Great sound, but poor build quality, broke in 3 months

I have an ipod, and I needed a way to listen to my ipod in my car. I have a 2006 Honda CR-V, which comes with a factory cassette deck. When I first got an MP3 player (pre-ipod), I dug out my old sony cassette adapter, which was about 10 years old. It worked great, for about a year. Mostly it was used to allow my 17-year old to listen to her MP3 player while riding in my car. Then it started sounding "sick", and it quit working.

I was not able to find a sony, so I bought another brand, and was VERY disappointed in the sound quality, but I used it until it broke.

After it broke, I finally found the CPA-9C, and was really excited! When I plugged it in, it sounded so MUCH better than the other brand. That lasted about 3 months, and then it just quit playing. Considering I had spent $20 on a "superior" quality cassette adapter for my ipod and mp3 player, I was very disappointed that it only lasted 3 months.

I have no interest in dropping $80 a year to be able to listen to my MP3 player in the car; the appeal of the cassette adapter in the first place was that it was less expensive than buying a special iPod/MP3 adapter for the car that would have to be installed, and it sounds MUCH better than the $50 FM transmitter we bought; but that low price is meaningless if I have to keep buying a new one every 3 months.

Also, this device was left in the car. It was never taken out of the car, so the only movement was in and out of the cassette deck. Perhaps the hot Texas weather contributed to its early demise.

What I love is the way it sounds when it works. What I hate is the shoddy build quality; the build quality of the "new" sony cassette adapter is nowhere near as good as the one I bought 10 years ago that still worked until recently.