New Portable Player for the car - which one?

Use your iPhone, then you won't leave it in the car to get nicked again! The newer ones have more storage than the current iPods too, and as you say, most cars support Apple devices best. That said, I just use a USB stick - choosing an album and hitting Play is as much browsing as I want to do whilst driving.

I wouldn't go anymore for an IPod as it's outdated and doesn't have the quality of the newer devices. I would suggest you go for a device with high resolution audio ability. Depending on the needed storage capacity, unless you are ok to exchange cards regularly you could for Astell Kern, Fiio, Sony.....

Please check compatibility so that you are sure music will sound....

I'm happily using a 60 Gb iPod Classic, which hooks up seamlessly to the sound system in my Audi via the multi pin connector, with all the CD info displayed on the infotainment screen.

The fifth generation iPod I'm using was reckoned by many to be the best sounding incarnation, and, since all the music on it has been ripped to WAV, it seems to me to be a great sounding, fuss free solution.

These fifth generation iPods can be picked up quite cheaply on Fleabay etc.

I have been testing out a number of recent DAPs in the car, mainly so i can the  retire my trusty old iPod Video 5th gen. All sound good - particularly revealing a bit more detail than the old iPod. However, usability is another issue entirely. None have managed to outdo the 'pod in one very important respect - I have found anything with a touchscreen to be nigh on unusable when driving - any attempt to do so has mean't taking eyes off the road too long which is not just dangerous but possibly even illegal. The beauty of the iPod Video is the tactile clicky and accurate scroll wheel. It needs only the briefest glance at the screen and you could almost navigate it totally blind. So, the iPod Video 5th Gen now pretty much lives permanently in the car.  And actually still sounds pretty good too through the line out connector.

Richard Dane posted:

I have been testing out a number of recent DAPs in the car, mainly so i can the  retire my trusty old iPod Video 5th gen. All sound good - particularly revealing a bit more detail than the old iPod. However, usability is another issue entirely. None have managed to outdo the 'pod in one very important respect - I have found anything with a touchscreen to be nigh on unusable when driving - any attempt to do so has mean't taking eyes off the road too long which is not just dangerous but possibly even illegal. The beauty of the iPod Video is the tactile clicky and accurate scroll wheel. It needs only the briefest glance at the screen and you could almost navigate it totally blind. So, the iPod Video 5th Gen now pretty much lives permanently in the car.  And actually still sounds pretty good too through the line out connector.

The ease of use makes the 5th gen. a winner for me, since it interfaces perfectly with the Audi sound system, showing the contents on the driver's display.

I do think that my having ripped CDs to WAV makes a huge difference too .................. though not, I imagine, up to the standard you've become used to via the Naim / Bentley combination! 

The whole point of cars having iPhone integration etc. is that you can control them with the car’s built in interface, which usually now includes ontrols on the steering wheel and full use of a dashboard display. Using any hand held device while driving could certainly get you into trouble with the boys in blue. 

I find touch screens annoying (and for some reason they don't seem to work that well with my touch) and I need to look at them too long for safety sake.  My BMW has iPhone integration but it's just about useable for the phone.  I don't much rate the iPhone for sound though, particularly via Bluetooth, although it's better than nothing. I prefer to not have to move my eyes from the road at all. Here the old iPod still reigns supreme thanks to the physical and tactile feedback - I can easily get to the shuffle all tracks setting and skip forwards blind without having to take my eyes off the road, and that's what I usually do.

When I got my BMW in 2013, I was happy using my iPhone 3GS plugged in via USB and controlling it from the car radio.   Then I decided to change to an iPhone 6S because I wanted to be able to access Numbers and Pages files kept in iCloud.  (very useful as I use these to make sure I don't duplicate purchases of DVDS etc)

Since then, I can no longer control the iPhone audio (mainly audiobooks) from the car radio, and have to plug it in as an auxiliary device and use the iPhone itself to fast forward/back etc.   This is, of course, not practicable when on the move.  The trouble with audiobooks is that sometimes you need to backtrack to hear what was said, and it's illegal to mess with the phone itself while moving.   When I could do it using the buttons on the radio, I could do it without actually looking, so felt safe doing so.

There was SUPPOSED to be a new USB/Thunderbolt lead to cure this problem, but every time I go to one of our local BMW dealers, none of the new ones do the job.   VERY ANNOYED by this, and am stuck with using the radio's auxiliary input.

So, Gavin, be very wary of going down the phone route for your music.  I will admit to seriously debating getting an older model iPhone or iPod purely for in-car audio use.

Thanks for the input folks. I'm certainly keen to continue using whatever device in the way I'm used to - plug it in in the centre console and leave it well alone. We just leave it playing random tracks from the full track list. I think there's too many tracks on there for the artist or album selection (via the car's interface) to work.  The only control I use is to skip forward or back a track. I like having the details of the track playing displayed on the main screen.

This functionality did work from a USB stick, but it seemed to crash and re-start often enough for me to be annoyed by the track sequence repeating itself.

The Fiio devices only seem to link via a 3.5mm cable so I doubt whether track info etc. would be presented.

I can test how my current iphone links up, although mine's only got a paltry 16GB so has very little music on it. 

Can someone clarify the quality of bluetoothing in this situation? I'd always assumed it couldn't be as good as a direct connection, but reading the Fiio pages seems to suggest hi-res can be played this way.

Gavin, Bluetooth is fine for phone use, or where you have no other option, but in my experience, even using AptX on Naim devices, it's not a high quality option for music. Bluetooth AptX HD supports 24bit 48kHz but both sender and receiver have to support it. Never forget that even Bluetooth AptX and AptX HD use compression (IIRC it's about 4:1) so a wired connection is going to be a better performance bet.

Your best bet is to try it out and see how you go.  You may not consider the performance compromise to be significant, or you may decide it's a deal breaker.  In the car environment it may not matter to you.

I often listen to Radio Paradise in the car with a Bluetooth connection and it sounds ok to me.

I've just got hold of an 80GB iPod, so problem solved.

I've also just discovered that I can get iTunes to randomly fill it with songs from my library. 80GB is about 2500 loseless files, and as I just listen on shuffle in the car that'll be perfect. I can re-fill it every few months to get a new selection of tunes.

[@mention:1566878603942595]. Someone on another forum pointed me to ipodrepairs.co.uk. Apart from the obvious repair service, they offer disc and DAC upgrades too. You could drop a 512GB SSD drive into your old iPod.

Gavin, yes, I have considered that path but I'm happy with the 'Pod as it is for now - the battery is still good and it's still working well.  I may well reconsider when the battery needs replacement or the drive dies.

I've also fiddled with various alternatives to the trusty iPod, but like you Gavin I just want to shuffle all the songs without having to fiddle around, skip the odd one I don't like at the time, and see the artwork and details of the song being played. Nothing works as well as my old iPod Touch in my BMW. The only snag I've hit is, on the occasions when I've changed the tracks (it's only a 16GB model), the BMW sometimes refuses to recognise it. I have to mess around, plugging and unplugging, altering the settings, until the car eventually “sees” the iPod. No one seems to know what the problem is so it's a bit of a niggle.

Well, Tony, if you ever find out why that happens let me know. My previous 2013 Mini worked fine with my iPod, but the newer 140 does not always behave. This has led to a few fractious exchanges with my passenger. iPods are more than happy in her Z. What has BMW done? 

Will do Nick. The dealer's certainly got no idea!

I just put the music on a 64 gb USB stick. Seem to recall thinking is sounded a little better than the iPod too. 

Signals UK posted:

I just put the music on a 64 gb USB stick. Seem to recall thinking is sounded a little better than the iPod too. 

Yep, I do the same and just use a 64 gig' stick which for MP3 320 files sounds okay, higher res files I put onto the (BMW's) HDD.  

You're best off using vinyl

Stevee_S posted:

Signals UK posted:

I just put the music on a 64 gb USB stick. Seem to recall thinking is sounded a little better than the iPod too. 

Yep, I do the same and just use a 64 gig' stick which for MP3 320 files sounds okay, higher res files I put onto the (BMW's) HDD.  

I've tried to load the HDD, but it seems to take forever to transfer the tracks, then the music's difficult to find. Much as I like our BMWs, I really dislike the iDrive thing.

tonym posted:

Stevee_S posted:

Signals UK posted:

I just put the music on a 64 gb USB stick. Seem to recall thinking is sounded a little better than the iPod too. 

Yep, I do the same and just use a 64 gig' stick which for MP3 320 files sounds okay, higher res files I put onto the (BMW's) HDD.  

I've tried to load the HDD, but it seems to take forever to transfer the tracks, then the music's difficult to find. Much as I like our BMWs, I really dislike the iDrive thing.

I presume this means your car has a built in hard drive? I’m not entirely sure that such a thing is necessary. I have a 256GB USB stick full of WAVs that lives in the car, takes no time to load, and sounds pretty good. Total cost £38.

USB sticks seem to play up in our Mazda. Every couple of days it forgets the shuffle setting and starts back at the first alphabetical track. Putting shuffle back on seems to set if off on the same unrandom order.

I have a Mazda and it does exactly the same...Sounds OK though