the more and more i think about it.. what a great idea!
a changer or headunit thats capable of decoding mp3's off cd's.. countless hours of play.. download 150 songs, burn em to a cd.. and play forever..

=)

how big is a mp3 decoder anyways? im sure someone out there could make one to fit one in a changer..

I have done a ton of research lately about this topic. There are quite a few products that are either out or comeing but nothing that I would consider very mature. Rockford has an MP3 changer that goes in the trunk, problem is that you must use their headunit. There is also empeg.com which is an indash player, and autopc, but after that its white boxes or various handheld rigs. If you goto www.mp3.com under hardware, they track various products.
I program computers for a living and have been contemplating the idea of doing a computer system in my car, running of a touch screen LCD in place of the HeadUnit. Considering the height is great with the indash cd and tape, I should be able to get at least a 5" or 6" screen in there. Problem is I don't want to do it just for MP3's. If I were going to do it, I would want a slick system that does GPS, FM/AM, maybe a scaled internet services. GoAmerica offers 19,200 Wireless for $60/mo. Which isn't bad consider how cool it would be to have an indash webbrowser. =}
okay went on tangent. All of this takes time to develop though, I will probably do it next winter. By that time I figure the technology will definatly be there.

http://www2.empeg.com/

or available now from Japan-Direct.com at $600 plus $72 for shipping and insurance.

There are others coming from Alpine, http://www.mambox.com/

I am waiting for the Z919, or similar.<ul><li><a href="http://Z919">http://www.kenwoodcorp.com/j/products/car_audio/index.html</a></li></ul>

<center><img src="http://www.maximumpc.com/route66/images/index_case.jpg"></center><p>very interesting ideas... still early in development though.

-eric
<a href="http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~leeep/audi/">Jaspis/Opal '00 Avant 1.8TQTipS</a><ul><li><a href="http://www.maximumpc.com/route66/">The Route 66</a></li></ul>