. All of the same characteristics applied to it: muddy, bassy, no dynamic separation.

Conclusion

I had originally thought to perform more extensive tests on these units, such as driving around while listening, burning songs encoded at the same rate as on my iPod to CD and doing comparisons with my car’s stereo, and even looking for songs on the radio that I could compare directly to a copy on my iPod. However, after running through the basic tests that I reported on above, I didn’t really see the point of going any further. While I don’t claim to have ‘audiophile ears’, I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have felt that what they were listening to sounded fine, while I thought the quality was subpar and distorted. Let me put it this way – I would have to find another way to listen to my MP3 player in my car. Some folks may be perfectly happy with the quality of these FM transmitters, but I recommend that if you’re in the market for one of these units that you try to get a listening test first.

What’s Groovy and What’s Sucky

What’s Groovy: Convenience factor, ease of use.

What’s Sucky: Sound quality, sound quality, sound quality.

Features	Performance	Quality	Value
The VRFMs featured USB inputs and ratcheting necks. The Pico was nice and compact.	In a word: terrible.	Seem to be pretty solidly built products.	For some folks, who don’t mind the sound quality, the cheaper units may not be a bad value.
Overall
This gets 2 stars only b/c of the convenience factor.