Cygnett GrooveTransmit In-car iPod and iPhone transmitter
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Cygnett GrooveTransmit In-car iPhone, iPod and MP3 player transmitter.
UK price: £49.99.
Pros: Sturdy gooseneck and cradle.
Cons: Not digital quality sound, fiddly tuning buttons.
Verdict: Just about worth the palava.
Rating: 
Available from: Amazon
Product Review
What is going on with car audio? We’ve got digital radio, mp3s, iPhones and so on but cars often don’t seem to be able to cope with them. So now we’re being forced to use Heath Robinson contraptions like this and the Pure Highway to link to our ancient car stereos.
It’s like when I was a teenager with wires dangling all over the car as I tried to wire a crap old cassette player into the car radio or set up some household hi-fi speakers in the boot. I just want car manufacturers to catch up with the rest of the audio world and give us decent multi-functional units built in. They’re decades out of date already.
Anyway, rant over. This is a good quality attempt to link an audio accessory to your existing car stereo using the well-trodden path of sending a little FM signal to the radio, just like the Pure Highway does to send DAB stations to your non-digital car radio.
The Cygnett unit is primarily devised to link to an iPod or iPhone because the cradle doesn’t fit anything else. You have to use a lead to connect into the headphone output of other devices and leave the cradle empty sticking out in the middle of your dashboard.
This docking unit sits on a sturdy black gooseneck that comes out of a cigarette lighter socket. The cradle has tuning buttons, lights and displays the selected FM frequency. It works in reverse to most other in-car transmitters. You select an ‘empty’ frequency on the car radio then tune the GrooveTransmit to that.
It’s fiddly and impossible to do on the move if you suddenly lose your frequency. But when it’s all locked on it sounds fine, but not as good as a digital system because you’re only getting FM quality.
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