I want to have access to my lossless audio library in my vehicle. Right now this means 50GB of data. In the future it will obvisouly grow.

I dont want a gigantic GPS display or what have you.

Ideally I would want a car CD player (standard size) that has a built in hard drive, that I could dump lossless audio files on.

It seems some makers (Sony, Panasonic) have had some type of model in the past, but I cant find anythign current.

So whats the best way to have my lossless library (or 192 lame mp3s if I must) available to listen in my vehicle?? A CD deck with an Ipod connector? Does an all in one solution exist?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

So in this digital age, with being able to have our music collections at our fingertips, I surely cant be the only one who desires to have his whole music collection available in his car?

I dont know but I've been thinking about this a bit recently. A CD deck with a USB connector, external hard-drive hidden under the seat?

Clarion has one.. but it can only handle a paltry 255 media files
http://www.clarion.com/ca/en/products/2006...8706936860.html

Perhaps a deck with ipod connector is the best out there right now. I dont understand why a cd deck with say an 80GB hard drive IN THE DECK (i.e. no extra peripherals required) doesnt exist (given the popularity of digital media).

Probably because transferring hundreds of gigabytes worth of music onto a fixed HD in the car is not very practical for most people, laptops notwithstanding.

But anyway, the wave of the future: A2DP enabled head unit, A2DP enabled mobile phone/portable player, control media from head unit.

But the big question, why lossless or even 192 kbps? I'd reckon that the noise levels in yer average car might even make it difficult to ABX 112 kbps MP3...

50Gb is quite high for a DAP. You can get 80Gb I think if you replace the drive on an ihp-140.

I think part of the reason why we don't currently see this is because these car CD decks would be extremely expensive. I remember the Sony model that came in at $800 and it came with 20GB hard drive and was only compatible with ATRAC3 (it wasn't compatible with ATRAC3 lossless) and mp3. That is just way too much to invest into a system that only has 20GB of storage and is a pain to sync music to (you had to pop out the hard drive, bring it into your house, and plug it into your PC).

I think the best solution is to spring for a $200 car CD deck with a aux input and a portable digital audio player that had a line-out port (or some 3rd party accessory/charger that has a line-out port) like an iPod. That way, you could invest a lot of money but your portable music wouldn't be limited to just your car (like in a car CD deck that has a internal hard drive). You can take an iPod pretty much anywhere including your car.

Thanks for the feedback guys...

re: pricing
I guess I figure hard drives and car decks are cheap these days. If as a consumer I can make a solution for $700 (ipod plus car deck), then it seems plausible that a combo unit could be put together for less.

re: lossless files/192/112
Youre probably right the difference might not be noticeable. I think I am confusing (spoiled by) the cheap prices of PC hard drives (I just got a 250gb for less than a hundred bucks), and forgetting making them for a car would cost more. Point being, I only have 200 or less CDs... so to me ripping lossless only made sense, since memory is dirt cheap. I suppose if I had a 20GB drive in a car though, I could put mp3s (and it would be a lot cheaper than an 80GB drive) and would be quite happy. So scratch my insistence on lossless files.

re: convenience... I figure such a solution would have the hard drive removable, then you would just connect it to the computer by USB2.0 or firewire. When I look at the size on the 80GB ipod, I am sure it could fir inside a standard car deck, and have an 'eject' button on it.

re: A2DP... I had never heard of this. So I think what youre gettig at, is that if CD head unit is A2DP enabled, and your device is, you dont need wires or special connections... sounds good to me

So I guess for the current state of technology, the suggestion of a CD deck with either AUX inpur, or Ipod connector is the best thing.

A2DP is an advanced Bluetooth profile which is included in some recent Bluetooth-equipped devices. Not all Bluetooth devices are A2DP capable though. Think of it as a wireless version of speaker wire + a remote.

The scenario is this: you step in the car with your A2DP enabled phone (with, say 4 GB worth of music, take the Sony-Ericsson w950i for example). The head unit automatically pairs with the phone. You can browse the music on the phone using the display/controls on the head unit (or using the phone itself). The music is streamed wirelessly to the head unit which plays it through the car speakers. If a call comes in, you'll get that through your speakers as well. Call ends, music automatically gets back on. Step out of the car, sync the phone with some new music from your home PC, and off you go again. Much more practical than taking out a complete hard drive everytime you park the car in a dodgy area.

In practice, it's not quite there yet. On the phone side of things, there's lots of A2DP-capable phones around, esp from Sony-Ericsson and Samsung. On the head unit side, there's only two A2DP-capable units out at the moment: one Pioneer and one Sony model. Expensive, think $500+ range. I've seen the Pioneer and it looks absolutely garish - all pimped out, flashy multicoloured lights. A2DP will no doubt trickle down to cheaper models over the next few years, but at the moment it's all a bit top-of-the-range/early adopter stuff.

A2DP also has nice other applications (wireless headphones, phone-to-PC streaming, etc).

You probly want something like the omnifi, but I don't think it plays lossless, and well they don't make them any more so you will have to resort to ebay or other avenues.

I didn't realize their were decks that took USB mass storage devices. That sounds like what you want.

Failing that, you could always get an ipod with a dead hard disk and hack it up to take a 2.5" drive. Would be a fun project at least

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=392489

Vinnie97 uses a Rockboxed iPod Nano with one of these things.

This is by no means inexpensive... but you can get a phatnoise system that supports FLAC and can be up to 120GB.

http://www.phatnoise.com/

Best bet is a USB capable head unit coupled with a USB hard driive that can be powered via the USB connection. Kenwood makes quite a few USB capable units. Don't know if they support any lossless formats.

Yeah but you can't control a hard drive with a car cd deck. They have NTFS or FAT32 formatting. That would only work with flash memory, like thumb drives or memory cards.

You don't have to control the hard drive. It looks exactly the same to the head unit as a flash drive, only bigger.

Flash sticks are also fat32 or ntfs, since they're logically identical to usb hard disks.

...as are iPod nanos

i KNOW that i've seen a deck with integrated HDD!!! Unfortunately don't know anything about it

Alpine had one which they quickly dropped once they realized where the market was heading. I remember watching a major retailer seriously reduce the price in order to eliminate their inventory. The MSRP was $799.

http://www.carreview.com/mfr/alpine/cd-rec...rx.aspx#reviews

I've still got my RioCar (aka Empeg MkII) in my Honda. While not quite a fully integrated head unit (it lacks a power amp, and the tuner was optional), it can take up to two 2.5" laptop drives in a standard DIN-sized slot. Acquired for ~$500 during the fire sale.

Also, there's a 1/8" plug in my the dash for iPods, XM, etc. Options, baby!

EDIT: the 1/8" plug isn't related to the RioCar, just to clarify.

-brendan

Thanks for all the ideas.

A friend at work here has a phatbox... and its tedious to me. You have to surf through the stuff using a computer voice... very tedious when you have hundreds of artists or whatever (perhaps there is a better way.. but as he showed it to me, it seemed terrible).

I am looking at the kenwood decks with USB...
still more research to do.. but does this mean I could just buy any old external usb drive, mount it under my seat or something, and wire it right to the deck??

What about a micro-ITX PC in a single DIN case? Should be able to fit 2 * 120GB 2.5" HDD's.

I know a lot of DVD players don't have enough power via USB to handle a USB HDD. Same could be true of Kenwood decks. Still be possible, just might require an external power source.

So you're saying that I can go get a basic car stereo receiver like this one, plug in my external 3.5" hard drive full of music files and it will be able to play them? I have a hard time believing that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but is anyone actually doing this? And if so, why does anyone bother with carputers?

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I would recommend testing it in a store first, if possible. You can always buy it online after ;-)

Here's a nice site that summarizes the abilities of the Kenwood USB. Seems like a great solution.
http://www.kenwood.com/usb/compatibility/k.html

Unknowns include:
* will it power the external HDD
* will it be fast and responsive enough to browse a library featuring hundreds of artists? (note that it does not support the 'genre' tag, which personally I use to find what I want to listen to quickly. Browsing through 60 artists, or 150 albums might be a tedious process)
* will an external HDD survive in the car, given dramatic temperature changes, vibrations and general wear and tear?

1. Only if the drive can be run off a standard USB port, I would guess (5V 500mA max, I think). Some external 2.5" drives can be powered from a single port that provides the standard power. I suppose that still leaves the question as to whether they made the port to spec.

2. Yep, that seems to always be the problem with in car systems.

3. That depends upon the drive, the enclosure/mounting...and the car & driver.

-brendan

So the consensus is that it should work. I think if you use a 2.5" drive it will be more robust and able to survive in a car. I should try it at Best Buy or something.

really interested post i thought about this a while ago but didnt want to buy a 2.5" drive to find it doesnt work. post back if you have any luck

This is a great thread. I am looking for exactly the same player for my new civic. I have done a lot of research myself and have come to the conclusion that the best solution is a CarPC. Even if you are able to connect and HD to USB port adn even if the HU is fast enough to browse through thousands of files, it still comes down to having a screen that is so small that you can barely see 5 or so files at a time and inability to jump between variously named files.
Technology is getting better and better and even now you can get a decent CarPC with touchscreen and everything for under 1200. When you have a PC, it means that you can play any type of file if you have the codec. This works out great for lossless formats. I might be installing a PC by the end of this year.
As for AUX, it is crap. My car came with factory AUX. The quality is not good. The "silence" is not silent. The mp3 player cannot be controlled. Every time you leave the car you have to manually turn off the damn player..... You have to spend some money to get filter in order to have some bearable quality, but why waste the money?

just outta interest this was what i was looking at a 120gb usb powered hard drive from scan.co.uk

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo...roductID=433268

Just wanted to Add my two cents....

First off in response to not being able to tell on the quality of music... IE using 112 kbps MP3's in a car... you can notice. In my car is where I notice most of my shitty music.

Secondly using a line out from a Ipod results in horible SQ. Beleive me I have it set up like that in my car right now. The best is from my laptop which has a high powered SPDIF output on it. But it still doesnt compare to a CD in the deck.

Finally the best solution I have found is Alpine decks that hook up directly to the Ipod using the Data interface and the deck itself controls the music and just access's the Ipod like a HD. Dont know any models but once is all said and done... deck + ipod and acceories... your probably looking at around $600 but you can take your music anywhere with your Ipod. Only reason I bought one is for the option but my VBR issues are making me want to sell it...

Please provide the model numbers of the equipment you have by Alpine which you believe is decoding digital data from an iPod.


While it is true that the decks control the iPod, it is not true that the iPod simply passes the digital files over for the deck to decode. Otherwise, explain how such a deck will be able to play music purchased from iTunes which has DRM applied to it.

Maybe it sends just sends the decoded PCM to the deck. (I have no idea if it actually does this)

There's a line-out in the dock connector which is what I strongly believe is being used, otherwise I think there would be quite a few products that would market that they make use of the digital data supplied from the iPod.

You could be right Firon, but this is the very first time I've ever seen anyone suggest this.

i found this:

http://www.mp3yourcar.com/

any1 heard of it or used it? it allows your ipod to plug into your head unit (cd changer i think) you can control it via the head unit or ipod!

it plugs into the bottom of the ipod not the headphones.

Um, what is a "high powered SPDIF output"?

-brendan

Probably not the right terminology but on my laptop its a multi port. It can be regular SPDIF out over 1/8" Jack or it can be Optical out or it can be a High Powered headphone jack. In other words it can hook up digitally to a decoder or be a high powered line out. For example with my car when I hook up my Ipod the music is quite and theres no bass. Through the Laptop its just as loud as a CD but still not as good of bass.

As far as models for my previous post I do not have any nor the time to go look. I know this from a local store that has a Ipod installed in their Alpine display board and you use the deck to access the music on the Ipod. I cant say exactly how it does it but it does hook up through the bottom and not the headphone jack. So it is indeed not using the Ipod's amplifier and is controlled from the deck.

I tried a Kenwood w/ USB, and it did not work my LaCie 80Gb USB powered HD. I don't remember the number of the Kenwood. I bought a cheap (well, relatively cheap) Alpine that supports iPod, with an interface cable that even charges the 'pod. I keep the 'pod in the glove compartment, as the Alpine head unit will control the 'pod remotely. (Using a 60Gb iPod Photo).

Yes, but this does not mean that it is using of the iPod's audio data in digital form.

I'm guessing you aren't aware that the iPod has an analog line-out located in the dock connector.

BTW, I actually have one of these Alpine systems.