Hey,
if I connect my sansa fuze to the car stereo using the auxiliary port and play songs from the sansa fuze.Will it consume the battery of the sansa fuze?
Yup. put the EQ on Normal and crank the Fuze volume for best results…but it will use your battery just like always
Wont it consume battery life in excess???
Isn’t there a way to charge the fuze while the fuze is connected to the auxiliary port
all you need is a car charger:wink:
It wont consume any more battery life than if you were playing it with headphones in. There is a way to charge it while playing it in the car. Check this out…
Any generic USB car charger should keep your Fuze nicely charged. If you have a relatively decent car stereo, don’t expect the headphone jack to sound particularly good.
@bdb wrote:
Any generic USB car charger should keep your Fuze nicely charged. If you have a relatively decent car stereo, don’t expect the headphone jack to sound particularly good.
Can you expand on your statement a bit? I ask because I am considering getting an aftermarket car stereo with AUX input specifically to listen to my Fuze. I am expecting this will sound much better than the Griffin FM transmitter I use now, but your statement makes me wonder if I should choose a higher model with USB input. (If you’re interested, I’m looking at the Clarion CZ109 which has a high/medium/low AUX input switch.)
I’ve since found that it sounds OK if you do as mentioned earlier - turn off the EQ and crank the Fuze volume to full. Leaving the EQ on makes it sound much worse; that was the mistake I was making. I still don’t think it sounds as good as playing those same MP3 files on the stereo itself, but the difference isn’t huge.
Personally, I have a Kenwood system that has a USB plug, and I put my music on USB flash drives.
Message Edited by bdb on 05-09-2009 07:00 PM
@bdb: Thanks for the quick response. Have you tried listening to Fuze files through the USB port on your Kenwood? Do they sound (much?) better than through the headphone jack?
The newer head units do support multiple folders and folder levels now, but I haven’t seen any reasonably-priced ones which support navigation by artist/album/genre, or playlists, either.
I can see this coming down to a choice of better navigation control with the Fuze and headphone jack vs. better quality sound through the stereo USB port.
@resnbl wrote:
@bdb: Thanks for the quick response. Have you tried listening to Fuze files through the USB port on your Kenwood? Do they sound (much?) better than through the headphone jack?
The newer head units do support multiple folders and folder levels now, but I haven’t seen any reasonably-priced ones which support navigation by artist/album/genre, or playlists, either.
I can see this coming down to a choice of better navigation control with the Fuze and headphone jack vs. better quality sound through the stereo USB port.
A lot of the head units with USB ports are finicky with non-Apple players, unfortunately.Given the choice, I would go for an AUX IN jack every time. 
@resnbl wrote:
@bdb: Thanks for the quick response. Have you tried listening to Fuze files through the USB port on your Kenwood? Do they sound (much?) better than through the headphone jack?
I have, though I don’t use it that way. Basically it uses folder navigation regardless of whether the Fuze is MTP or MSC. An interesting anomoly - it sees MTP songs in MSC mode, even though a computer can’t. As far as I know, no car stereos recognize anything in the Fuze’s microSD slot, so that wouldn’t be a very good option for you since your Fuze is mostly external flash.
Folder navigation does get a little cumbersome with 8GB, but its still not bad. I got a player with the USB port in the back, with a little extension that runs into a compartment in the dashboard. The aux cable is in there too. No messy wires that way, and it doesn’t attract thieves.
Sound-wise, USB is better but not significantly better. The headphone jack (with volume up & no EQ) reminded me of the slightly “dead” sound of MP3s at a lower bitrate, though thats really not as noticeable when the car is moving. With the Fuze EQ set, it sounds terrible. I don’t want to to futz with the volume and EQ every time I use my Fuze, and dealing with the Fuze’s menu system while driving seemed unsafe, so using my Fuze in the car doesn’t appeal to me as much as plain old USB thumb drives.
Having something other than CDs (or worse, radio) is really nice, though! I used to burn songs to MP3-CDs; CD-RWs were too slow to load, and CD-Rs were wasteful…now I can just copy a new album onto a flash stick and its all set to go!
Thanks for the info. I hadn’t realized that most of my Fuze’s storage would not be readable via USB.
There doesn’t seem to be much advantage for me to have a car radio USB port currently. I will probably trade in my car in a year or two, and the newer models I’ve peeked at so far don’t support USB, so there’s no point in getting “used to” (and paying for) a feature I won’t have in the future. (Since the newer cars already have AUX ports, as well as steering-wheel controls and possibly BlueTooth support, the cost of adding the interfaces for these features to a receiver I buy now makes it unlikely I will take this unit with me to a new car).
Since I’ll be replacing my double-height CD/radio/cassette with a single-height unit, the new harness includes a “CD pocket” to fill the extra space. I figure I can stow the Fuze in there and it will not be easily visible to prying eyes.
Just a quick update to report my findings: I opted for better sound quality instead of additional features like USB. I bought a Pioneer with the AUX port and have connected my Fuze through the headphone jack. In short, the sound is fantastic: not just louder, but much clearer/cleaner than using the FM transmitter with my previous radio especially on some lower quality podcasts (using the “vocal” equalizer setting on the Pioneer). This model of Pioneer has a “sound level adjustment” for the AUX port, so I don’t have to crank up the volume for the Fuze so much. The receiver also came with a remote, but I’m not sure why I would use it, and I’m sure not letting any “backseat drivers” get their hands on it! 
I have tried creating a test MP3/WMA/WAV CD, figuring I would put my “old standbys” type music on there, and use my Fuze for the more dynamic material. I found the sound quality to be very good, but folder navigation is somewhat cumbersome unless you have the disc layout memorized. Also, keeping track of songs encoded in MP3 or WMA vs. the OGG format I prefer on the Fuze can complicate things on the PC.
Disclaimer: absolutely everything sounds considerably better with this receiver compared to the stock unit I had, so how much improvement is due to a better receiver and how much is from using the AUX/headphone connection vs. the FM transmitter I can’t really determine. All I can say is: I think I’m going to go for a drive and listen to some tunes! I wish I had done this earlier instead of going the “cheap” route with the FM transmitter.
