I’m thinking about buying a new car stereo and was gonna buy one with an ipod input,then I noticed some will play music from memory stick,do you get track names etc,what’s thesound quality like? What head unitdo you use? I’ve noticed I can get a pioneer one from eBay for less than fifty quid

I plug an FM sender into phone and pretune a station to it all good. Works with any FM radio.
Less than £20 so saved loads. Able to keep original head unit.

I used to, worked fine and was easy, sounded fine to my ears. Just stream from my phone via bluetooth now which is even easier!

Works well. USB socket is handy for charging things and keeping phone powered as it acts as a sat nav. I have a cheap pioneer head unit. It’s ok.

My Alpine does this.

Works OK with a few tracks on a small memory stick but it need to read the whole stick each time you turn on the stereo, which can take a while with lots of songs. No good for short journeys.

I’ve got a Kenwood with a USB input, and I tried a little USB drive, 32Gb, with several thousand tracks on. Trouble is, it keeps flashing up ‘NA’ at various times, which apparently has something to do with file format, although all mine are AAC, either ripped or downloaded, (downloaded tracks have no DRM on), and I can’t see what’s causing the problem. Deeper investigation suggested something to do with a 255 track limit per folder, but I’m not sure if that’s the issue.
Now just using my old iPhone 4 as an iPod, with around 20-odd Gb of music on it, and CoPilot, for navigation.

I have one in the factory fit nissan unit, the sound is spot on, can see track names, can browse by folder name/artist/album etc it only scans through the stick when it’s been removed, otherwise it just continues playing the same way a cd would. I use a 16gb micro usb stick & it’s about 75% full

Yup, I use a micro sd in a micro sd reader so it’s not such a lump sticking out of it. 16gb and very rarely hear the same song twice. Great stuff.

I always did – used a pioneer to read files from a memory stick, phone and also a little portable storage device – which did struggle to be honest but it was full

Got track listings and titles too

Now have a car with a built in stereo . . .and have the pioneer to sell

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I’ve used the Sony ones on the works cars. Worked very well, sounded fine and it remembered the last track on the USB stick.

Quite a lot of radios have an SD slot as well. My VW factory fut currently has a 32Gb in it. The Phillips aftermarket I fitted to the other car at tge weekend also has one hidden behind the removable fascia which was a surprise as it was mentionned in tge spec. Also got a usb slot on the front. Works well in the VW.

I have a USB stick of music plugged into the car (Actually, I have 3 sticks floating around which I swop round from time to time). No issues here – if the track name is in the file it shows up on the display. When it’s on random it does seem to pick a small number of songs and cycle through them rather than everything on the stick though. It came in the car when I got it – a Fiat Blue and Me system I think.

USB socket in new Toyota – 130 ish albums on a 16 Gb stick – track titles and artist shown on head unit. Very happy with sound quality; MP3 file compression but set to give best sound quality rather than smallest file size.

I ordered one of these the other day to try in the Sony in my T4. 32gb very small and not too expensive,

MY wife’s new car has a USB slot that allows me to play music. It is great, I just keep a stick in there loaded with some dub so that I don’t have to listen to her take that CDs.

Its the only thing that doesn’t jump in my Landrover. Its also the only thing that is remotely computery as well. CD’s burnt to it show titles etc. LPs don’t

Like dazz, I used the Nissan unit ( mine was Nissan Connect) in my Juke when I had it as a company car. Worked well with iPod touch, memory stick, sound was spot on and very easy to navigate through tracks.

I have a BMW estate now (making up for being hung like a baby carrot) and of course the stereo is much more simple. Does have DAB though an one if those 3.5mm jacks, so all is not lost. If I were putting an aftermarket unit in, I would definitely make sure the unit worked with iPod/USB sticks, or at least one or the other. So much better than loads of CDs in the car.

Edit: one thing I would say is that if you are using an iPod, make sure the manufacturer allows you to use the normal iPod cable. BMW charge some crazy fee for their own one, apparently the one that came with the iPod does not work. Which is pants.

My Alpine does this.

Works OK with a few tracks on a small memory stick but it need to read the whole stick each time you turn on the stereo, which can take a while with lots of songs. No good for short journeys.

I’ve also got an Alpine ( 4 or so years old ) in my Defender – 64Gb memory stick, and the stereo separates tracks into groups of 1000. It’ll play instantly on start up, but does take 5 mins or so to start being able to show track details ( it shows “banking” whilst reading all the info from the memory stick ).

All in all, it works very well and is a massive improvement over the 10 disk CD changer that the previous owner had fitted.

our Golf has iPod, USB and SD card connections. I’ve put all our music on a 2″ hard drive (out of a broken iPod) that lives in the car and it works brilliantly. It does have a touch screen to help choosing tracks though.
SD cards are a bit slower to access.
If I want something from the iPhone I just stream via BT. This works very well also and means I can access my Spotify account while on the move.

I bought a cheap Chinese headunit and I use BlueTooth to stream music, also it doubles as a handsfree kit via the stereo & BT, you can even dial from the headunit. 🙂

As for SQ it is pretty poor, even with my blown speakers. 😳

CD’s burnt to it show titles etc. LPs don’t

you can normally edit the tags yourself, called ID3 tags on mp3 files iirc, itunes will do it (other mp3 players are available, bit clunky but this’ll do it very lightweight too)

I had an Aldi USB head unit on my old citroen worked ok but never got the SD slot to work could be an incompatible card, got a pioneer I think on my toyota that worked fine too, not quite as good quality as CDs but on your average car radio you probably won’t notice plus so much easier than lugging around CDs. Bit of a pita if you stall or stop tho coz it has to rescan your USB for tracks which can take a while on 8gb+ sticks.

Yes, i have a memory stick for my music and just purchased the same as Dibbs so it doesn’t protrude out. Works really well

Bit of a pita if you stall or stop tho coz it has to rescan your USB for tracks which can take a while on 8gb+ sticks.

Really? The system in the Golf remembers where you were at all times. Maybe a HD is just very much quicker to index, but I’ve never seen it.

This works very well also and means I can access my Spotify account while on the move.

Won’t someone think of the bandwidth! 😆

My Kenwood does it fine- audio quality is whatever quality your files are naturally. It detects the file headers or whatever it is that audio player software does, and displays track info etc, can skip albums or select artists from the head unit or skip tracks from the stalk. All pretty nifty. it can do the same from other USB-connected devices, ie phones, remote drives.

Only downside is it’s temperamental about what USB sticks it will read.

Really? The system in the Golf remembers where you were at all times

yeah from others posts it sounds like some systems are cleverer than others, both units I had did the scan thing, not bad on a 512Mb or 1Gb stick but USBs are getting a lot bigger now.

Won’t someone think of the bandwidth!

I should add that I download music from Spotify for use offline so no bandwidth theft – we don’t get that new fangled 3g round here.

mrs martymac has a mechless (doesnt have a cd mechanism) head unit in her focus, it has usb, sd slot and bluetooth streaming from her ipod.
it can also connect to her phone and act as a handsfree at the same time.
feels a little cheap, but sound quality is fine, it cost about 70 quid.
hers is a sony one, but plenty other brands available.
if you fancy one, go for one which has a seperate mic, the one built into the head unit isnt very sensitive.