MiFi: FM Transmitter
The best feature of the Neuros player is its ability to function as a miniature FM station. The unit will transmit a signal carrying your digital audio to any FM receiving device, such as your car radio. This means you can take your whole collection with you everywhere you go: no more carrying around your CD case!
When Neuros detects that headphones are not attached, it enters MiFi transmitter mode. You can either manually enter in a transmission frequency, or have the Neuros search for the channel with the clearest signal. Take it from us, don't use the search feature!
Quality can be quite good if you find a frequency not being used by a local radio station. In a big city like Los Angeles, however, this is hard to do - you will have to change frequencies to get a clear signal. It is annoying to have a radio station DJ wipe out your Anthony Robbins talks. For this reason, your first couple days of using the MiFi feature may be aggravating - so aggravating, in fact, that you may be tempted to throw it out the window. Invariably, each frequency you try will be occupied by a radio station.
With experience, however, you will find the right frequencies for the each area that you drive. My suggestion is to program in these frequencies into your radio and label them with Post-It notes. My labels looked like "10 West of Kellogg Hill" or "210 around Pasadena". We found that the transmission works much better when the device is placed close to the radio or, oddly enough, on your right leg with your right hand on top of the player.
The Neuros allows you to set the gain level of the MiFi transmitter. In our experience, it is best just to set it to the highest level.
There have been reports of people modding the Neuros to boost the FM transmitting power. With a few inexpensive parts and tinkering you can make an external antenna to boost the FM signal. The FCC probably won't like this, but you are free to Google the information for educational purposes.
Recording
You can also record from the FM Radio or Line In inputs, or the built-in microphone. You can even plug in an external microphone to the Line In, but the mic will need to be pre-amplified (powered).
Students may like the microphone recording feature for lectures. The quality is acceptable for an internal microphone, but aspiring "A" students would be advised to place the unit near the professor!
Recording can be done in either MP3 or WAV format with a variety of bit rates and sampling frequencies. MP3 bit rates can range from 64 kbps to 160 kbps, while WAVs can be recorded at 8 kHz to 48 kHz.
