Flac on Car Stereo Head Units? Options

[wantlosslesscara...]

I have a kenwood excelon 996 and I am able to play FLAC files that are on my Samsung Galaxy S3 over blue tooth to the kenwood unit through the car stereo speakers.

What I want is a head unit that will read flac files right off the USB thumb drive right into the head unit.

I have seen some threads through google searching where people have been trying to do this since 2005. The last thread I saw on google, some one had tried this back in 2009.

Does anyone have any information on FLAC support on any current car audio products other than the "psudeo" way I am doing it now?

[Rollin]

Ural Concert CDD supports FLAC playback, but it is russian product and doesn't have USB...

[probedb]

I doubt you will see it. Headunits seem to be some way behind even the cheapest of MP3 players you can buy for some reason. You don't really need FLAC as you'll have far more noise on the road than normal listening environments.

[slks]

Not sure if there's any players like this. I've always just took a cable from my audio player of choice to the line-in on the head unit, and I've been 100% satisfied with that. I suppose your Bluetooth thing works similarly.

The only benefit I can see of doing it all through the head unit is if you've got one of those units that integrates with playback controls on the steering wheel. Otherwise, why not let the head unit follow its original function of receiver+amplifier, and handle anything else (like FLAC decoding) through a dedicated device?

As well-known as FLAC is among digital audio enthusiasts, it's nearly unknown in the realm of car audio. That makes FLAC playback a special requirement that you'll need to make special arrangements for.

This post has been edited by slks: Dec 27 2012, 04:23

[julf]

Ironically, my 12-year-old empeg (still in use in my car) can play FLAC...

[Tiedemate]

This unit supports FLAC: http://www.kenwood.de/products/car/receive...iver/KMM-357SD/

[gottogo99]

I've recently been doing some research trying to find a head unit that plays FLAC. Of course I could convert to another format but storage is cheap and it's easier to drag and drop files onto a USB stick.

Of the "major" brands in the US only Kenwood will have one; their KMM-100U will be available around the end of March 2013: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_113KMM100U/Ke...d-KMM-100U.html. Frankly I was hoping for something more high end. This unit is only $100 and doesn't have many features. Note that it doesn't even play spinning discs, which is ok with me.

I also discovered another series of related brands which make full featured head units which play FLAC. That would be Soundstream/Fahrenheit/Power Acoustik. Examples: http://www.soundstream.com/html/source-units-inteq.html, http://www.poweracoustik.com/pa2012/source...ts-ingenix.html.

Anyone familiar with those brands? I'm a little leery of them since I've never heard of them until today, but I haven't been following car audio for a long time.

[marc2003]

I've always just took a cable from my audio player of choice to the line-in on the head unit, and I've been 100% satisfied with that.

this option makes the most sense to me. sansa clip+ & microSDHC card. you can even stick a 64GB microSDXC card in it. i'm not sure if the original firmware can recognise those cards but rockbox does. sorted.

[gottogo99]

Currently I am using a Rockboxed Sansa Fuze. It works fine, as long as I don't want to change folders while I'm driving. I would like to do better than a line in to my head unit.

For anyone with money to burn, I discovered JVC makes some very expensive full featured head units with navigation, which play FLAC: KW-NT310, KW-NT510, and KW-NT810. Cheapest one is around $900. I don't want it that bad.