Tech Head: When I listen to my iPod in the car, there's an awful 'hissing' sound coming from the speakers

"Hi Tech Head. I use my iPod my car. I plug in the cable and press the AUX button. When the music plays, there's and awful 'hissing' sound coming from the speakers that plays over the music. How do I fix this?"

You should start by changing the track to something that's NOT Bjork.

But seriously. You're using the AUX input on your car stereo, meaning there is a factory installed cable, or a cable you purchased, that plugs your car into your iPod. There is a trick to getting these to work well.

What your car stereo is doing is simply playing what you would normally hear through your headphones. The car's volume control is then turning that up to a volume that you'd like to hear it at, by using the volume control knob on the car. Let me use an analogy to describe what's going on here. Imagine you're in front of a large crowd holding a microphone. If you hold the microphone far from your mouth, or whisper into it, the sound that comes out of the PA system will be quiet. But if you turn the volume of the PA system up, everyone can then hear that you sound like a whispering idiot. And there's also an annoying hissing sound over your voice. You have to make sure that you're feeding a good, loud sound into the microphone. Your car's AUX (or MP3) input is no different.

Speak up, damn it!

THE FIX: Turn up the volume on the iPod to maximum. Then adjust the volume on your car stereo to suit.

When 10 is not enough...

 A word of wisdom: Turn off any "EQ" settings on your iPod. Most people have the EQ setting on their iPod set to Bass or Rock to give the music a bit of bass to compensate for the shitty headphones that came with it. But chances are you've already got the bass turned up on your car stereo to give the radio a bit of 'oompf'. If you have extra bass on your car stereo AND your iPod, you'll have too much bass, resulting in the loose change in the center console bouncing around and creating a buzzing sound that you'll spend hours at stop lights trying to figure out where it's coming from. Just let your car stereo handle the levels.

And some advice from Samuel L Jackson about messing with another persons car stereo levels: "You can crank the volume as much as you want, but don't touch my levels; I got 'em just like I like 'em."

Seriously... DO NOT mess with his levels.