Those of us whose cars didn't come with built-in iPod integration fall into two main camps: the transmitters and the adapters. The transmitters use tiny devices that turn their iPods into little radio stations, broadcasting playlists to their car radios, and generally have cars without cassette players. The adapters do have cassette players in their cars. Unfortunately, they often also have lots of radio stations in the areas in which they drive.

I am an avowed adapter. I work close enough to New York City that there's nary a frequency on my radio that hasn't been claimed by someone. My poor iPod doesn't stand a chance against the broadcasting behemoths of the Tri-State area. Luckily, when I purchased my last car, I had the foresight to choose the CD/Cassette player option over the Multi-CD changer. (If I was really smart, I would have chosen a car that gets better than 20 MPG for a 45-mile commute -- but that's another story.)

What's always bothered me about cassette adapters, though, is that they're downright noisy. I can hear the mechanism spinning inside the cassette deck most of the time, and during soft passages of music, it's downright obnoxious. On home cassette players, pressing the pause button solves the problem quickly; but my car's cassette player has no pause button, and thus no relief from the constant squeak-squeak accompanying each tune. Adapters became a necessary evil; a reluctant Sophie's Choice over transmitters that leaked radio station noise into my iPod playlists.

When the folks at NewerTechnology asked me to review their cassette adapter, then, I have to admit that I agreed with very little enthusiasm. Heck, they apparently didn't even think enough of their own device to give it a name -- it's labeled simply as "Audio Cassette Adapter." (Their iPod transmitter, by the way, is called the "RoadTrip.")

Who could have guessed such an unassuming little device could blow me away so completely. Newer's adapter, in our testing, was almost completely silent. The first time I pushed it into the cassette player of my car, I thought the player's power was off -- I literally could not hear the adapter until I put my ear to the cassette slot. And not only was there no mechanical sound, there was no hiss through my car speakers, either. Turning my iPod on brought even more pleasant surprises. The sound was pristine. And loud. With my previous adapter, I had to push the volume on both my iPod and cassette player to the max to get a decent sound level. With Newer's adapter, the sound is full at low volume and absolutely ear-splitting when cranked up. Newer says it's a result of 24-kt gold contacts and a spring-loaded head that maintains contact with the player's tape head. What I had dismissed as marketing drivel makes an incredible difference in the quality of sound.

The adapter's 44" cord is another nice touch. It allows you to place your iPod pretty much anywhere you like and makes it easier for passengers to control it as well. In practice -- other than for passengers in the back seat -- it goes a long way in making the iPod feel like it's not tethered at all. And, of course, because it uses a standard mini headphone jack, you can use it not only with your iPod, but pretty much any audio device at all.

Priced at $12.99, NewerTechnology's Audio Cassette Adapter is not only a bargain, it's a fantastic, no-compromise solution for playing your iPod in a car or boom box. It's quiet and unobstrusive with sound quality that rivals built-in options. In fact, if it wasn't for its rather bland, generic name, we couldn't find anything to fault at all.

The NewerTechnology Audio Cassette Adapter is available from the company's website.