Questions about playing music from USB

[Todd15Fastback]

I believe mp3 is the only thing supported. I know that ogg and flac are not supported anyhow, I've tried those already. You just want to use 320kb/s to prevent overly compressing things.

I use Exact Audio Copy myself.

Thanks! Good to know.

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[MagneticA]

Would getting an iPod be good to use through the USB? Will it go through playlists and not just play songs in order? I've never played music through a USB in a car so I would be willing I get a iPod nano or something if I know it will work the way I need it to

I use an iPod and absolutely love it. It mirrors everything I have and works great. I've also used a USB stick, which is convenient and cheap, but it didn't work as slick as the iPod for playlists and memory.

 

[Yellow15Stang]

For Christmas I received an SD card. I transferred all of my music from iTunes to the SD card, plus several other additional albums. The SD card works great, sound level and fidelity seems better then when previously playing the music from my Iphone via either Bluetooth or the USB port.

Does the SD card insert flush with the slot?
Or does it stick out into the console compartment like flash memory sticks do?

 

[[email protected]]

has anyone tried loading files to sd/usb from a mac??? I cant seem to get any files reconized from either.I formatted both to fat 32/ms/dos but reader just says unreconized files or no useable files.I tried MP3,PICT,and Jpeg with no luck,thanks for any replies

 

[JeffreyDJ]

Works fine on mine for music and wallpaper, formatted Fat32.

 

[davekro]

Am I correct to assume that the base 6 speaker system, 4.3" non touch screen will have no SD card slot? I have never really used a USB port to listen to music (in my wife's 2013 Prius), just BlueTooth. I don't really listen to stored music, I mainly stream XM or Pandora via my Galaxy S5 and my wife's LG. I hear XM compression is bad to worse, depending on the station. Is Pandora any 'less bad'? Not expecting 320 Kbps quality of coarse, but is using USB for XM and Pandora better too? Basically, does BlueTooth compression further reduce streamed audio quality?

Is there a general rule of thumb to rate different streaming sources?
Like XM is worst ( x Kbps - y Kbps range) equivalent
Pandora ( x Kbps - y Kbps range) equivalent
Spotify ( x Kbps - y Kbps range) equivalent
Others that might be better? My Heart radio?
As said by others.. please forgive my ignorance (Oh, and I am getting old also ;) )

 

[HalfMoon]

Is Pandora any 'less bad'? Not expecting 320 Kbps quality of coarse, but is using USB for XM and Pandora better too?

For Pandora, see here: http://help.pandora.com/customer/portal/articles/90985-audio-quality

Audio Quality

Pandora on the Web plays 64k AAC+ for free listeners and 192kbps for Pandora One subscribers. All in-home devices play 128kbps audio, and mobile devices receive a variety of different rates depending on the capability of the device and the network they are on, but never more than 64k AAC+.

 

[Golfer1280]

M4A files

Unfortunately all my music on iTunes is M4A format. Dragged and dropped onto usb and my ford touch wouldn't play them. Looks like I'll have to buy a batch conversation program to convert to MP3 or wave files as converting within iTunes creates duplicate files (m4a and MP3) unless someone has a better suggestion I'm all ears

 

[[email protected]]

ok I have unpluged my usb cable that controls an ipod,NOW the sd card plays mp3s when i plug the usb back in with the ipod attached it will not mount,It seems that you can only use one device at a time,does anyone else have a usd and sd card plugged in and able to select one or the other from the menu???

 

[dgc333]

There is a definite benefit: sound quality

The regular bluetooth music streaming protocol uses the SBC codec, which is one of the most destructive audio compression algorithms ever devised by man. By using the USB port the car's audio system can read the files directly and without this additional compression/decompression, resulting in a seriosuly better sound quality.

Please explain; if your music is already in a digital format how is it compressed when transfered by Bluetooth?

I could see buffering issues that would cause breaks in the music but not a change in the compression since that has already happened when it was converted to a music format.

I have never heard any difference in the quality of music when the same digital file is transfered by bluetooth or USB.

 

[davekro]

For Pandora, see here: http://help.pandora.com/customer/portal/articles/90985-audio-quality

Thank you. So it sounds like best case for streaming for Pandora over a smartphone is 64kbps no matter what. so using a USB connection cat increase that quality. I'll go read up on XM and Spotify for their specs.

 

[ColorCodeUA]

Unfortunately all my music on iTunes is M4A format. Dragged and dropped onto usb and my ford touch wouldn't play them. Looks like I'll have to buy a batch conversation program to convert to MP3 or wave files as converting within iTunes creates duplicate files (m4a and MP3) unless someone has a better suggestion I'm all ears

Golfer,

MFT will play m4a files. You might check to make sure that your folder structure is not too deep.

I use dBpoweramp to rip CDs or batch convert and my files are generally 44.1 KHz/16 bit/256 kbps.

 

[sandpiper]

Unfortunately all my music on iTunes is M4A format. Dragged and dropped onto usb and my ford touch wouldn't play them. Looks like I'll have to buy a batch conversation program to convert to MP3 or wave files as converting within iTunes creates duplicate files (m4a and MP3) unless someone has a better suggestion I'm all ears

Media Monkey will import your itunes library, and then copy it to a usb drive in. The format is ok cause it plays on my Ecoboost premium.

 

[Boff]

Update...after my first long roadtrip, I am sad to report that Sync does not play albums correctly. It sometimes correctly identifies the first track, but then plays the rest in alphabetical order. I suppose I could go in an number all the tracks...but it is 3200 songs. I normally just shuffle all tracks so it is not a dealbreaker for me...but still aggravating.

Might have to pick up an iPod classic...

I solved the album playing problem (or, at least, the interwebs did)...I turned off Gracenote completely (through media player settings).

Still having a problem with album art...for a few albums it never shows up, but the more fundamental and vexing problem is that for most if not all albums, sometimes the art shows up and sometimes it doesn't. I can be playing a song and the album art displays. Then I turn off the car to go into a store and when I come out it doesn't display. Or vice versa. Or it'll correctly display the art for many songs in a row and then crap out for many songs in a row. Bizarre. :ford::headbonk::frusty:

 

[CooterK]

Please explain; if your music is already in a digital format how is it compressed when transfered by Bluetooth?

I could see buffering issues that would cause breaks in the music but not a change in the compression since that has already happened when it was converted to a music format.

I have never heard any difference in the quality of music when the same digital file is transfered by bluetooth or USB.

5 years ago you would have not been correct. But with modern phones and the SBC codec that MFT uses, the bitrate of your music is probably less than the bitrate with which you are transmitting. The highest codec anyone is using is 256 kpbs songs like what are used with Itunes Plus, where as the SBC codec the MFT uses is 345 Kbps. In summary... if you are already using digital music files and a fairly modern phone, you shouldn't notice a decrease in quality using bluetooth with MFT.

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