DavidinCT

Thanks for the info. I found the smashed screen (still works) iPhone SE with 64gb... As I need iTunes, I will install it on one my VMs and I can pass the USB through on my desktop (not an Apple guy so I don't want Apple apps on my gaming/office desktop).

I'll play with it this weekend, I've been listening to some of the WMA off USB, so I'll compare them. I hope it's more of a seamless experience, as doing file management to find songs through USB I could see could get old...

DavidinCT

So, I played with this yesterday (before a family trip), after converting all my FLAC files to Apple Lossless, keeping the same bitrate as the original files. I listened to tracks off the USB drive with the best format I could use, then I tried the iPhone, back and forth 5 or 6 times, the sound quality was noticeably better. The volume is more leveled than the same tracks on USB (volume had to be higher on USB).

The experience was much better, when listening to a song, the album art showed on the navi screen. I guess USB is out and a broken screen 64gb iPhone has found it's new home for good.

R Z

Are you saying you connected your iphone to the USB and when you played your music, you had album art? I use my phone wireless and there's no art on my 2014. I have all my music saved in google music (soon to be youtube music). Wonder if art will show up if I plug in?

Dolph1

Did you convert any high resolution FLAC files to Apple Lossless? Curious to know if high resolution FLAC files were converted and played in the car without a hitch.

DavidinCT

I have a broken screen (really broken, it has tape on the screen or you will cut your finger !) iPhone SE with 64gb. So, I created a VM (Windows 10 home) on my PC, Installed iTunes, imported all my music I wanted (after converting FLAC to Apple Lossless) to have in the car. Once I had all the music imported into iTunes (it was a combo of MP3 and Apple Lossless), I went album by album, right clicking and selecting "add art", I went through every one to make sure it had art for every Album (not all came but, I had to google and find it), then I connected the broken iPhone and synced it. After adding more music back and forth, iTunes on the phone showed art for every album. Then I plugged into the USB port on my Lexus... It highlighted "iPOD" and with in 30-45 seconds, all my music was indexed (maybe about 35-40 albums). If I go in and select an Album or song, with in 3-5 seconds the art will show up on the iPod window.

The Art only showed on the selection window, If you went back to Navi and it was showing the song on the right side of the screen, no art showed up.... so kind of weak as this goes.

I tried USB, my Samsung Note 8 and everything else, nothing else would show Art... only the iPod/iPhone... Kind of offended by this car, they baby to iPhone users but, could care less about Android users, even though in the last 8-10 years Android has been more popular than the iPhone (by the numbers globally) but anyway, This is how I got art...

I used USB with tons of songs by folders(for almost a week), it really felt like I was doing file management, it was very clumsy to use and find music, the iPod connection was clearly designed for this and is a FAR better experience to use. (I have some non broken 64gb SEs that I am selling, I am going to be putting them up on eBay soon, I have about 15 of them)

I converted about 50-70 songs as I was doing complete albums I kept their original bit rate(there is a setting in my software I used and I verified it after conversion) when converted to Apple Lossless. I had some really high bitrate rips, they sounded notably better than MP3 versions (I did side by side comparing) and I didn't have a problem playing a SINGLE song off the iPhone. iTunes didn't appear to do any type of conversion, it was almost instant adding to iTunes and this was on a Virtual machine.

No more USB for me, a iPhone SE 64gb lives in my center console for it's life and it's fairly easy to add music if I wanted to...

PSK001

First, I wish to thank all of the posting on ML system on a LS460. The information on the forum gave me a huge heads up on how to configure my audio.

My background is IT and I am an audiophile with multiple high-end systems (B&W 801, Naim, Classic Marantz, etc.).

You don’t need to use iTunes to transfer files to an iPod/iPhone. There are 3rd party programs that do it. I have tried Syncios and it appears to work fine. Not certain why you need to use a 3rd party program instead of iTunes; but I was trying to get around one of my iPhone 7 being toasted by ios upgrade.

I can say that I notice a significant difference in sound quality between mp3 on a usb vs ALAC on an iPhone/iPod. But I will say that I notice it only when playing quality recordings (jazz, classical, high end rock). I have recordings of a number of 60’s rock and roll bands, I can don’t notice any difference. I am now 60 so my ability to hear is getting poorer. If you are younger you should be able to hear the quality of ML system.

I use Exact Audio software program to rip my CDs to Flac format and then convert the songs I want for the LS to Alac file format. I copy the Alac files to my iPhone/iPod.

In the end, to me the way to go is iPhone/iPod via usb connection using Apple Alac files. I was able to pick up a used iPod 64gb for $25 (broken screen).

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Interesting, never been able to get any album art on the screen of my ML 2014. Lexus's Gracenote apparently doesn't support CDs (took me a LONG time to get a definitive answer on that) but is supposed to work with MP3s. I get most of the album titles and track listings but no album art. Tried through the USB port, streamed via bluetooth from my iphone, nothing. Am I missing something?

DavidinCT

On your iphone, in itunes, does all the music show art ? This was something I had to go into iTunes and less than 1/2 the music didn't download art, so had to manually add them one by one.

Also go into settings on the ML system, there is iPod options, and there is an option to disable album art, it's possible this is disabled on your car.

I know it's kind of slow, so it could be 2-5 seconds before the art shows up. I did hear it didn't work through bluetooth, only hard wired.

As for Gracenote I know on my 2007, Gracenote only worked with CDs, factory CDs, when I did a Mix disc, no data would show from Gracenote. It did support CD text, so if you burn your discs, even mixes, enable CD text with the track names, it does show the track names (it did in my 2007, not sure on the 2014)

I did manually update my Gracenote in my 2014 but, I honestly have not used any CDs from the time getting the car.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Yes, my 2007 did have a working Gracenote CD database. When I could get any info on (commercial) CDs in my 2014, the dealer updated the database (2018) but this had no effect. They contacted Lexus who said it no longer supports CDs. So kinda worthless when you consider MP3s have their own ID3 tags!

PSK001

I found during the transfer process of moving music from CDs some of the album covers would not get copied. I found it strange as I did not change the process of creating the files. I would first create the FLAC copy and then use the FLAC file to create the ALAC file. Most of the time it would work but not all of the time. It also did not matter if I created a WMA file from the FLAC . The FLAC file would show the image.

I think there is a posting where someone commented on the size of the image being a possible problem. I am going to play around with trying different images to see if it solves the problem for me.

DavidinCT

Agreed, completely worthless. I figured they just updated it to support more but, instead they cut it out. Instead of 2 steps forward, it's 2 steps back...

Truth be told, on my 2007, I thought it was fairly worthless, Out of 10 factory CDs, maybe 4-6 actually showed data (and they were older than the last update), it was very hit or miss. Even if it had data, as soon as you ripped them to the hard drive (the 2007 had space for music), you lost all that data... Again worthless.. CD text did work fine playing a CD with data but, if you ripped to the hard drive, you lost that data too.. Dumb and pointless in my eyes.

Oh well, I rip all my CDs to FLAC, so I'll convert them to apple lossless and put them on the broken iPhone..

Maybe I am wrong but, Apple lossless is different, If they showed art on the iPod/iPhone, they showed on the car.

Itunes was pretty strait forward, Music listed in iTunes had art, they would show up in the car, if they didn't it wouldn't. Right click, download art, or manually find it, and once all had art, it all worked fine.

I would check in your music app before connecting it to the car and watch for art...