Music is the food of life and if one can carry music while driving a car, the journey definitely becomes more pleasant and melodious. This idea gave rise to car stereos that are placed inside the car in such a way that the sound is perfectly balanced.

It consists mainly of amplifiers, speakers, CD or cassette players and equalizers. It is the latest technology that has gifted music lovers with portable car stereos. These days, one can find quite a few portable devices that can be easily connected to car stereos.

These portable devices can only play files in MP3 format which has the characteristic of using less space on the hard drive and memory card. Unfortunately, the sound quality of this file format is quite inferior compared to CD or WAV files. But this problem could be easily avoided if MP3s are converted at 320kbps and the sound quality can be improved in a car stereo.

An eight gigabyte memory card is another type of popular portable car stereo that can be loaded with car MP3’s. That will allow you to listen to more than five hundred songs. These can be connected to portable MP3 players in the car and thus music can be taken with you in the car.

The USB port is also gaining popularity as a portable car stereo. Having a USB port on your car stereo is pretty cool. The best advantage of a USB port is that people can also carry their preferred music in memory sticks along with them and can play it according to their mood. Portable car stereo memory cards are preferred because they are much cheaper than portable MP3 players. With the stiff competition in the market, the prices of memory cards will go down and bring more space for music at a lower price.

The portable car stereo also gives us a safety benefit. In a traditional car stereo there is a risk of theft. But with the portable car stereo, CD collections aren’t left behind to be stolen. When leaving the car you can easily disconnect the memory card.

As gifts of advanced technology, the market is flooded with Blu-Ray, high-definition discs and HD-DVD as portable car stereos. These advanced discs offer audio quality equivalent to what we get in a home theater. But before going for this new type of portable car stereo, it’s important to know whether or not it’s compatible with your existing equipment. This is one of the basic points that one should keep in mind while buying a portable car stereo.

The other things one needs to consider while choosing a portable car stereo are the type and quality of the media playback system, CD players, changers, etc.