etzero

I have been debating if there any benefit to using an Ipod at all vs. just a standard USB stick in my 2010 TSX w/tech. To the best of my knowledge, on the Ipod, you can refine/sort by: Playlist, Artist, Album, and Song. The USB stick can be sorted however you decide, but only one way short of computer manipulation.

I'm not going to talk about "Song" because its worthless once you have more than 40 CDs worth of songs. "Album" is another one that becomes questionable for the same reason.

By Artist

The USB stick can be sorted by your folder naming convention. So for instance, if you name your folders *Artist - Album* (ie Metallica - Master of Puppets), the list would be sorted by Artist. This would effectively give you some thing similar to what you see on the Ipod when you choose Artist. The major difference is that the structure is flat which will increase the list if you have a lot of albums from the same artist. Using the Ipod, you do not see the albums until you click on an artist. For example:

Ipod artist list:
Artist 1
-----Album 1
-----Album 2
Artist 2
-----Album 1
Artist 3
-----Album 1

USB artist list:
Artist 1 - Album 1
Artist 1 - Album 2
Artist 2 - Album 1
Artist 3 - Album 1

By Genre
The Ipod completely ignores the genre tag as far as I know. Using a USB stick you can add genre before the artist such as "Genre - Artist - Album". You now have effectively sorted by genre, then artist then, album.

Personally I like to use a mix of sorting by artist and genre in specific cases. For example I put "Soundtrack -" in front of all my soundtrack folders to group them all together. I do this for most small grouping of "unique" forms of music.

By Playlists
The Ipod does this well. You are presented with a list of your playlists and then a list of the songs in the playlist you select.

There really is no simple way to do this other than to make a directory such as *My Playlist1* and then copying all the songs you want into it. The key to remember is that you would need to rename the actual songs to get them to play in the order you want. ie. 01song.mp3, 02song.mp3. A trick to get your playlists to show at the top of your USB list is to put a character such as "!" in your play list folder name. ie *!My Playlist1*

I personally don't use playlists but I would say Ipod has the edge here just for ease of use.

Pros and Cons
In terms of sound quality and speed I didn't notice any differences. Both have some lag when scrolling though a lot of songs.

A huge factor will of course be how comfortable you are using iTunes vs windows explorer. This entire post is really elementary otherwise. For the people that can go both ways:

Ipod Pros:
A somewhat better interface.
Playlists easier to set up.

Ipod Cons:
Much more costly.
Not ideal to be left in the car due to heat and theft.
Itunes (j/k)

---

USB Pros:
Very cost effective.
Is not as susceptible to heat and theft. (can be left in car)
The ability to sort by genre.

USB Cons:
No dynamic sorting available. Requires renaming of folders.
Flat file structure. Some lists may be longer.


Conclusion:
I have only had my car for a week now so I am still playing around with both but I am leaning towards returning my $400 64GB Ipod and keeping my $150 64GB USB stick. I would very much like to hear arguments one way or the other about this topic.


Important: After you have all your folders named and copied to your USB stick you need to use a program to sort them. Otherwise the folders will instead be listed in the order they were copied. I used a free program called DriveSort. You essentially "open" your USB drive, select the root directory and click sort. Takes about 10 sec.

One thing I forgot to mention is that it is also nice and sometimes cost effective to use multiple USB sticks. I for instance, use a seperate 32GB ($75) stick to store all my audio books on. This also keeps the list that you have to scroll though on your "main" USB stick shorter.

DerwoodEE

I just prefer to kill 2 birds with one stone and use my iPhone.

etzero

Yes, that is an option for some.

Since AT&T is awful in my area I have since gone with a Droid. I have also read of issues here with the Iphone and Bluetooth. Something about audio interruption as it switchs back and forth.

I'm pretty sure my driod can play audio though Bluetooth but I am not interested in that due to reduction in sound quality.

ttk5

w00t go droid! I have a G1

acuratsx2010

Just plug in the iPhone into the iPod connector and you're set and don't have to worry about the Bluetooth connection. That's what I do.

MrOtocinclus

I was also going to say that in my experience, Bluetooth sound quality is significantly inferior to USB. That could have been my phone, a Nokia E51, but I doubt that the iPhone is much more far ahead in terms of Bluetooth sound quality. Still, there is no doubting the convenience of not having to plug something in every time you get into the car.

etzero, I like how your first post is so detailed and organized. Welcome to the forum, and I look forward to more excellent posts from you.

As for what I use for my MP3s, I use an old 8 gig Kingston thumb drive. If I need to order some songs (say for a trance mix that's been split into 20 mp3s) then I use DriveSort. Last night I downloaded the old SNES soundtrack for Final Fantasy IV. I didn't want to go back downstairs to fetch the Kingston from my car, so I just threw the MP3s onto another stick I had laying around, and this morning I got to listen to FFIV on the way to work. So, that's a nice option as USB sticks are so ubiquitous these days you can just switch them around whenever you want.

ed_423

hm for those of you that has an iphone, when i plug mine in it said somethign about not capable or osmething/ does that happen to you guys too?

varialflip

I got myself a used iPod 5g for 40$ locally. The screen has a large scratch on it, but since it resides mostly in the armrest, that's not a problem. It stores all of my music and basicly costs less than what a USB drive would cost.

tsx671

Happens to me all the time. Apparently, if I want to use my iPhone as a music device (connected through the iPod USB connector) I cannot use the phone through the Bluetooth handsfree system. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I basically use a separate iPod for my music and my iPhone as a communication device when driving.

ed_423

ohh haha thanks for the heads up. yeah tahts what i do too, 8gb ipod nano in glovebox, iphone to talk via bluetooth. it works well so far, so i think ima keep doing that

Higgs Boson

If I plug anything into my USB port (ipod, iphone, USB drive) while my iphone is connected on bluetooth it will say "Bad USB."

Is this normal?

I have not tried it yet without the iphone in the car....

DANDEL

This was a good write up on organizing your music, thanks for taking the time and sharing.

I have a 16G junk drive full of music that I leave in the car. It is somewhat organized yet not close to how yours is set up. I have found that when I have more than a couple gig worth of music that I usually dont search by artist much. My favorite voice command is " USB RANDOM " then skip forward if I want something new. This way I get a taste of just about everything I laoded on it.

I think im more picky about sound quality than the organization of the music and I do think the Acura ELS system sounds great for a stock radio.

Thanks again for sharing

nyydynasty

i just my Zune with an aux cable. I love it. I'd rather use the USB cable but thats not going to happen. I used to use a thumbdrive and I did like using it. I'm just against buying apple products - lol

acuratsx2010

It has happened to me on a couple of occasions. I've just kept the iPhone plugged in and turn it completely off then turn it on, while still being connected, for the car to recognize it.

There is always a message when I plug in the iPhone about needing to turn it into airplane mode but I always hit no.

tsx_ridah10

I have been using my iphone for quite a while however, it's kinda buggy sometimes where if you shut the car of while connected the next time it wont connect so u have to remove the plug and plug it back in.

I recently burned some MP3 cd's and have noticed much better sound quality!!!! than my iphone.

I have not tried a usb stick but think I might give it a try!!!!

KaeDotOh

I just started using an ipod and so far no complaints.

kristy7911

I love my ipod, like having the choice of using the bluetooth audio with my droid-only use it to listen to pandora though.

Bart50

I have a 1st generation iPod Touch and I was having the problem you are describing. It would say it wasn't compatible sometimes and it was really slow to respond via the TSX's interface.

I figured out the issue though and haven't had any trouble since:

See, I had my iPod set up to automatically sync with iTunes. The way I defined which subset of music to put on my iPod (I have more music than fits on my device) was that I created a playlist that included everything I wanted on my iPod at any given time and just set iTunes to always sync that one playlist. Well, the result was this gigantic playlist and the TSX was just choking on it. When you first plug an iPod or iPhone into the TSX, it just starts playing the first playlist it comes to... Mine was about 3500 songs long.

I dumped the playlist and just sync with iTunes by selected artist now and it works perfectly without any issues.

ed_423

i have a ipod nano and it works perfectly (i also like how it has an acura logo on the nano screen once i plug it in). its jsut my iphone that doesnt work, but i ahventt try the method of turning off my bluetooth yet lol

nine11c2

I plugged a stick into my car with two artists, and a folder below each artist. However, they come up in my car as Folder 1, Folder 2 and Folder 3. How do I get the folder names to show (which I'll do by "Artist - Album")?

fallacy

bluetooth to my phone. (Nexus One)

Done!

If you're using Android I recommend Grooveshark and Winamp to play tunez.

ipatella

Winamp ftw (I feel like I'm in 2001 saying that) but wifi syncing is awesome.

oblio98

I'm using my iPod. I have all of my files ripped to it as 'Apple Lossless', and the sound is great. Glad I decided to rip that way as opposed to MP3. I have a dock on my Denon receiver at home and when the iPod had MP3's on it, it made me crazy listening through the stereo so I went back and redid all of the music.

If you want your audio to sound really good from your iPod in your Acura, try 'Apple Lossless" when you fill your iPod. It will take more space on the iPod, but it will be worth it.