iTrip review

No bigger than a half-eatenpacket of Polos, the iTrip is an FM transmitter designed to fit snugly into the top of an iPod.

In fact, it's exactly the same width and depth as the iPod itself. When it's plugged in, music played on the iPod can be picked up by any radio within ten feet or so - which makes it perfect for transmitting to a home stereo, as well as to a car radio.

Plug in your connection

The iTrip has two connectors: a mini jack plugs into the headphone socket on the iPod, which also draws the tiny amount of power required by the iTrip. It turns on when it's is plugged in and switches off automatically after 30 seconds of silence. The other connector is a blank locator that fits into the iPod's FireWire port and holds the device in place.

When installed, the iTrip looks like a natural addition to the iPod, matching it perfectly for size and colour. Note, however, that the current iTrip will not fit the new iPod - although Griffin is working on a redesigned version.

The ingenuity really lies in the transmission frequencies used. Where other devices broadcast on just one or two frequencies, the iTrip is capable of transmitting on 100 frequencies between 88.1MHz and 107.9MHz, to ensure the best reception. Rather than tinkering with the iPod's software, the iTrip adopts a novel solution: 100 new 'songs' are downloaded into iTunes from the CD that accompanies the transmitter, appearing on the iPod in their own playlist.

To select a frequency, you first choose one on your radio that has no interference from nearby stations. Then, after turning the volume down to about halfway on the iPod, choose the frequency you want from the playlist and 'play' it. It's important to pause playback at this point, or the iPod will go to the next frequency automatically, as if it were playing the next song in the playlist. After that, it's simply a matter of choosing a song from any playlist and playing it to test the efficacy of the chosen frequency.

In practice, it's easy to set up and use. If your radio tuner has only a 'seek' function and won't let you tune to an unused frequency, then it's a matter of looking for a gap between stations and setting the iTrip to a frequency in that gap.

The transmitter works well in a home environment, where it makes the iPod work like a remote control for your stereo, broadcasting its music from wherever you are in the room. Its performance in cars depends very much on the make of car. Car aerials are, naturally, located outside the car, which means there's a big chunk of metal bodywork between the iTrip and the aerial: in our tests, reception was better in some cars than in others. Soft-top convertibles produced the best results, but when used in cars with more solid roofs, there was a slight muddiness in the reception.

This muddiness shows itself in terms of lost bass and treble and, while it's possible to use the iPod's Treble Booster equaliser setting to recover some of the lost frequencies, you'll probably have to adjust the equaliser on your radio tuner as well for best results.

The equaliser

Although you can create custom equaliser patterns in iTunes, there's no way to transfer these to the iPod, so it may be worth experimenting with presets such as Classical and Electronic, which reduce the mid-range at the same time as boosting bass and treble.

Even after choosing a radio frequency that works well - and it can take some experimentation to find one with really good reception - it's not uncommon to find local radio stations suddenly breaking in as you drive from region to region. However, this is unavoidable, owing to the nature of the technology.