Analyst: Target should drop CDs

[Homefromtheforest]

I'm an old fashioned cd user in my car but for my work truck I use a USB stick as there is no CD player in it.  I find the USB a good option; I just use an 8 gig one and usually load up about 10-20 albums.  You can select between albums quite easily and you're not overwhelmed by a humongous iPod or iPhone playlist.  And most importantly you can easily pick albums or tracks  on the fly...something you can't easily do with a pre-programmed playlist.

[Homefromtheforest]

I can't shuffle the tunes in my player, but I've never been a "shuffle/random" play type of guy!!

[Homefromtheforest]

No I'm referring to my truck stereo that does not have a CD player.  I have a USB input on my car player as well but I just use the CD player on that.  

[Kevin Bresnahan]

2012 Toyotas and 2016 Subaru USB playback has a shuffle option.

I switched over to mainly USB playback in my cars. I have two 64 GB sticks (1 for Rock, 1 for Jazz) in my Camry. You can put a whole lot of music on a 64 GB stick.

There is a trick to get glitch-free playback with a large USB sticks like this though. You need to minimize the number of folders you use because then the file name gets too big. What I do is just copy the individual tracks onto the stick. I haven't had any problems since.

[lipi]

7 hours ago, medjuck said:

Of course.  Are data plans all you can eat nowadays? 

Some are, yes. They do get throttled (i.e., they slow down the data rate, they don't cut you off) after a certain amount of data, but that amount is usually so huge that it won't be an issue for streaming music in your car--even if you do it every day on your two hour commute.

Edited March 4, 2017 by lipi

[Brad]

The stick seems like an idea.  I have to see if my wife's car has a USB and try it out. 

[JSngry]

http://www.target.com/th/usb+flash+drive+storage

[Scott Dolan]

15 hours ago, catesta said:

They got to you too? All that time in the fresh air of Rhode Island must have warped your brain.

Maybe I'm just lazy. I use my cell phone to make calls, receive calls, check emails and occasionally text. The thought of putting a bunch of music on it just does not interest me at the moment and seems to be a hassle. Now, with the new truck I'm going to be forced to have to do just that or use a usb flash drive. Otherwise I'm at the mercy of Sirius XM all the time.

At home I do sometimes use Bluetooth to stream from the iPad to a speaker source. Works fine but I still prefer my self-burned compilation discs.

I'll give an update after I experiment with streaming while on the road. I'll either like it or be reporting back that I installed an after market CD player or junked the RAM and went back to Ford or Chevy.

Just think, those compilation discs ae what we now call playlists. And you could make hundreds of them by simply dragging and dropping. 

You speak of it being a hassle, yet you could create those playlists just as quickly as you create the compilation list, and blow them to your phone in a fraction of the time it took to burn the disc. Not to mention you can carry all of them with you every day, everywhere you go. 

15 hours ago, catesta said:

They got to you too? All that time in the fresh air of Rhode Island must have warped your brain.

Maybe I'm just lazy. I use my cell phone to make calls, receive calls, check emails and occasionally text. The thought of putting a bunch of music on it just does not interest me at the moment and seems to be a hassle. Now, with the new truck I'm going to be forced to have to do just that or use a usb flash drive. Otherwise I'm at the mercy of Sirius XM all the time.

At home I do sometimes use Bluetooth to stream from the iPad to a speaker source. Works fine but I still prefer my self-burned compilation discs.

I'll give an update after I experiment with streaming while on the road. I'll either like it or be reporting back that I installed an after market CD player or junked the RAM and went back to Ford or Chevy.

Just think, those compilation discs ae what we now call playlists. And you could make hundreds of them by simply dragging and dropping. 

You speak of it being a hassle, yet you could create those playlists just as quickly as you create the compilation list, and blow them to your phone in a fraction of the time it took to burn the disc. Not to mention you can carry all of them with you every day, everywhere you go. 

15 hours ago, catesta said:

They got to you too? All that time in the fresh air of Rhode Island must have warped your brain.

Maybe I'm just lazy. I use my cell phone to make calls, receive calls, check emails and occasionally text. The thought of putting a bunch of music on it just does not interest me at the moment and seems to be a hassle. Now, with the new truck I'm going to be forced to have to do just that or use a usb flash drive. Otherwise I'm at the mercy of Sirius XM all the time.

At home I do sometimes use Bluetooth to stream from the iPad to a speaker source. Works fine but I still prefer my self-burned compilation discs.

I'll give an update after I experiment with streaming while on the road. I'll either like it or be reporting back that I installed an after market CD player or junked the RAM and went back to Ford or Chevy.

Just think, those compilation discs ae what we now call playlists. And you could make hundreds of them by simply dragging and dropping. 

You speak of it being a hassle, yet you could create those playlists just as quickly as you create the compilation list, and blow them to your phone in a fraction of the time it took to burn the disc. Not to mention you can carry all of them with you every day, everywhere you go. 

15 hours ago, catesta said:

They got to you too? All that time in the fresh air of Rhode Island must have warped your brain.

Maybe I'm just lazy. I use my cell phone to make calls, receive calls, check emails and occasionally text. The thought of putting a bunch of music on it just does not interest me at the moment and seems to be a hassle. Now, with the new truck I'm going to be forced to have to do just that or use a usb flash drive. Otherwise I'm at the mercy of Sirius XM all the time.

At home I do sometimes use Bluetooth to stream from the iPad to a speaker source. Works fine but I still prefer my self-burned compilation discs.

I'll give an update after I experiment with streaming while on the road. I'll either like it or be reporting back that I installed an after market CD player or junked the RAM and went back to Ford or Chevy.

Just think, those compilation discs ae what we now call playlists. And you could make hundreds of them by simply dragging and dropping. 

You speak of it being a hassle, yet you could create those playlists just as quickly as you create the compilation list, and blow them to your phone in a fraction of the time it took to burn the disc. Not to mention you can carry all of them with you every day, everywhere you go. 

15 hours ago, catesta said:

They got to you too? All that time in the fresh air of Rhode Island must have warped your brain.

Maybe I'm just lazy. I use my cell phone to make calls, receive calls, check emails and occasionally text. The thought of putting a bunch of music on it just does not interest me at the moment and seems to be a hassle. Now, with the new truck I'm going to be forced to have to do just that or use a usb flash drive. Otherwise I'm at the mercy of Sirius XM all the time.

At home I do sometimes use Bluetooth to stream from the iPad to a speaker source. Works fine but I still prefer my self-burned compilation discs.

I'll give an update after I experiment with streaming while on the road. I'll either like it or be reporting back that I installed an after market CD player or junked the RAM and went back to Ford or Chevy.

Just think, those compilation discs ae what we now call playlists. And you could make hundreds of them by simply dragging and dropping. 

You speak of it being a hassle, yet you could create those playlists just as quickly as you create the compilation list, and blow them to your phone in a fraction of the time it took to burn the disc. Not to mention you can carry all of them with you every day, everywhere you go. 

[John L]

On March 3, 2017 at 4:51 AM, Rooster_Ties said:

How many CD's worth of music do you have on your phone?  Honest question.  That was always my issue, that I could never load even but a tiny fraction of my collection onto my phone.  Even my old iPod nano (which held at least 60-70 albums, maybe 100?) didn't even begin to hold but a fraction of my 3,000+ CD's.  That, and it's a pain in the ass constantly having to upload (and later delete) CD's from iTunes -- in order to change what was on my phone.  A complete switch-out of even 50 albums would take a couple hours (iirc), so I finally said the heck with it.

When I can grab 3-4 CD's off the shelf, and play 'em right in the car, why go through the hassle of the phone?  That's what I did in Kansas City, and I probably listened to 10-20 CD's per week, between the car and playing them at work.

I mean, it would be great to have all my music on my phone, but that wasn't possible (at least when I last bought my phone, which is an iPhone 5, with 16 GB).

Get an iPod Touch with 120 GB.  That is what I use.  Quite a lot can fit on it, and it is actually faster and more convenient for me to adjust the music downloaded on it as needed than find 3-4 particular CDs, take them with me to the car, store them, and then remember to bring them back into the house (without some of them falling on the ground, getting their cases smashed, and discs scratched).  

[mjzee]

Two thoughts about all this:

1) When syncing your music from your computer to your iPhone, there's an option to "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps."  You can then fit a lot more music on your iPhone, and you might find that 128 kbps is perfectly acceptable for listening in your car.  I've never tried this, but it sounds like it's worth a shot.

2) SanDisk makes a "Connect Wireless Stick" with capacities up to 256 GB.  Amazon has the 200 GB for $83.69.  It's wireless storage for your iPhone, serving as an external hard drive.  A lot cheaper than a 120 GB iPod Touch.  See it here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0198QE5MA/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_10?ie=UTF8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1

On 3/3/2017 at 1:37 PM, Brad said:

An option is just to use the iPod but that means fiddling with that while you're driving.

Over the years, my household has collected a bunch of old iPods that are virtually useless because the batteries died.  These are perfect to use in the car.  I leave one in the center compartment plugged into the USB port.  I don't have to worry about battery life, because it draws its power from the car through the 30-pin connector.  As for fiddling, I have it on random play, so it's like listening to the radio.  I resync every couple of months to put new music on the iPod.

[Scott Dolan]

I convert all my audio down to 256, and I can still fit enough music on there to play continuously for at least 48 hours. 

I think you are probably right about 128 being enough for car audio, though. 

Edited March 5, 2017 by Scott Dolan

[Dave Garrett]

On 3/3/2017 at 2:51 PM, Rooster_Ties said:

How many CD's worth of music do you have on your phone?  Honest question.  That was always my issue, that I could never load even but a tiny fraction of my collection onto my phone.  Even my old iPod nano (which held at least 60-70 albums, maybe 100?) didn't even begin to hold but a fraction of my 3,000+ CD's.  That, and it's a pain in the ass constantly having to upload (and later delete) CD's from iTunes -- in order to change what was on my phone.  A complete switch-out of even 50 albums would take a couple hours (iirc), so I finally said the heck with it.

When I can grab 3-4 CD's off the shelf, and play 'em right in the car, why go through the hassle of the phone?  That's what I did in Kansas City, and I probably listened to 10-20 CD's per week, between the car and playing them at work.

I mean, it would be great to have all my music on my phone, but that wasn't possible (at least when I last bought my phone, which is an iPhone 5, with 16 GB).

You don't have to sync your entire iTunes library to your phone - you can selectively sync only certain songs or albums. So you can maintain a large music library in iTunes but only load a small portion of it on your phone:

https://www.lifewire.com/itunes-sync-only-certain-songs-1999555

Also, to add to what Scott said earlier about backing up your phone to iTunes on your computer, IMO an iTunes backup is preferable to an iCloud backup because an iCloud backup is not as complete as an iTunes backup is - I forget the details, but iCloud backups only capture key data like Contacts, Photos, etc. If you want to be able to reset your phone to factory settings and restore it exactly as it was including all app data and settings, you need to do an iTunes backup. I highly recommend doing an iTunes backup before every iOS upgrade as well, as I've had to restore a phone from a backup before when an upgrade bricked the phone.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I convert all of my music to mp3 at VBR Q1. I don't mind that the files are a bit bigger, I just want the best sound. I don't like the sound of the cymbals on many Jazz mp3s encoded at lower bit rates. They sound weird - all swishy and unnatural.

[jazzbo]

I can see how it would be so convenient to use a phone and blue-tooth. . . .But I guess I actually prefer inconvenience. I'm retired, I enjoy all my discs and don't do files or stream. I don't have any music on a phone and have the cheapest plan I can get with a very basic phone as I don't use one for business and don't really like phones, and I'm so glad that the car I bought last summer (Nissan Juke NISMO) has a cd player; I really enjoy selecting a few discs to take with me on trips to my Dad's and back (not quite three hours round trip) and I also listen to the great listener supported classical radio station here in the Cleveland area a lot.

[Scott Dolan]

2 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I convert all of my music to mp3 at VBR Q1.

???

What is that? I know what mp3 and VBR are, but Q1? 

2 hours ago, jazzbo said:

I can see how it would be so convenient to use a phone and blue-tooth. . . .But I guess I actually prefer inconvenience. I'm retired, I enjoy all my discs and don't do files or stream. I don't have any music on a phone and have the cheapest plan I can get with a very basic phone as I don't use one for business and don't really like phones, and I'm so glad that the car I bought last summer (Nissan Juke NISMO) has a cd player; I really enjoy selecting a few discs to take with me on trips to my Dad's and back (not quite three hours round trip) and I also listen to the great listener supported classical radio station here in the Cleveland area a lot.

Oddly enough, my Juke came with an iPod connection inmthe glove compartment. Up to that point I had never owned any Apple gear. I eventually broke down and sprung for an iPod Touch. 

Now every computer and device I own is Apple! 

[jazzbo]

I have Apple laptops, I love them, been using Apple computers at home since the mid-nineties. I have an iPod but I gave up using it. . . I actually enjoy NOT having music on the go, I really don't like the sound quality and I prefer to listen to my system at home, makes me appreciate music more this way. It's only the last few years I've had a car (was a motorcycle only guy for a few decades before moving back to Ohio) and so I'm really not used to music while driving. . . but I do enjoy the sound system in my Juke (it's the better of the two systems they put in these). It has a USB inlet but I'm not interested in using it. 

Realistically I have to see that "convenience" drives a lot of users and products in the audio world this century. . . but "convenience" isn't something that I really look for or revel in. I still like the inconvenient ways of cd and vinyl usage. Just suits me, I know that others have moved way beyond that. . . .

[Scott Dolan]

I had to use older Macs running OS 9 at work, so I avoided Apple at home because I found OS 9 to be an absolute nightmare. Plus, I always felt Apple products were overpriced. It wasn't until I spent time with that iPod, admiring the absurdly high build quality, that I finally converted. 

That and the disaster that was Windows Vista drove me completely into the arms of Apple. 

Did you get the CVT, or 6spd manual? 

[jazzbo]

The CVT. . . because I need AWD here. My wife has a Juke SV and it was how well the AWD does in the winter that made me really consider the Juke. I also really like the AWD Vector mode, it really is a handling enhancer. If I weren't living in a lake effect snow belt I'd have the six speed. . . but the CVT is pretty darned good.

[Scott Dolan]

Yeah, I understand that. Luckily I have a 4x4, so I was able to get the 6spd. The difference between the two is rather astonishing, but like you said, the CVT is no slouch and the all wheel vectoring does improve handling quite a bit. 

So there are trade offs either way you go, but a Juke is a Juke. And they are fun as hell. I refer to it as my urban assault vehicle.  

[Kevin Bresnahan]

16 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

???

What is that? I know what mp3 and VBR are, but Q1?

From http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=LAME#VBR_.28variable_bitrate.29_settings

VBR (variable bitrate) settings

VBR: variable bitrate mode. Use variable bitrate modes when the goal is to achieve a fixed level of quality using the lowest possible bitrate.

VBR is best used to target a specific quality level, instead of a specific bitrate. The final file size of a VBR encode is less predictable than with ABR, but the quality is usually better.

Unlike other MP3 encoders which do VBR encoding based on predictions of output quality, LAME's default VBR method tests the actual output quality to ensure the desired quality level is always achieved.

Usage: -V <number> where <number> is between 0 and 9, 0 being highest quality, 9 being the lowest. (Note: The "V" has to be a capital letter.)

Example: -V Q2

Fractional values out to three decimal places are also accepted, with 9.999 being the absolute lowest quality.

Example: -V 2.75

Note: The switch --vbr-new, which enabled a superior VBR mode in LAME 3.97 and some previous versions, is no longer needed with LAME 3.98 and higher, as it is now the default VBR mode. However, if you're still using LAME 3.97 or older, you have to add --vbr-new to your command line to use that mode.

The target bitrate and actual typical bitrate for each VBR quality level is shown in the Technical details for recommended LAME settings section below.

If you need a predictable bitrate (in a streaming application, for example), use ABR or CBR modes, described below.

[Scott Dolan]

Interesting. 

So if I'm all of that correctly, including the table it linked to, the median bitrate is 220kbps? 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

57 minutes ago, Scott Dolan said:

Interesting. 

So if I'm all of that correctly, including the table it linked to, the median bitrate is 220kbps? 

Yes. I used to use Q2 but I switched to Q1 a few years ago. Both are indistinguishable from the CD used to create the file to 99.9% of listeners.

[Scott Dolan]

1 hour ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

Yes. I used to use Q2 but I switched to Q1 a few years ago. Both are indistinguishable from the CD used to create the file to 99.9% of listeners.

That's excellent to know. I already knew 256kbps VBR was indistinguishable, but I wasn't entirely sure about bitrates in that 190-250kbps range. Thanks for the info!  

[catesta]

On ‎3‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 4:24 PM, Kevin Bresnahan said:

2012 Toyotas and 2016 Subaru USB playback has a shuffle option.

I switched over to mainly USB playback in my cars. I have two 64 GB sticks (1 for Rock, 1 for Jazz) in my Camry. You can put a whole lot of music on a 64 GB stick.

There is a trick to get glitch-free playback with a large USB sticks like this though. You need to minimize the number of folders you use because then the file name gets too big. What I do is just copy the individual tracks onto the stick. I haven't had any problems since.

Can you skip over tracks and get to one in particular? Or is shuffle the only option?

[Scott Dolan]

I can tell you with my 32 pin USB connector for my  iPod in my Juke the stereo controls act exactly as they do with the CD player. 

I'd have to think the flash drive would work the same way. 

Edited March 6, 2017 by Scott Dolan