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Topic: Car Head-Unit playing FLAC (Read 10375 times) previous topic - next topic
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Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

I'm in the market for a new head-unit. Single or double DIN. My only requirement is that I'm able to play FLAC  through it in some way without the use of CD's. I can only assume putting FLACs on a usb stick is the simplest way? Can someone please point me in the right direction to, at least, start?

Thanks in advance,

-Ryan
 

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #2 –
Thank you. Also, what would you recommend to power a pair of Polk RTi A3's?  —  A Yamaha;
  • R-S300
  • A-S300
  • R-S500
  • A-S500

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #4 –
Quote from: szczepl on
How to play and display tracks from embedded cuesheet, in car?

Splitting the FLAC files is probably the easiest way. Otherwise, you can look for an Android-based car stereo, there will be an app able to handle cuesheets I guess. Finally, very recently (last few months) new units supporting FLAC have been introduced, the Clarion VX-404 and NX-404 and the Pioneer NEX series. You might want to look into support for cuesheets with these, but I think chances are quite low.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #5 –
Quote from: szczepl on
So we have two Kenwood units now which are able to play FLAC files. But none of them can look into FLAC files for _embedded cuesheet_.
How to play and display tracks from embedded cuesheet, in car?


Be thankful that you can play FLAC! It took them long enough to be able to read ID3V2 tags properly and to not be restricted to 32 character filenames

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #6 –
Good to see more brands are supporting FLAC. Any of the mentioned models support gapless play?

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Alexxander on
Good to see more brands are supporting FLAC. Any of the mentioned models support gapless play?


Not sure. Personally I'd rather they had support for gapless in lossy formats rather than FLAC support. After all, car's are noisy places unless you're rich and can afford a Rolls Royce or something.

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #8 –
Quote from: probedb on
Quote from: Alexxander on
Good to see more brands are supporting FLAC. Any of the mentioned models support gapless play?


Not sure. Personally I'd rather they had support for gapless in lossy formats rather than FLAC support. After all, car's are noisy places unless you're rich and can afford a Rolls Royce or something.


But it's not about noisy environment, but it's about convenience. What's better to virtualize your CD collection, with covers, tracks info, title and performer, than a FLAC file with all things embedded?
I personally virtualised my all CDs to FLAC, one CD is one FLAC file. That's it. I think, that it can't be easier to understand for car audio manufacturers. And probably, some legal issues holding them from releasing such a equipment, because I don't believe they don't hiring expert stuff like people on this forum ;-) They know the limits, they know not to develop too fast, because the slower progress is money...

But I think some day I will have my car stereo able to read embedded FLAC content, and virtualising CDs or DATs will became a standard. Hopefully without some DRM stupid things...

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #9 –
Quote from: szczepl on
I personally virtualised my all CDs to FLAC, one CD is one FLAC file.


Any reason to go for one file per CD instead of individual tracks as files?

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #10 –
Quote from: julf on
Quote from: szczepl on
I personally virtualised my all CDs to FLAC, one CD is one FLAC file.


Any reason to go for one file per CD instead of individual tracks as files?


Convience. Copying it is one operation, gapless playing it is easier for player (imagine some Pink Floyd albums as separated files. Even my Android will insert a 'peak' during track change). And of course - in that one file I have one copy of front and back cover. It's just for treating albums, as albums. Do you buy separate tracks in music shop, or you buy a CD? I don't understand some resistence to my (and probably not only my) philosophy described above. I quit separate files many years ago. All my collection is made as APE of FLAC files. One folder for all images. Easier backup. And so on ;-) Try it, you'll like it

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #11 –
Quote from: szczepl on
Copying it is one operation


Copying is one operation, independent of the object being a single file or a directory (at least on reasonable operating systems).

Quote
gapless playing it is easier for player


All the players I have do gapless just fine with FLAC.

Quote
And of course - in that one file I have one copy of front and back cover. It's just for treating albums, as albums. Do you buy separate tracks in music shop, or you buy a CD?


I keep an album as one directory, so that I can have cover art, background information etc. as separate files in the directory - but also per-track information in each track file (infomation such as visiting artists, song author etc. that vary from track to track).

Quote
All my collection is made as APE of FLAC files. One folder for all images.


All images, for potentially thousands of albums, in one directory apart from the actual tracks? Question of taste, but I find keeping all the images in the album directory together with the tracks makes it much easier.

Quote
Try it, you'll like it


Thanks, I have, and didn't like it

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #12 –
Quote from: szczepl on
But it's not about noisy environment, but it's about convenience. What's better to virtualize your CD collection, with covers, tracks info, title and performer, than a FLAC file with all things embedded?


You mean it's what you want. No-one I know uses cuesheets with a single FLAC file. The only time I'd heard about them was when I came here. 99% of people don't know what they are. They want to put their MP3/AAC files from their iPod/whatever in their car. I won't like it because it's not how I want to store my music.

Albums on CD come like that because that's the format. If I download an album from a music store it comes as individual tracks. The pros/cons of multiple tracks per album/single files is an entirely separate discussion.

Car manufacturers don't make their stereos. Aftermarket ones are even worse. They seem reasonably generic from the emails I've had from Alpine about why they can't implement simple things.

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #13 –
I once stubbornly insisted on using single-file flacs with embedded cues. Converted to single tracks in the end because next to no players, be it software or hardware, properly supported embedded cues and I was tired of having to transcode to single tracks every time. There is no difference playback wise, and if there is, it's time to change your player... It's hard enough to find a car player that supports flac at all, embedded cuesheet? Impossible.

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #14 –
Quote from: ChronoSphere on
I once stubbornly insisted on using single-file flacs with embedded cues. Converted to single tracks in the end because next to no players, be it software or hardware, properly supported embedded cues and I was tired of having to transcode to single tracks every time. There is no difference playback wise, and if there is, it's time to change your player... It's hard enough to find a car player that supports flac at all, embedded cuesheet? Impossible.


It's all up to you guys. I just decribed my way, which I like and it is very handy for me to handle those 'CDs'. On PC I use foobar2000 which natively supports embedded cue's, and on my Android I use PowerAmp. So, based on my research for now there is only one approach to this topic - buy a unit with A2DP Bluetooth and transmit from docked Android to it. SBC codec is of course lossy one, but the quality is acceptable for playing music in car.

Car Head-Unit playing FLAC

Reply #15 –
Quote from: szczepl on
It's all up to you guys. I just decribed my way, which I like and it is very handy for me to handle those 'CDs'. On PC I use foobar2000 which natively supports embedded cue's, and on my Android I use PowerAmp. So, based on my research for now there is only one approach to this topic - buy a unit with A2DP Bluetooth and transmit from docked Android to it. SBC codec is of course lossy one, but the quality is acceptable for playing music in car.


Or just buy a cheap headunit with a 3.5mm input and then buy any DAP you want