PCM Jukebox

[BobM]

Picked up my lovely new Cayenne Diesel yesterday and thought I'd be a good boy and actually look in the manual to try to work out how to use the PCM. Only to find there is no manual for the PCM. Rang the dealer back and he said if there wasn't one in the booklet wallet then there isn't one available currently.

I've managed to copy some music across from a USB flash drive onto the PCM hard drive but using the thing isn't terribly intuitive. Struggling to find any definitive guidance out there on the web too.

It seems it can display album art but it's not clear how to achieve this. Nor can I work out if it can do playlists. Anyone worked it out?

[SimonOcean]

I find the Dukebox feature to be a PITA. First off you need to have recorded the sound files onto a USB key card using the correct file format. I've checked my manual (which frankly the lazy arse dealer should have done for you) and the compatible formats are: MP3, WMA, AAC-LC and WAV. You can play from the USB key or probably better copy the audio to a hard drive installed with the PCM. The menus are fairly easy to work out without the manual. If you have metadata stored with the MP3 / ... / WAV files and you have the album art also stored in the meta data then the PCM should pick this up when you transfer the files.

I don't use the Dukebox myself. I am an audiofile and I've burned all of my CD collection into lossless MP3 files which are quite large and so not much will fit onto a USB key. Also I am not sure if the high res MP3s are readable by the PCM. I don't want to convert my large music collection to standard def MP3s so my solution was to buy an iPod Classic which is permanently plugged into the USB slot in the glovebox. You might be happy with the Dukebox solution, but I just mention the iPod solution as an alternative.

If you are unfamiliar with music audio files check out the following website:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/
The guy has lots of good information which will tell you about the pros and cons of all the file format types.

Good luck. Simon.

[SimonOcean]

Oh and I am not sure about playlists, but you can def. do that using the iPod solution. Maybe someone else can tell you about that on Dukebox.

[stevod]

SimonOcean said:

... I've burned all of my CD collection into lossless MP3 files...

I didn't know that was possible. How did you do that and what sort of file size compression do you get?

Cheers,

S

[BobM]

Thanks Simon. Yes, aware of the various audio formats etc. but I'm philistine enough not to really notice the difference so am happy with standard MP3s.

After posting I did find there's a Porsche for the iPhone which includes a lot of the manual stuff including the PCM.

I ran into trouble transferring my 8Gb of stuff from my SD card as the unit switched itself off after a while so I've done it in 2Gb batches.

[SimonOcean]

stevod said:

SimonOcean said:

... I've burned all of my CD collection into lossless MP3 files...

I didn't know that was possible. How did you do that and what sort of file size compression do you get?

Cheers,

S

As an example the track Hotel California / Eagles is 15.7MB as a loss-less, uncompressed MP3 / CD quality. With CD as a source this is 16 bit at 44.1kHz. You can get loss less files that are compressed, although most loss-less files are uncompressed, but going compressed lossless does not save much hard disc space. That is high def enough for me but some people pay extra for higher definition 24 bit 48kHz files which might be worthwhile if you have good ears and a fantastic home hifi, but overkill in a car.

Software: There are dozens of ways of doing it. iTunes for example, but you need to dig around in the settings. If you are archiving a large music collection a small investment in some software is worthwhile. I used dBpoweramp software as it gives great flexibility, ensures accurate burns and populates and saves accurate meta data including album art with the music files. Here is a link which provides full details to everything you need to know:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/309-comp...

The link has a safe (as far as I know) link to the dBpoweramp website for you to download their software. Be careful about downloading it from other sources / indirect in case you end up with malware.

[rbh]

I really question if this is really necessary in a car. At home I use lossless files with my DAC upsampling from ripped CDs or downloaded hi-res files (system up end Naim). They sound great.

In the Cayenne, a fairly quiet environment, I play mp3 files saved on the jukebox, sound pretty reasonable to me with the background noise etc. I dont want to drive and get lost in the music, the music is background.

Rob

[SimonOcean]

rbh said:

I really question if this is really necessary in a car. At home I use lossless files with my DAC upsampling from ripped CDs or downloaded hi-res files (system up end Naim). They sound great.

In the Cayenne, a fairly quiet environment, I play mp3 files saved on the jukebox, sound pretty reasonable to me with the background noise etc. I dont want to drive and get lost in the music, the music is background.

Rob

The extent that I go to is definitely overkill for a car. The only reason I have these huge lossless files is 1) that I have a really good home hifi where I the difference is worthwhile to me and 2) I don't want to duplicate lower resolution files just for the car.

Otherwise a mid quality rip will be fine for a car - even one of the quieter Porsche's like a Cayenne or Panamera with Bose. Not sure how great the Burmeister systems are and whether it would be worth the bother with them, but I doubt it given all the other noise in any car.

[stevod]

SimonOcean said:

stevod said:

SimonOcean said:

... I've burned all of my CD collection into lossless MP3 files...

I didn't know that was possible. How did you do that and what sort of file size compression do you get?

Cheers,

S

As an example the track Hotel California / Eagles is 15.7MB as a loss-less, uncompressed MP3 / CD quality. With CD as a source this is 16 bit at 44.1kHz. You can get loss less files that are compressed, although most loss-less files are uncompressed, but going compressed lossless does not save much hard disc space. That is high def enough for me but some people pay extra for higher definition 24 bit 48kHz files which might be worthwhile if you have good ears and a fantastic home hifi, but overkill in a car.

Software: There are dozens of ways of doing it. iTunes for example, but you need to dig around in the settings. If you are archiving a large music collection a small investment in some software is worthwhile. I used dBpoweramp software as it gives great flexibility, ensures accurate burns and populates and saves accurate meta data including album art with the music files. Here is a link which provides full details to everything you need to know:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/309-comp...

The link has a safe (as far as I know) link to the dBpoweramp website for you to download their software. Be careful about downloading it from other sources / indirect in case you end up with malware.

Thanks, Simon. I already use dBpoweramp actually.

I was just curious about lossless mp3, as I didn't think the mp3 format allowed for lossless storage. I don't have the Eagles track but based on your file size I'd have thought that's actually a lossy file (maybe CBR320?), not lossless.

FWIW I use similar in the car (VBR320, slightly smaller) and I wouldn't worry about it. You can fit hundreds if not thousands of them onto a USB stick, and you'd need to want a seriously large collection in the car for that to be impractical.

Anyway, this is a bit of a tangent now, apologies...

S