Playing CDs in a car without a CD player

Soldato
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I used to have a 64GB USB stick with my music on, now have a second phone with the Android OS and a 256GB microSDXC card in it which I have my music on and I use the Pulsar music Android Auto app to play back music whilst running google maps.
 
Soldato
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i'd wager that 99% of his music collection will be available on Spotify, just use that. Doesn't the g20 have spotify built-in so you don't even need phone data anymore?
 
Soldato
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i'd wager that 99% of his music collection will be available on Spotify, just use that. Doesn't the g20 have spotify built-in so you don't even need phone data anymore?

I think you need to pay Spotify a monthly subscription fee to download music for offline use and I didn’t want to do that.
 
Soldato
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I’m only using about 30GB of my 256GB microSDXC card, my old 64GB USB stick still had plenty of space. The 256GB microSDXC card was only £ 24.58 and the 64GB USB stick was £ 3.74.

I sold the USB stick for £ 3 I’m such a tight wad.
 
Soldato
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Doesn't the g20 have spotify built-in so you don't even need phone data anymore?
yes - you're right , I thought new bmw had several years of free data services with their version of spotify included.

now have a second phone with the Android OS and a 256GB microSDXC card in it which I have my music on
you don't plug the card directly into the car, which may give better quality than android auto, but then have to rely on the head unit's music indexing/searching mechanism;

from earlier link about g20 people are organising music in folders A-Z , which sounds a faff ... in addition to pre-built playlists, I'd want auto-complete for artists/tracks like I have on Tidal, but maybe that is dreaming.

£100 v a cheapo discman? Does it have special damping so it doesn't skip?
having dismantled them to remove stuck discs -alpine 630 changers have a spring suspended internal chassis and silicon dampers, you configure for the orientation too.
philips discman I tried way back jumped, but maybe the electronic shock protection buffer improved, on newer ones.
 
Soldato
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I went with something similar with my F30 3 series, mine does have a single slot CD and also offers to save/rip the CD to the inbuilt hard drive but that quickly ended up in a complete mess so ended up re-initialising it to remove all the ripped content.

What I eventually ended up doing is ripping the CDs to MP3, tried FLAC which are supported but I couldn’t really hear the difference. Copied all the MP3s to a USB flash drive and then used an M3U playlist creator to create individual playlists. Copy the playlist files to the USB and then select the playlist I want.

A bit more faff then simply slotting in a CD and does take a bit of getting used to but it works for me.
 
Soldato
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If I want to create a playlist I simply load the Pulsar app on my Android phone then go to folders and press on the folder I want to make a playlist of, then choose Add to playlist, choose New playlist and give it a name.

When I connect my phone to my car via the USB port and start Android Auto then load the Pulsar app, the playlist I just created will be there under playlists.

Simples!
 
Man of Honour
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I would just rip it to USB stick, the idea of plugging in a discman or whatever feels like short term gain, long term pain because switching discs will be a faff (inferior even to a slot loading built in cd player).
If it supports big enough drives, with USB you can put all/most of 1000 CDs on say a 128GB stick.

Ripping takes a while but it's a one-off exercise and has some fringe benefits in that he could also setup a home media library using it in future if he wanted to.
Even ripping say 10 albums a day and doing it over 100 days would provide more than enough music than he'd have time to listen to in the car.

We bought a car with no CD player about 4.5 years ago and TBH it just means a lot of CDs I don't listen to any more, I have a few ripped to USB and then play some off my phone (Amazon Music) using bluetooth.
 

mjt

mjt

Soldato
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Ripping to MP3 is clearly the way to go then! Thanks for the replies :)

He’s discovered windows media player but will set him up with EAC + LAME, as WMP is trash.

Is there a limit to the size of USB a G20 can read? On my old S3 and current A6, I have to use a 32GB SD card formatted in FAT32. I’m hoping this isn’t an issue on a 2021 BMW? :p

Also, good point on the free data with connected services @OllyM; I had forgotten about that.
 
Soldato
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Is there a limit to the size of USB a G20 can read? On my old S3 and current A6, I have to use a 32GB SD card formatted in FAT32. I’m hoping this isn’t an issue on a 2021 BMW? :p

No limits to the size of a USB stick, but SDHC Cards have a limit of 32GB, you’d need a unit capable of reading SDXC cards to go higher than 32GB. My phone reads SDXC cards and I use a 256GB one in it.
 
Soldato
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Forget CDs.
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Associate
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Obviously legalities aside I personally would source the music already in MP3 format if I had copies of the original on CD. And then rip those that are not available myself.
 
Associate
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The BMW Spotify app requires a premium Spotify subscription to use (inlcuding Family as suggested above, which I what I use) It uses the inbuilt data connection so does not need a separate data contract, although I think after the initial 3 year period you would need to continue subscribing to the BMW connected service to continue with it.

My biggest complaint with it is that, unlike music thats stored locally, you are subject to the quality of the data connection and it leads to regular dropouts in some areas where there is no coverage. It doesn't always restart immediately when you are back in a covered area either. It's great when its working though.
 

mjt

mjt

Soldato
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The BMW Spotify app requires a premium Spotify subscription to use (inlcuding Family as suggested above, which I what I use) It uses the inbuilt data connection so does not need a separate data contract, although I think after the initial 3 year period you would need to continue subscribing to the BMW connected service to continue with it.

My biggest complaint with it is that, unlike music thats stored locally, you are subject to the quality of the data connection and it leads to regular dropouts in some areas where there is no coverage. It doesn't always restart immediately when you are back in a covered area either. It's great when its working though.
Getting Spotify family would increase the cost by 50%, even though it is "only" another £5 a month.
There's a 5-minute section on my commute without any phone signal, so I try to force the next track and/or a long track before that section on the rare occasion I'm using Spotify on my commute. This is annoying.

Plus if he's already got 2000 CDs (it's clearly not 1000 any more!), why pay for Spotify and effectively pay twice?
 
Soldato
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I thought inbuilt bmw spotify had a limited 128Kb/s stream too, so if you have unlimited data on your phone (and good enough reception) you might as well use that;
there are some free spotify trials , so, he could see if, apart from the subscription, it would be OK.
(yes - that's a better data rate than DAB, but even so)

My biggest complaint with it is that, unlike music thats stored locally, you are subject to the quality of the data connection and it leads to regular dropouts in some areas where there is no coverage.
Is the bmw connected tied to a particular service provider, or can you link it with whoever has best signal in your area (EE for us)

[

If you are using Idrive internal spotify app, doesn't that restrict you to lower quality spotify music 128Kb/s, and you have to pay anually for their sim ? (which you would need to do for nav anyway) , but, if you use AA/CP this allows you to access 192Kb/s service, within the Bluetooth sound bandwidth limitations.
I find it annoying that inbuilt sound apps (like Polestar too) don't give you access to best quality streaming service options.

]
 
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