Portable player to use in car?

Posted by: Fitz55 on 08 December 2012

I have now loaded all my CD collection onto my NAS and am happily listening to loads of previously ignored or forgotten traks thanks to the ease of use via ipad.

However unexpected problem has arisen. Whereas previously I would handpick a few CDs to take on a road trip.This is now impractical as they are all boxed and in storage. I need a portable audio device that I can quickly drag and drop WAV files to and then plug in to the cars stereo. I have a Cowon S9 but find the interface flaky and unreliable.Looked at the new Sony 32gig player today. Saslesman assured me it would do the job , but 5 min google discovered that it does not support WAV files. Any suggestions ?

 

Qnap 4 terrabyte Unitiserve SSD NDAC  XPS XS Intro II

Posted on: 08 December 2012 by Bart

iPod classic.

Posted on: 08 December 2012 by naimUnT
+1 IPod or iPhone. I simply drag my files from my NAS and plonk them in iTunes. Even has cover art. Just one cable from car audio into my iPhone headphone socket and press 'play'. In fact it's so good that I hardly ever use the car CD.
Posted on: 08 December 2012 by naimUnT
If your car audio has a SD slot, that is even more convenient!! You can store your entire CD collection on a single SD card.
Posted on: 08 December 2012 by Fitz55

Would like to use ipod but I can't seem to get any files into Itunes either frrom the NAS or the PC

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by charnik

wav files are not compatible with itunes unless they were ripped using itunes

so go and rip again your collection in order to enjoy apple's "convinience"

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by sheffieldgraham
Originally Posted by Fitz55:

I have now loaded all my CD collection onto my NAS and am happily listening to loads of previously ignored or forgotten traks thanks to the ease of use via ipad.

However unexpected problem has arisen. Whereas previously I would handpick a few CDs to take on a road trip.This is now impractical as they are all boxed and in storage. I need a portable audio device that I can quickly drag and drop WAV files to and then plug in to the cars stereo. I have a Cowon S9 but find the interface flaky and unreliable.Looked at the new Sony 32gig player today. Saslesman assured me it would do the job , but 5 min google discovered that it does not support WAV files. Any suggestions ?

 

Qnap 4 terrabyte Unitiserve SSD NDAC  XPS XS Intro II

You don't say what car stereo system it is or the connectivity.

I have a Volvo C30 with both USB and 3.5 m.m. Aux sockets. The USB is compatible with MP3 and WAV, but also Apple. I use an Apple Touch 3rd gen. (IOS v5) and it gives full , playlist data etc. on my car stereo system display

The use of the AUX socket is possible but the analogue output is not as good as the digital USB and I don't get any info displayed.

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by Bart
Originally Posted by charnik:

wav files are not compatible with itunes unless they were ripped using itunes

so go and rip again your collection in order to enjoy apple's "convinience"

IMHO wav isn't the way to go for portable media anyway.  I'm OK in the car, and running, and on an airplane, with high quality lossy files; a bulk rip / conversion to 256 aac or 320 vbr mp3 would suffice for me.  Plus having files that support tags is a benefit to me.

Posted on: 09 December 2012 by charnik

ok Bart understood. But the same happens with flac format which supports tags. I believe that user has to rip only  once and enjoy everywhere. There should be no need to rip again or convert in order to comply  with restrictions set by "user friendly" products.

Posted on: 10 December 2012 by Gavin B

Can dbPoweramp convert WAV files into Apple Loseless?

 

I would guess it can, and if so, that would be a good way to populate an iTunes library and then to use an iPod of some sort.  The outlay for the conversion software is pretty low (£30?)

Posted on: 10 December 2012 by madridpunch

+1 on iPod,

I have anApline head unit which even displays the cover art. When driving I can't hear the difference between lossless and AAC at 128. Which is the biggest I can go and get 90% of my colection on the iPod, I'll have to upgrade from the old 120MB to the newer 160MB soon...

 

But then I do have quite a noisy car.

 

All the best

David

Posted on: 10 December 2012 by Bart
Originally Posted by charnik:

ok Bart understood. But the same happens with flac format which supports tags. I believe that user has to rip only  once and enjoy everywhere. There should be no need to rip again or convert in order to comply  with restrictions set by "user friendly" products.

Size can be the primary issue.  I absolutely want lossless at home, but do not need (or want to buy) a portable device with enough storage to hold) my entire collection or big portions of it in lossless format.

 

I have "only" several hundred gig of music in lossless format, and a 32 gb iPhone.  I do a lot better with 2 databases; one lossless and one lossy.  Even the iPod Classic is only 160 gb!

 

I agree -- we SHOULD be able to have only one library, but between storage requirements if we're going to carry it all around with us, or bandwidth and data transfer limits if we're going to use cloud storage, the size of lossless files still gets in the way.

Posted on: 10 December 2012 by Marky Mark

You can get a Sandisk Sansa Clip+ or ClipZip for about £35.

 

8GB memory, plays all formats and even has a built in FM radio.

 

Unless you are set on being an iTunes user, much better flexibility and vfm than an iPod.