Bluetooth/USB music

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Discussion

raceboy

Original Poster:

13,082 posts

279 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
Dragging myself into the 21st Century I'm trying to get my head around the current music storage/play solutions.
My daily, although an old shed, is fitted with an aftermarket headunit, no cd player, just a radio and Bluetooth connection and a USB slot in the front.
The Mrs has just bought a new motor and that's got factory Bluetooth and USB.

If I have a longer drive than my 5 minute commute I'll pair my phone to the stereo and play from my playlists, but my battery life is pants and I'd rather have more choice than is on my phone, and I don't want to fill my phone with music.
The Mrs is used to a 6 CD multichanger.

I think I'd be right in saying I could load a lorry load of songs on to a USB memory stick, and play from there, but how easy is that to find the tune you're after if it's got 4000 songs on it? scratchchin

Is there a cheap device I could leave in glovebox of the car that I load the music on to and it connects to the Bluetooth of the stereo?

Feeling very old, as someone that used to have a boot full of speakers, amps, crossovers, etc, I now don't have a clue how to even get the music into the stereo, I know where I am with the Minidisc player in the TVR. hehe

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
i you did get a box, you would still have the same issue of navigating to the correct song.

Does the headunit have an aux in? if so you could use an old ipod/mp3 player

AH33

2,066 posts

134 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
I just use an aux in and spotify playlists.

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
AH33 said:
I just use an aux in and spotify playlists.
me too, but does hit battery.

OP, could you put your phone charger into the 12v socket?

raceboy

Original Poster:

13,082 posts

279 months

Thursday 6th October 2016
quotequote all
Efbe said:
OP, could you put your phone charger into the 12v socket?
That 'could' work, but I'd rather not have a daisy chain of cables across the dash and 'stuff' I'd want to hide if I left the car parked up, the old cd changer was such a neat way of carrying enough music for the average journey in a very simply handy format to access. banghead
My phone doesn't charge well via a 12v supply and I need to add a battery pack if I plan to use it for more than an hour. hehe
I do have an obsolete iPod Touch that I could load the music to, not sure if it's Bluetooth or not though as it's an early Gen, but I could plug it in to the usb port and hide it away, but I bet I don't have a cable that fits the old apple charging port anywhere. scratchchin

clockworks

5,294 posts

144 months

Friday 7th October 2016
quotequote all
I've had several cars with USB inputs, and they have all been useless when searching for tracks. What I do is make a "compilation" folder, picking a thousand or so tracks from my music collection. Copy it onto a memory stick, and put the head unit into random/shuffle mode. If a track comes on that doesn't suit my mood, I just skip to the next one.

grumbledoak

31,504 posts

232 months

Friday 7th October 2016
quotequote all
I copy about thirty albums to a USB stick under "artist name \ album title" and the head unit shows me a list of the albums. That works pretty well; certainly preferable to wires everywhere or a flat phone battery.

rdjohn

6,135 posts

194 months

Sunday 9th October 2016
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I had the same problem with my 1990 BMW 325 Cabrio this time last year. I bought one of these http://www.halfords.com/technology/car-audio/car-s...

Just before Christmas, or perhaps Black Monday it was reduced by quite a bit. Fitting was cheap. I also bought one of these flash drives, which are so small, you can barely see them. I now have loads of my music and can pair my phone etc.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SanDisk-Cruzer-Fit-CZ33-...

catso

14,771 posts

266 months

Sunday 16th October 2016
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My son has a USB enabled stereo in his car so rather than mess with CDs or Bluetooth has an old ipod plugged into the USB port, it plays from playlists and the USB keeps it charged which seems a simple enough solution.

Similarly my Audi has a USB connection to which I use a 32gb memory stick to play from or download to the hard-drive, it does have the option of selecting albums/tracks etc. from the display though.

Edited by catso on Sunday 16th October 14:39