Car audio systems toying with MP3

The race is on to market in-car audio systems that will end the behind-the-wheel fumbling for cassette tapes or CDs, by storing and playing files in the MP3 format.

Among pioneering systems now being offered is a $1,999 in-dash player capable of storing as much as 1,000 hours of music — enough to drive round-trip from Los Angeles to New York City more than 10 times without listening to the same song twice.

"MP3 as a format is not going to go away,'' said analyst Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc., a California-based research firm. "The whole idea of bringing digital music to the automobile is inevitable.''

Many, in fact, see MP3 technology as helping to make CDs and cassettes archaic for commuting Americans who spend so much time on the road, trolling radio stations or their music collections for the right tune.

By offering in-car MP3 capabilities, companies large and small hope to profit from the format made famous by Napster, the wildly popular online music-swapping service now legally crippled.

Thanks largely to Napster, the MP3 format for digitally compressed audio has become the de facto standard. Though record labels are bent on making Napster Inc. go the way of the eight-track tape, MP3 music is here to stay.

Now, companies who see cars as an overlooked market are pushing the MP3 players that already are widely popular in Walkman-style form. International Data Corp. predicts that portable segment alone will grow from the estimated 1.3 million units shipped nationwide last year to 6.7 million in 2003.

"A year ago, you could count the number of portable MP3 player vendors on your hand. Now I've counted well over 60,'' said IDC analyst Bryan Ma.

In-vehicle digital audio isn't expected to catch fire immediately but many see the technology as a vogue item for "early adopters,'' tech-savvy consumers willing to pay extra to be on the cutting edge, even before prices make affordable to the masses.

"When the competition heats up, the prices will come down,'' Bajarin said, predicting MP3-ready vehicle products are three to five years from true mass appeal. "But if customers start demanding this, vendors will move.

"People are continuing to tell the industry that buying a CD with 13 cuts, of which they only want two or three, is the issue. You can customize MP3s with the music you really want.''

Well put, said Rio Inc. president Jim Cady, whose company is hustling to market its new Rio Car in-dash unit. The digital player integrates with existing tape decks, AM/FM radios, CD players and amplifiers.

The unit slides out of a standard car stereo slot and can be attached to a computer, with a USB cable, for transferring MP3 files. It can also be attached to a home stereo system for listening.

The offering by the division of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sonicblue Inc. comes in four versions — all available at Rio's e-store, www.riohome.com — ranging from a $1,199 unit with a 10-gigabyte hard drive to a 60GB unit for $1,999, the latter able to store up to 1,000 hours of audio.

"Basically, you can take your entire music collection wherever,'' Cady said of Rio Car, which features a small LED display that shows what's playing and lets users customize playlists.

Not to be left out, auto parts-supplier Visteon Corp. within weeks expects to market its MACH MP3, an in-dash model capable of playing up to 10 hours of MP3-formatted songs stored on a CD. The device also plays conventional audio CDs.

Visteon's offering — to be sold on the company's Web site, www.evisteon.com — will fetch $369, be available in any of five faceplates, and have a volume knob doubling as a rapid-fire song selector.

"This will fit right into the dash and look like it was factory-installed,'' said Dave Cheney, supervisor of the MP3 product section at Visteon, spun off last year by Ford Motor Co.

While Cheney said "Visteon saw early on this was more than a fad,'' Scott Saari — the company's manager of radio product engineering — expects all Visteon-supplied radios to be MP3-capable within two or three years.

All the while, car-stereo makers Aiwa, Blaupunkt, Clarion and Rockford Fosgate have moved to capitalize on the growing MP3 craze with components of their own.

At least for now, Precision Car Stereo's general manager Mike Kelly said his Mountain View, Calif., shop doesn't stock MP3-ready audio systems and has fielded only a handful of inquiries about such products, mostly from "techno dot-commers.''

"We can get them, but demand isn't as hot as it should be for us to carry them,'' Kelly said. "Not at least at this point.''

That doesn't dampen Cady's enthusiasm that sales of in-dash digital audio players will take off soon enough.

"If you look at audio technology over the past 20 years, it hasn't changed much, giving the consumer littler more than different lights and buttons — nothing really to get excited about,'' said the Rio executive. "If you want to stay in the car audio business, this is the business you'll have to be in. Digital music is here to stay.''

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