Comments on: MP3 car stereo with USB port for flashdrives!

By: Pask

Pask — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 07:31:37 +0000

hey i have got a usb car stereo and i have tryed to plug in my usb wth songs on it and it says error12.the brand of da stereo is foryou.can someone plz help me out i am getting mad.

By: Knowledge Man

Knowledge Man — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:37:59 +0000

Hey all,

If you are having problems getting you USB ext HDD to work with you car sterero it’s probably because of the power limitiation of the headset. (As mentioned by Joost). But don’t dispare there as a great new solution available now on Ebay from Bluebox Products. It simple to wire in - just connects in line with you USB link and allows you to use the Standard Ext USB HDD with just a USB port connection.

Now you can have all your music in you car for flash cards!!!!

Enjoy….

By: MNS

MNS — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:46:40 +0000

Hello,
Unfortunately, my MP3CD-playing stereo doesn’t have a USB jack. My MP3 player connects through the AUX port using the 2-right angle cable. Is there an aux cable that I can buy which will accept USBs?

Please help…MNS

By: Loledo

Loledo — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:12:46 +0000

Mine Pioneer DH3950 got a AUX unit.Can i play fit a USB drive/USB Porta HDD to that. and play music.

By: Jooston

Jooston — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:08:12 +0000

Hi there, I bought a Kenwood KDC-W6537U with an USB connector on the rear end of the device. Here is some information that might prove helpfull when considering if USB is the thing for you. From what I’ve seen (and I’ve done quite a bit of research on the subject) the USB bus never gives more then 500mA, it only reads FAT16/32 formatted drives and is only able to read MSC (Mass Storage Class) devices, these MSC devices can use different protocols like UMS (USB Mass Storage) or MTP, those both work. I’ve tested several USB mp3 players and in general you can say that if they are plug and play in your OS (Operating System, ie: Windows XP) they will work on your car stereo. If they need to be turned on before they are recognized then they will only work when turned while connected to your car stereo, this option I personally find unpractical since you have to switch batteries of your mp3player once in a while and you need to turn it on before it will play music. If your mp3player isn’t a MSC device then connecting it to your car stereo is out of the question. Now for external USB harddrives, those will only work if they need less then 500mA for the spin up. The problem with this is, hard drive manufacturers often don’t publish power requirements for their products. I figured out that the Western Digital Passport (60gb) is working quite fine on my Kenwood. I first bought the 120gb variant, assuming it was exactly the same as the 60gb but with 2 platters instead of one and thus having nearly the same power requirements but I was proven wrong. I hope this information was helpful, a summary of information for your convenience:
Car Stereo USB Specs&Info (applies to most car stereo’s with USB functionality)

- maximum of 500mA output power on USB bus (if powered)
- capable of reading FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems
- WMA and MP3 playback (may differ per model)
- only reading mass storage devices that don’t require drivers

Regards, Joost Doomernik

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:55:38 +0000

I have one of these and I love it. I use it with my SD memory all the time. Question anyone ever gotten it to work with mp3 players theme selves not just the ipod? I had a Car neo for ages but the hard drive died and I’m having a hard time getting a half height drive to replace it so I was considering getting some other mp3 solution for in car use. (Any tried the zune with this?)

Thanks,

–Eric

By: Albert

Albert — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:05:49 +0000

Hey, I’m having a serious problem with my USB drive on my Insigniaâ„¢ 40W x 4 CD Deck. I plug my USB cord into the jack and the other end into my Sliver (Cell Phone) I have plenty of songs on my phone and I can listen to them normally off the phone but I want to be able to play them in my car when I’m driving also. Anyway I plug everything in and my phone just says Do Not Disconnect. I’m not sure if it’s and ITunes thing or whatnot. The CD/MP3 Face reads USB in the car but nothing works. The phone wont switch off of Do Not Disconnect. HELP!!!!

By: Matt|er

Matt|er — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:18:43 +0000

Well I got the Insignia to read my entire MP3 collection. All 70GB. It took about 4 minutes to start playback when I plugged in the hard drive into the Insignia. I am now streamlining the mp3s and dir structures to minimize load time.

By: Matt|er

Matt|er — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:59:32 +0000

I have purchased the NS-C5111, It’s the next version of one you reviewed. It seems to have the same pros and cons. Except it has an SD card reader. I also purchased an external Western Digital Passport USB hard drive. It’s a 120GB, powered from the USB. At first it didn’t work. So I researched, and found that the max was 1GB. I made sure to only format this into Fat32. That worked. So I formatted it to 2GB that worked, so I formatted it to 4GB. That worked, so I formatted it to 16GB. That worked, so I formatted it to 78GB. That didn’t work. So I formatted it to 32GB. That did work. Lastly I formatted it to 70GB, and it worked with a small amount of music. Make sure to use the FAT32 file system. Also note, Windows XP/2000 can not format beyond 32GB partitions. XP can read up to 2TB of data off FAT32, just not make it for some reason. I had to use a program called FAT32FORMAT. It’s free and great! Now I am copying all my music, 68GBs to it. I will see if it can read all that. At first I was thinking it couldn’t read the drive because it was too large. But now I am thinking there is some file in there or something else that is causing nothing to happen when I plug it in. I have noticed the larger I make the partition, the longer it takes to read the table of contents. Over all I am very satisfied with this device. Before I have used a real desktop computer isntalled in my cars to offer massive mp3 storage. But this is too easy to go back .

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 01:58:27 +0000

Hey, nice write up. I just purchased one via ebay and had a quick question. Do the speaker/power wires coming from the back pull out via a plug or are they hardwired to the unit with the plug on a pigtail? Thanks

RESPONSE: I don’t remember - try downloading the manual
–Brian