Portable HDD connected via USB

Steve44 · March 31, 2016

Streaming is great if you can combine a good app, a great data connection and you have the money to pay for it (or someone else is). amazon Music, Google Play, Spotify all work well on my HTC Android with EE 4G coverage and an employer who pays for unlimited data. However, it is still a pain as the integration into the car system is poor and you need to do anything more than play/pause/skip on the phone screen.

Ipod wise, I use a 160Gb Ipod Classic with my music ripped at 320kps in MP3 and album art. It works but has annoying quirks which I think are down to the hard drive based Ipod rather than a newer flash based one. It does take a while for browse to be available when first connected and it frequently has to show "Getting Ipod Data...." on the screen when the Ipod HDD goes to sleep. It also has a habit of crashing and resetting, though this is better now I'm on latest firmware. I was looking at using an Ipod touch 64Gb instead and I know others using Iphones are OK. Whilst Itunes is not great, all my music is catalogued and up to date in it now and I can't be bothered with trying to move things about and change it using other apps and a USB stick.

ganzoom · March 31, 2016

12 minutes ago, Steve44 said:

Streaming is great if you can combine a good app, a great data connection and you have the money to pay for it (or someone else is). Amazon Music, Google Play, Spotify all work well on my HTC Android with EE 4G coverage and an employer who pays for unlimited data. However, it is still a pain as the integration into the car system is poor and you need to do anything more than play/pause/skip on the phone screen.

Not sure about Android, but regardless of I'm using Spotify/Apple music the phone pairs with the car via Bluetooth. I can see full album art, names, tracks, can skip, pause etc, and with Siri I can even just 'ask' the phone to play what ever artist/track I want all.

I pay £15/month for 5gig of data and 250 voice minutes via 3, Spotify I use the free account, and apple music is £10/month - I find it hard to believe anyone on this forum cannot afford £10/month to have access to as music as you would ever want.....or you can keep on faffing around with USB sticks/Hard drive ;)

Blisteringblue · March 31, 2016

2 hours ago, ganzoom said:

.....or you can keep on faffing around with USB sticks/Hard drive ;)

Everybody loves a good faff

I may embrace streaming more as I'm currently working on getting us off of vodafone and onto EE with work. I'm too much of a tight northerner to get a personal sim

Back to the album art though on my "faffing" USB, I think I will stick with the 120 x 120, it looks fine on the little Lexus album art square. Had a quick flick through on the way in this morning and no more horrible gracenote band pics

Beduffshirl · August 23, 2016

I'm not a massive music listener and so on my CT with Premium Nav I've just had a tiny (in size) 32gb USB that still allows the little panel to close. It's probably the way I've put the music on it but some albums are great and some appear as individual songs.

I'm (95% certain) about to move to an IS with Premium Nav too. Any tips on how I can sort my tunes to make them a bit more manageable. I'm open to wiping and starting again.

One bonus I've noticed already is that there is a "display the name of the track" in DAB on the IS as we found on the test drive. My CT madly didn't do this (may be a slightly old version - 63 plate) This means we can have our game of spot the intro on long journeys as long as the DJ doesn't spoil it :-)

RichyRich · August 23, 2016

Anyone successfully use their Android phone to play music through amazon Music or Google Music? Mine plays but can't skip forward/back for some reason. I have a OnePlus Two and know the Samsung S6 works as the Lexus engineer showed me but not looking to change to expensive phone just for this. Unless I have to!

Steve44 · August 23, 2016

HTC one M9 on latest firmware works perfectly with Bluetooth from amazon music or Google music, or the HTC music app. Shows artist/album and skip tracks. Can't skip albums though and still need to select the app and navigate to it on the phone which is a hassle. Lexus PremNav on latest firmware too.

Surprised OnePlus2 works, couldnt get mine to work at all with the Lexus, kept crashing and ended up selling it to my brother. It does work perfectly on his new model Vauxhall Astra.

My advice for using USB is buy a 2nd hand IPod Touch, latest/ biggest model you can afford. It doesn't need to be a good one, as long as it's functional. It will work perfectly, show up all the album artwork, track details, playlists, etc. USB keys can be a load of hassle.

RichyRich · August 23, 2016

2 hours ago, Steve44 said:

HTC one M9 on latest firmware works perfectly with Bluetooth from Amazon music or Google music, or the HTC music app. Shows artist/album and skip tracks. Can't skip albums though and still need to select the app and navigate to it on the phone which is a hassle. Lexus PremNav on latest firmware too.

Surprised OnePlus2 works, couldnt get mine to work at all with the Lexus, kept crashing and ended up selling it to my brother. It does work perfectly on his new model Vauxhall Astra.

My advice for using USB is buy a 2nd hand IPod Touch, latest/ biggest model you can afford. It doesn't need to be a good one, as long as it's functional. It will work perfectly, show up all the album artwork, track details, playlists, etc. USB keys can be a load of hassle.

Thanks useful to know it's not just me. Was looking for some old photos on a Samaung Galaxy S3 and thought would try that and it seems to work fine, can skip tracks but not tried skipping albums. Don't mind too much having to start the app but what I am now planning on doing is using the S3 as just a music player, I use amazon Music as I have Prime so makes sense to keep with Android. Am debating upgrading to a OnePlus 3 but don't want this issue which seems to be the OS OxygenOS by OnePlus. Glad have a temporary fix as have quite a few songs on amazon I like to just shuffle so this should work.

RichyRich · August 23, 2016

Did try a USB but really these days who can be bothered to rip music. Why things like Spotify, Deezer and amazon Music were invented. I might look at upgrading my phone at some point but will see how this goes.

richman6100 · August 24, 2016

> Did try a USB but really these days who can be bothered to rip music.

Errr...me, for one. I have a good sized CD collection (>2000) and I still add to it. Ultimately, I guess I like to own the media - I come from an era of vinyl, which I still buy occasionally. CD quality still exceeds most streaming alternatives too. Frustrating that the Lexus system requires that you downsample files in order to play them through it via a standard USB HDD. As mentioned above, a high capacity iPod (with its music in lossless format would pretty much match CD, maybe I'll try that route sometime to see if it works. Still, ripping CDs is dead easy, quick and reliable with the right software. I'm doing it anyway for my SONOS system at home. Obviously, I can't drag around thousands of CDs, hence the USB option works for me for now. The Levinson stereo is pretty good, so I tend to have a select bunch of discs in the car to spin through the CD player when I'm after the best quality (i.e. on my own in the car, stuck in traffic, enjoying the quiet of the IS in EV mode).The rest of the time I use the USB HDD and put up with the 5 min wait to be able to browse my music (which I admit is poor). YMMV.

RichyRich · August 24, 2016

I have never spent alot of money on music but enjoy listening to all sorts not just current but 80's and 90's too. I think my wife threw out all my old CD's when we moved but to be honest I hadn't listened to them since they were probably released. I tried out my new method of using my old Samsung S3 connected via Bluetooth Audio which worked mostly although a little annoying not being able to select specific tracks or albums from the car controls but I will persevere with this. If I wanted to use my USB stick to listen to the same tracks I would need to purchase each album from amazon or another source to be able to download outside of the app, this is so they keep you using their software I guess.

richman6100 · August 24, 2016

> I think my wife threw out all my old CD's when we moved

That would be grounds for divorce in my house Rich. ;-) I'm embarrassed to say that my current HiFi system is worth a similar amount to my F-Sport and I dread to think about what I've spent on kit over the years before settling on what I currently have. Curse you McIntosh Labs and your overpriced beauties. CDs can be had pretty cheaply these days and they just about satisfy my nostalgic need to hold the media and artwork in my hands. They'll never match the physical and emotional input required of you when listening to vinyl, but they're a damn site more convenient. I'm not ready to go all out for convenience though, and listen to purely cloud-based music delivery. I can understand why others want to.

Music is one of my greatest passions I guess, one of the reasons I opted for the Mark Levinson system and mandatory Premium Nav. Given the inevitable compromises when listening to music in a car (road / traffic noise, surrounded by lots of glass etc), the sound quality of the ML is really rather good. I tweak the EQ settings occasionally, depending on what I'm listening to, but its default settings are so good that it's clear a lot of thought has gone into it. The software / firmware that controls the Premium Nav interface, particularly the USB integration is less impressive. They really should improve this.

RichyRich · August 24, 2016

Think the next one needs to have the ML system as this one isn't quite as good as what I had in the IS220D SE-L model which wasn't a ML! does seem to vary between what I am listening to on through Bluetooth compared to normal FM. DAB is better but have to pump the volume up and then switching to Bluetooth audio I have to turn it down.

Blisteringblue · August 25, 2016

I've an LG G3 and can use Spotify via Bluetooth fine. Lets me skips tracks anyway. As posted earlier I'm on vodafone so live streaming can be a pain. I tend to pick a mood playlist as I'm leaving and download and then listen in offline mode when driving. Still have the 64GB usb and the music stored on the phone, but tend to listen to this a lot less now.

tayaste · September 5, 2016

I use google music on the nexus 5x. It automatically fires the app up when it connects to the phone (Don't need to open the app each time) and can skip tracks and show album info etc.

RichyRich · September 5, 2016

1 hour ago, tayaste said:

I use google music on the nexus 5x. It automatically fires the app up when it connects to the phone (Don't need to open the app each time) and can skip tracks and show album info etc.

I'm invested in amazon Music because of Prime membership but good to know works with thr Nexus. I am looking at the new OnePlus 3 but not sure if will have the same problem... Anyone else tried it?