[Kingfisher]

I've got an old ipod with over 4k songs. Is there anyway to connect to my 2018 X3

[swestland85]

Originally Posted by Kingfisher

I've got an old ipod with over 4k songs. Is there anyway to connect to my 2018 X3

Sure, just plug it into one of the USB ports and you access it.

[Yobyot]

Originally Posted by Kingfisher

I've got an old ipod with over 4k songs. Is there anyway to connect to my 2018 X3

There are several possibilities. Depending on equipment in your car, you can attach it to the USB port via lightning cable (or the old 30-pin to USB cable).

Since it's an iPod, you presumably have access to the files on the machine it syncs with. In that case, I'd get myself a honkin' USB stick, load it up with music and import the music into the iDrive music collection.

[johnnj]

Originally Posted by Yobyot

Since it's an iPod, you presumably have access to the files on the machine it syncs with. In that case, I'd get myself a honkin' USB stick, load it up with music and import the music into the iDrive music collection.

The iDrive library capacity is fairly small, so I’m just using a USB drive as the library storage. I got a 256GB Sandisk that’s about the size of a thumbnail so don’t even notice it’s in the console USB port. The only problem was that 90% of my library was in ALAC, which iDrive can’t play, so I did a bulk conversion to FLAC, which it can play. It will play normal AAC m4a, just not Apple Lossless.

For me works even better than using my old ssd-upgraded IPod Video because occasionally the iPod would need to be rebooted or the connection would come out. Library browsing and playback is super fast an album art and metadata all works fine.

To date this has been the best “get all my music in the car” solution I’ve ever had.

[Yobyot]

Originally Posted by johnnj

The iDrive library capacity is fairly small, so I'm just using a USB drive as the library storage. I got a 256GB Sandisk that's about the size of a thumbnail so don't even notice it's in the console USB port. The only problem was that 90% of my library was in ALAC, which iDrive can't play, so I did a bulk conversion to FLAC, which it can play. It will play normal AAC m4a, just not Apple Lossless.

For me works even better than using my old ssd-upgraded IPod Video because occasionally the iPod would need to be rebooted or the connection would come out. Library browsing and playback is super fast an album art and metadata all works fine.

To date this has been the best "get all my music in the car" solution I've ever had.

When loading onto the iDrive music collection, files are compressed. If you're older than about 30, you can't hear the difference between a FLAC file and the stored version in a moving car, even with 688.

To my ears, Apple AAC streams sound just a little less great than Amazon Music streams. If I want to listen to an ALAC file, I use Bluetooth/CarPlay (which also defeats the purpose).

In short, anything sounds good on the HK. But you're "wasting" bits if you think there's any real audible difference in a moving car between formats. SiriusXM is the exception; it's unlistenable.

But if you're the kind of person who believes a Monster HDMI cable is any different from a Best Buy generic one, go ahead and enjoy the "better" connection.

[Aaaaaaaaa]

Originally Posted by Yobyot

When loading onto the iDrive music collection, files are compressed. If you're older than about 30, you can't hear the difference between a FLAC file and the stored version in a moving car, even with 688.

To my ears, Apple AAC streams sound just a little less great than Amazon Music streams. If I want to listen to an ALAC file, I use Bluetooth/CarPlay (which also defeats the purpose).

In short, anything sounds good on the HK. But you're "wasting" bits if you think there's any real audible difference in moving car between formats. SiriusXM is the exception; it's unlistenable.

But if you're the kind of person who believes a Monster HDMI cable is any different from a Best Buy generic one, go ahead and enjoy the "better" connection.

+1. Over the exhaust note, tire noise, wind noise and rattling dashboard I don't see how anyone can discern the difference between lossless and lossy formats. Just commit audiophile blasphemy and turn up all the equalizer frequencies to max, turn up the volume, and enjoy listening to NPR.

[johnnj]

I don’t use any music streaming services. My entire library is ripped from my own CDs, so I can’t comment on any comparisons between Apple and Amazon. I’m also not going to debate whether or not I deserve audio of any particular quality because I can’t hear the difference in any particular listening environment.

My library is lossless because I want archival copies of my physical music library at the same quality as the original program material (except taking up less storage *******. I could then recode everything at lossy compression, but then I have to maintain another library with no benefit other than to save space. Given the fact that my portable player has 512 GB of space and my main home server has 95TB of storage, I’m not really pressed to make things smaller.

And no, I don’t believe that Monster HDMI cables are better than the overpriced generic cables from Best Buy. A digital cable either works or it doesn’t. However, I do think that Monoprice cables are better because they’re cheaper than BB.

[JSY]

Originally Posted by johnnj

The iDrive library capacity is fairly small, so I’m just using a USB drive as the library storage. I got a 256GB Sandisk that’s about the size of a thumbnail so don’t even notice it’s in the console USB port. The only problem was that 90% of my library was in ALAC, which iDrive can’t play, so I did a bulk conversion to FLAC, which it can play. It will play normal AAC m4a, just not Apple Lossless.

For me works even better than using my old ssd-upgraded IPod Video because occasionally the iPod would need to be rebooted or the connection would come out. Library browsing and playback is super fast an album art and metadata all works fine.

To date this has been the best “get all my music in the car” solution I’ve ever had.

I do the same.. I had a 128gb, and now I've upgraded to a 256GB - probably the same one you have. It's great - able to fit all my music and a video library too. I also have files copied over to iDrive and also streaming through CarPlay, so I'm pretty much covered for anything. lol

[greg2step]

Last time I upgraded iphones I went w/ 256gb and put the entire collection from my old 160gb ipod classic on my phone.

[Max Well]

Originally Posted by johnnj

The iDrive library capacity is fairly small, so I’m just using a USB drive as the library storage. I got a 256GB Sandisk that’s about the size of a thumbnail so don’t even notice it’s in the console USB port. The only problem was that 90% of my library was in ALAC, which iDrive can’t play, so I did a bulk conversion to FLAC, which it can play. ... To date this has been the best “get all my music in the car” solution I’ve ever had.

Without much knowledge of these different music formats I've tended to skim these threads realizing I'm not following much of what is being said. But as we have HK I'm now intrigued to at least try a lossless format to see what it sounds like. Won't know until I try it. So I've read quite a bit online today about the formats and would ideally like to try a few sample CD albums from our collection in FLAC on a USB drive.

Is the procedure simply to use a program such as 'Exact Audio Copy' http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/ (which seems to be a highly recommended one) to burn our CDs to FLAC then move them to a USB and plug into the console so iDrive can see it? And am I correct in understanding that the audio files would then be played in lossless format, as long as I don't load them into the onboard storage? Will be interested whether we can discern any difference. Thanks for everyone's input - always learning something here on the Forum.

[johnnj]

Yeah, that's basically it. The flash drive should be formatted as FAT32.
I've used db poweramp converter/ripper for a long time, but that free one you mentioned seems like it would work fine.

Good luck with your experiment..

[Max Well]

Originally Posted by johnnj

Yeah, that's basically it. The flash drive should be formatted as FAT32.
I've used db poweramp converter/ripper for a long time, but that free one you mentioned seems like it would work fine.

Good luck with your experiment..

Thanks for the additional FAT32 suggestion as well, John. I'll give an update when I get a chance to work on this. Curious to see how it sounds, as I've always kind of felt we weren't using the HK to it's full potential.

[Max Well]

Apologies for the tangential slant of this discussion to your OP question, Kingfisher, but I did wish to update on the ease of burning the Music CDs which John brought up. As he indicated his success with 'dbpoweramp converter', and with my lack of knowledge in this field, I followed his rec and purchased it today. I have already 'ripped' 32 CDs in our collection this afternoon as they take only about 5 min to produce a FLAC album file on the default setting of 5 (8 is max compression but takes longer to produce and read apparently, and 0 is without compression I'm assuming). I placed 5 albums on a 32GB Lexar USB drive as a test (it was already in FAT32 format).

Granted this isn't a blinded study, and no doubt an element of bias may be present, but for once the HK system sounded like the upgraded system I expected. There was more dimensionality with deeper base and well-rounded mid-range. Whereas it seemed 'thin' before, it didn't with the FLAC files.

As I now know how straightforward this process is, my plan is to convert all of our CDs to this FLAC format and place on a USB platform, to at least have them available. Will be interesting to listen to these at HWY speeds to see if the perceived improvement is less, but since we haven't noticed the noise issues others have had, I'm expecting the music experience should be a definite upgrade, at least to satellite. As for Spotify, we'll see. At least I'll now have our CD collection in a more user-friendly format.

[Sea-Tac]

Originally Posted by pheerIx

+1. Over the exhaust note, tire noise, wind noise and rattling dashboard I don't see how anyone can discern the difference between lossless and lossy formats. Just commit audiophile blasphemy and turn up all the equalizer frequencies to max, turn up the volume, and enjoy listening to NPR.

Well said!