VR3 VRFM8R WMA/MP3 Wireless Modulator, 12 Volt, Black with Remote Reviews

• Get Hot

  
  By AABQHGOBLUBT9 on 2006-02-24
  I've had this gismo for about 1 week. I noticed after my 45 min dirve to work, that it got very hot. I called customer support and they said it was normal for the unit to get hot. Anyway a few days later, the fues blew. I replaced it, and after about 10 min it blew again.
  
  Besides the above issue, VRFM8W works great as described. I think the sound quality is good.
  
  

• VRFM8W,.....does work,.....within reason.

  
  By A2U2KYWHULT11J on 2006-06-05
  I bought the VRFM8W about a week ago and tested it out in 2 cars. The first test was in my Saturn with a Sony CDXGT300 player in the Clearwater, Florida area. I had significant interference on all the 14 stations in trying to tune in the transmitter (clicking mostly),...however I did get one that after 20 minutes of listening did not bother me as much and was acceptable for a "FM" station listen. If you are audio book listening,....it seems to be a bit more easier to deal with the lower fidelity than listening to a favorite song of course. Anyway next I tested it on a standard car am/fm radio in a toyota,....and it worked alot better. I did not have the clicking on the lower settings and was easy to listen to. It seems that my "nicer" radio with the electronics to pull in more stations works to well and causes more interference than the cheaper basic car radio when using the VRFM8W.
  
  

• Worked Great! for a while

  
  By AN5738CWQPVJD on 2006-07-10
  This product is great except the USB support stopped working. I used the device in several cars and the reception was quite good. There was a little hiss, but you can't hear it after you start the engine and my car is fairly quiet. It changes frequency at the lower end of the FM range so you can pick a spot where there is no interference. I found that the first spot was the best so I never had to adjust it. I used a preset on the FM radio so I could always jump to this frequency. This device is great for traveling when you rent a car.
  
  At first, I relied on the USB port to play mp3s from a 250MB flash drive, but this eventually stopped working. Now it plays for a few minutes, makes some strange noises and stops playing. I tried the same mp3s that I first played on it to no avail. So now I use it to broadcast an mp3 player. This still works.
  
  

• It just doesn't work

  
  By ASQE6CIJXX6HH on 2008-02-07
  I would have loved for this thing to work -- it doesn't. On the strongest of the frequencies I could just barely hear the music through the static. On most of the frequencies I could hear nothing at all. Then I tried it on my wife's car, which is newer and has a far better sound system, and I couldn't get any signal on any of the frequencies.
  
  Too bad -- I wanted to use my mp3 player in my car. Back it goes. If you buy this thing, just make sure you can return it for full refund.
  
  

• Not reliable

  
  By A1IUTTROQ7LWTY on 2008-01-20
  I had this item for one week and it broke. Replaced the fuse and it still wouldn't work. I'm waiting on a replacement from the manufacturer.
  
  
• Great for limited use
  By AOB970SQ7AB76 on 2008-03-21
  I got one of these gizmos at a truck stop a while back and it mostly does what it's supposed to do.
  
  The Pros:
  -There are no batteries to mess with or worry about charging or replacing or going bad on you, and thus it's practically zero maintenance. As long as you've got easy access to a 12-volt socket, you're set.
  -USB support is a PERFECT way to get music to these devices. No fuss, no muss, no hassling with special cables or music services and all that jazz. Just plug the flash drive you've already got floating in your pocket into your pc and dump your selected material to it. This feature is also great for podcasts or audio books, if you're the kind who doesn't mind manually managing them. You'll probably never worry about the storage space on your player, you can just buy a larger flash drive when the prices fall to a point you like.
  
  The Cons:
  -The audio input jack on mine gave out after a few months. I rarely used this feature, but it was nice when I wanted to borrow my wife's IPod for a long trip. The USB support still works, however, which is my primary method of using it.
  -There is some interference on my unit. One channel will work fine for a while, then suddenly there will be a ton of buzz and static, or a radio station will suddenly overpower the little transmitter.
  -THIS IS MY BIGGEST GRIPE : the player will only play songs from a memory stick in one order. This isn't a big deal if you're only interested in listening to something from a small set of files stored on your flash drive, like with podcasts. You just fast forward through the tracks till you find what you want to hear. However for large collections of music it makes the device mostly useless, unless you dump some random songs to your flash drive right before heading toward the car.
  
  The simple addition of a working 'shuffle' button to the device and a little more quality control would have made it a nearly perfect solution for controlling what comes out of your car radio. As it is, it's a very practical solution for some applications, and a not very good way to listen to a large library of songs.
  
  
• Save your money
  By A28V0HI6JEUXY3 on 2008-04-02
  I agree with NomDePlume. I had high hopes for this product as well. Even if it worked, sort of, I would have been happy but it didn't even do that. USB connection sucked, and the sound quality using the cord was awful. Customer service was even worse. Simply wasn't worth the money, and it wasn't even all that expensive. I'll just burn a disc while I'm returning mine for a refund.
  
  
• OK, but beware what they don't tell you
  By A15WMKYXFW96UU on 2007-07-26
  Pros:
  -Fill a niche that no other product does.
  
  Cons:
  -Sound quality is radio-only, not CD or mp3.
  -Limited to 2GB file capacity (even though the manual sez unlimited!)
  -Sensitive - have to unplug it when starting the car.
  -Rude and surly tech support.
  
  Summary - When someone else comes up with a replacement, this thing's going in the garbage.
  
  
• Very Low Fidelity!
  By A1K38CMV1U2ZVI on 2008-01-02
  I was expecting more from this product. I used it for 2 weeks, It does not lose signal, works perfectly with my Manufacturer installed radio in my Corolla 2005 at New Jersey Area, But the sound fidelity is terrible, sounds more like AM(amplitude modulation) not even FM. I would recommend this product only if you don't care about the lower fidelity. Also, the USB takes an eternity to play the next song, At the beginning, I thought the device was broken until realized that's how it works.
  
  
• Funciona para mi
  By A309NP73O7F4UQ on 2008-02-28
  El trasmisor funciona bien. Nada excelente pero tampoco nada malo. Al menos puedo escuchar mp3 en mi carro. La calidad del sonido es bastante aceptable y con poca interferencia. Lo mejor es que puedo escuchar mi musica aleatoria.
  
  
• Not the greatest
  By A24W0RVROJVZJF on 2008-05-09
  This product didn't seem to work at all, I sent it back. Occassionally it would play all of one song but mostly it locked up on the first song every time, no matter which song it was or which thumb drive I put in. I tried to reformat them, know they worked on the stereo I had before, but to no avail. Then every time I unplugged it it would start again on the same song and lock up again. Seems to be a very unreliable product.
  
  
• Good No Complaints
  By A13KVI88TGL3I2 on 2006-12-22
  I purchased this for my wife along with an MP3 player and it has worked well so far. We have not experienced the heating up issue that other reviewers have talked about.
  
  4 stars instead of 5 because we do sometimes get some static, but I think that is going to happen with any of the FM transmitters that are available.
  
  
• not much to complain about
  By A1R3KX4VH5ZI4N on 2007-07-22
  its overall a pretty good product. I love the shuffle function. sound quality is not bad. only complaints are the signal is kind of week in my car. antenna is way in the back of my station wagon. also some usb drives dont like to work. but with a little bit of fenagling. i got it to work rather well especially when im on the highway away from radio interference.
  
  
• MP3 Player
  By A18QEH0KV6EKPI on 2007-09-18
  For the money this is a fair deal. The weakness of the product is the limited number of stations that this unit is capable of utilizing. Other than that it serves it purpose. I use it to download mp3 audio programs and then play them while driving. Not the best audio quality but this was not purchased for music. I would buy another one if the need should arise. It is a very reliable product and uses a USB Flashdrive for storage making it very simple to use. But you should know that you cannot fast-forward what you are listening to, you can only go the next audio file.
  
  
• This was a good decision
  By A2AFQB7H8YXVGZ on 2007-12-30
  If you do not want to hear different types of music in the radio, this is the best desicion, you can hear only the music that you want and you carry in your USB.
  Is a fantastic wireless modulator.
  
  Ronny / Costa Rica
  
  
• Works Great !!
  By A3V8XFX8TJEFM2 on 2008-05-06
  As expected from vr3, this one works great. No complaints so far. It plays mp3 off 4GB jumper drive without problem - tried playing continuously for 2.5 hours during my trip to md and didn't have any issues.
  
  
• Cheap unit for a cheap price
  By A1IDH15TJ5MQZO on 2008-05-22
  Unit does everything described in the Product Description but they don't tell you that you have to crank up the radio volume way up to hear anything, the sound quality is only fair, or that the unit is flimsy. It does play MP3 files but I was under whelmed by the overall quality.
  
  
• Uh not that great!
  By A1E5GM4YR8GXG5 on 2008-07-19
  I was disappointed the remote and controls only works for usb drive players. Also the reviews ab it having static are correct. I tried it out this morning and I think I was able to get it on a frequency that didn't have static so I think it will work for my commute car. I might get the usb drive player as opposed to plugging in my mp3 player. So I suppose if there is no other alternative this could possibly work for you but I was disappointed.
  
  
• three
  By AO1BW9FHRQPN8 on 2008-08-07
  i like it ,but i cant use it bec it can drive my flush dribe.i dont know why for me useless. i would like to rtn it if dont need to pay handiling .
  
  
• Average product with some problems
  By A22995AY3ENOIK on 2008-09-05
  I have owned this for about an year. It is almost dying! Here are some key observations:
  
  [1] You have to experiment a bit with frequency. Once tuned, it has a sort of "break-in" period! It will perform better if you don't keep changing frequency often and dedicate a specific channel to mp3 listening. In my case 88.5 FM worked the best.
  
  [2] You can achieve balanced and almost static free audio by playing with >| button on mp3 player and volume control on your car stereo. Read mp3 player's instruction booklet for more.
  
  [3] Over the time (6 to 9 months), mp3 player developed loose contact problem. USB stick slides out just a little of a slot due to gravity-pull and road vibrations. You will end up pulling out and reinserting USB drive again and again. The ones with SD slot do better in this regard. I do not get loose contact problem with SD slot.
  
  Also, the 6-position hinge becomes very very loose and will loose its ability to hold positions and will always dangle to the lowest position making display unreadable.
  
  When it works, it is good, It does not offer you playlist capabilities with USB stick or SD card. If you own a full-featured mp3 player, you can edit playlist there. It is cheap. Medium to heavy users: Plan to buy a new one every six months to an year!
  
  

• Kingston DTI 4 GB USB Flash Drive
• Kingston Data Traveler 1 GB USB Flash Drive ( DTI/1GB )
• VR3 MP3 PLAYER WMA USB SD FM MODULATOR TRANSMITTER
• Kingston 2 GB SD Flash Memory Card SD/2GB
• SanDisk 2GB SD Memory Card (SDSDB-2048, Bulk Package)