FM Transmitter and equalizer issues; what numbered buttons and backpack swap do

[TheLQ]

I've recently acquired an old Neuros and am needing some help and guidance on how to use it. Since creating 3 topics would be ridiculous, I'm just going to put all my questions here and hope somebody see's them.

#1: FM Transmitter issue
When upgrading to the latest firmware I discovered the FM transmitter feature since it was enabled by default. When testing with the simple radio in my cheap alarm clock it worked fine. However when I took it to my car I was dismayed that it didn't work when on the dashboard. Messing with the gain worked somewhat okay but still yielded somewhat crappy sound. Moving to the back helped but rendered it useless since I couldn't drive and change songs. Plus, changing to a <100.0 MHz channel since 100.0MHz+ is somewhat crowded in my area got worse results.

How can I effectively use it a car setting without modifying my existing car stereo? I'm not familiar with many radio concepts, so don't be too technical.

#2: Equalizer Issues
On most MP3 players I jack up the bass to sound better to me. However when switching to the Bass Boost equalizer setting any bass is this garbled mess, forcing me to stick with the default setting. Strangely however, turning it down to fix a possible power issue didn't fix it. And sadly, updating the firmware didn't fix it either.

Is there some way to get good bass without making it sound garbled? This issue doesn't happen on several other MP3 players that I've had, one even from the time period that the Neuros came from

#3: What do the numbered buttons on the side do?
Until Neuros sends me the manual, I have no idea what the numbered buttons do. What are they? They don't respond to anything, and the only place it seems I could set them is in the presets menu, but in there there's no option to change anything.

#4: What is backpack swap?
One of the more curious options in the menu is "Backpack Swap". My educated guess is that the music is read into flash storage, but that wouldn't make sense since that consumes more power and the HD is still spinning for the same amount of time. What is it?

Thanks for your time

[ChadV]

1) I find I have the best luck when using an existing but weak radio station, or one in a giant valley of empty.  Stations adjacent to existing stations get more interference.

I also have the gain on mine set to about 3/4 of the way to maximum.

If you still aren't getting good reception, bite the bullet and switch to mono instead of stereo.  It broadcasts the single channel at almost twice the strength of the two channels in stereo.  (Weird FCC restriction...)

2) What headphones/earbuds are you using, or is this with the broadcaster?  Generally when using the FM broadcast I set my EQ for "flat/none" and do all of the EQ through the car stereo.

3)  They're preset buttons.  You can set them to either a radio station or a song.  If you set it in the first 15 seconds of a song, it just cues up that song.  After that, it sets a full bookmark, including timestamp.

4)  It is for people that have multiple backpacks.  You run the "Backpack Swap" when preparing to remove the HDD backpack and use the battery-only backpack.  (The Neuros had 128MB of flash in the controller, the Neuros II had 256, and you could use it with a battery-only backpack for when biking / exercising / performing other activities that are not HDD friendly.)

[TheLQ]

Wow, didn't expect such a quick response! Thanks for the help, but...

2) I'm talking about in just normal mode with the broadcaster off playing music through my headphones. I'm a fan of bigger over the head headphones, but I did try with some in ear headphones and my computer speakers. All had the same problem of bass being garbled, but I know my speakers can go down that low. So its something wrong with the Neuros, but I have no idea what

4) As I've never had a hard drive based MP3 player before, is its safe to do things like keep it in my backpack while walking, putting on a car dash while driving (even on gravel/dirt roads), or other similar not as bouncy activities? I'm just not sure on how fragile the included harddrives or laptop harddrives in general are.

Thanks again

[ChadV]

2)  That's not something I've run into...  If you back the bass off in the EQ, does the distortion go away, or is it still there, just quieter?

Can you give us a list of example songs and how you have them encoded?

4)  Those activities should be fine...  You generally want to avoid using it while jogging (lots of up and down) or biking (would likely not survive a wipe-out).  Also, make sure if you put it on your dash that it's not going to slide off the dash and onto the floor.

[TheLQ]

2) The song is called "Loudness (Hardstyle Masterz Remix)" by Max Enforcer (yes, its techno), and comes from a CD. The highest quality version I could find online is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F99KJpm4bUA (skip to 1:30).

Here are the specs of my copy:
Type: MP3 (MPG 1 Layer III)
Bitrate: 220
Frequency: 44100
Mode: Joint Stereo

[MaxPrdctns]

you can download the manual here...

http://www.retrevo.com/support/Neuros-Digital-Audio-Computer-128MB-MP3-Players-manual/id/549ci853/t/2/