Who uses USB thumb drives for music playback?

I have realized that I'm interested in the idea of music loaded to a thumb drive to play in my 2020 Tundra. This thought developed just yesterday while using a thumb drive to program my new Kicker 500.1 sub amp. I'm an old dog and not very computer literate, although it seems I'm usually able to accomplish most tasks. I don't have a streaming service, so I suspect I'd be looking at finding a way to load songs from CDs to my computer then on to the thumb drive.

I have a couple of questions I'm hoping you guys can answer.
Can the music played this way sound as good as the CD it came from?
Does using a USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0 have any effect on sound quality?
Approximately how many CDs would fit on say a 64GB drive?
And is there any type of thumb drive that would be superior for music reproduction, or is a drive just a drive?

Thanks for your thoughts and experience!

 

I use a USB drive to play music on my Kenwood DMX907S, not sure if the stock units support it.

USB 2.0 vs 3.0 is just an increase in data transfer speeds, though 2.0 speeds are still orders of magnitude faster than the data transfer rate required to play a song. So doesn’t matter in your case.

The audio will sound just as good if you make sure you choose a “lossless” or FLAC type file format when you rip the CDs to make sure you don’t compress the audio files. I would Google “how to rip CDs” to learn how to for sure because it has been years since I’ve done it.

I dunno how many CDs on a 64gb drive, but it’s a lot. Probably 100 or more if they’re uncompressed.

 

Music ripped to FLAC will sound as good as the CD.
2.0 vs 3.0 won't affect sound quality.
Depending on the length of album an average CD ripped to FLAC will be roughly 250-500 MB, or roughly 2-4 CD's per gigabyte of storage.
A drive is a drive and shouldn't affect sound quality.

Other option would be to get a "DAP" aka "Digital Audio Player" like this:

HIFI WALKER H2 Touch Hi Res MP3 Player with Bluetooth, 2.4" HD Touch Screen, Digital Audio Player, DSD Lossless FLAC Player, Bluetooth Music Player with 64GB Memory Card, Support Up to 512GB

Amazon.com: HIFI WALKER H2 Touch Hi Res MP3 Player with Bluetooth, 2.4" HD Touch Screen, Digital Audio Player, DSD Lossless FLAC Player, Bluetooth Music Player with 64GB Memory Card, Support Up to 512GB : Electronics, just have to make sure it can connect to your head unit. More expensive than just a thumb drive but has a screen etc. Back in the day I had a 20GB black and white screen iPod with a bunch of CD's on it that I left in my Grand Cherokee all the time lol. Nice thing about an iPod or other DAP is they usually have a decent interface for loading/unloading music, and you can take them to use as a music player on a plane etc.

 

2017 with the stock head unit.

I use a thumb drive all the time. Works perfect. I've also used my iPod Classic. But prefer the thumb drive which I can load with what I want off my laptop. Just get a couple of 8GB thumb drives and you can rotate them around.

 

I use it for FLAC in my 22. I had mp3s on one in my 2014. It might have supported FLAC as well. I'm happy with it.

 

If memory serves, the drive needs to be formatted as FAT or FAT32, not NFTS. There is a thread on that around here somewhere. I have a 256 gb drive loaded with albums.

 

I use a thumb drive, it’s great and a large drive will allow you to have enough music to drive across the country. The one issue I had to learn to address is getting the music files to appear in the “browse” the way I wanted or get the songs to play in the order I want. For example, if I have a live album that’s on 2 CD’s, each CD has a song #1 etc., so I would have situations where it would play CD1, song one followed by CD2, song 1. Then it would play CD1, song 2 followed by CD2, song 2 etc. You can manipulate the files by renaming or renumbering however you want, but it requires opening them up in another program to reconfigure them.
I thought it was worth it, but you may not care enough to bother.

 

Thanks all!
One more thing, will an older computer (10 to 25 years old) function with the USB2 thumb drives?

 

The computer I've been ripping CDs with is one I built in 2005. You should be ok.

 

Are you viewing by folder? If so move to browse by artist. It should then show album folder structure correctly.

 

USB 2.0 came out in the early 2000's so it's likely your computer, even if old, has USB 2.0 slots. USB is backwards compatible as well as far as I know, just can't utilize the full transfer speed etc. if using a USB 3.0 drive in a USB 2.0 slot for example.

 

I highly recommend the program Exact Audio Copy along with the $8 subscription to the GD3 Metadata Plugging for album art, tracks, etc... This would allow you to easily digitize your CD collection and organize it. Quality of the audio is configurable.

 

I have 2 32gb drives with 90% of my gazillion CDs in my truck as a precaution if Sirius is not available. I have used it maybe 2x in 10 years.

 

Make sure to read the separate manual that came with your truck for the infotainment system. I realised after I bought a thumb drive that the head unit is only compatible with USB 2.0 and it has to be formatted in a certain way. Windows will apparently not let you format thumb drives over a certain size in a format that's compatible with the head unit. So I have a 128GB thumb drive sitting on my desk that I can't use for anything and 4 small thumb drives in my truck with as much music as I could jam on them.

 

I haven't in several years (mostly Spotify these days), but there is a thread on the forum that has more detail, and yes it will work. Theres a way to set up your "folders" that will either allow the stock head unit to read your drive with no problems, or it won't read it at all. Again, this is in that thread.

 

I used to in my previous Toyotas.

I’d buy a small usb, like super slim/tiny that you could barely see, insert a CD into my computer, and drag all the songs over. Simple process, just told consuming if you have lots of cds.

 

Here’s the USB I used in several Toyota’s.

SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 64GB USB 2.0 Low-Profile Flash Drive- SDCZ33-064G-B35

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FJRS6QY

 

Thanks for that info.

Reading through the USB portion of the manual I found out lots of useful info. Although I failed to find anything about USB size, formatting, or...? I have ordered a five pack of 8GB 2.0 USB drives, hope those will work. When ripping CD tracks to USB I plan to use FLAC to retain the best sound possible.

 

I used a 128gb in my 2014.

 

Two good threads. Though these are 3rd gen specific, the formatting information carries over.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/3rd...dio-formats-mp3-flac-wav.113717/#post-2929576

https://www.tundras.com/threads/3rd-gen-usb-media-port-limitations-sd-card-usb-jump-drives.113695/

 

Stock head unit supports it and thats the way I listen.

HERE is a basic instruction from microsoft on how to rip your CD to files for yourself. There is a lot of info deeper, but start here. You can produce CD quality audio pretty easily.

For audio playing, you do not need to worry about the USB spec.

Depending on how you rip the music, and how long the songs are. As an example. Pink Floyd - The Wall. 2 disc set. Ripped at higher levels, only uses 199MB. Roughly .02% of your 64GB

For the most part a thumb drive is a thumb drive, just avoid getting ripped off with cheap chinese things that aren't as large as they pretend to be. (buy a reasonable manufacturer)