clemgrad85

Other than a phone, has anyone had a good experience with an MP3 player for your LS? I have an iPod Classic, but it has been having some issues lately and so looking for another MP3 player for the new wheels. I have a Samsung/Android phone and would rather not use a phone for my in car music. I want to just leave it plugged into the USB port inside the arm rest storage area and forget about it. I could get an iPod Touch, but really don't need to spend $200. So, looking for a good basic MP3 player that others have had a good experience with, especially that does well with the voice commands. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

LexRuger

I would just get a flash drive. That's what I used before wanting Carplay.

clemgrad85

I was wondering about that. I'll have to play around with that and see if you can make play lists for a flash drive? Just never tried that. I saw an MP3 with very good ratings on Amazon for $40, so not like it would be a huge waste if it didn't work properly. I just want to make sure that I can pull up play lists easily and artists via the LS voice control. Thanks for that info though regarding the flash drive.

clemgrad85

LexRuger…..messed around with this option today and believe that will work. I at first had an issue with random play, but figured out the option to choose to make that work properly. I'll test it out for another day or two and then likely just buy a larger thumb drive to fit all my music. Thanks again for the good idea.

vfromd

What kind of an issue did you have with random play? I noticed my LS is not playing the songs in the same order as my previous car or my home system using the same usb drive - even though random is not enabled..

DerrickM

I don't know if it's the same with the 5th gen, by my 4th gen seems to sort by file date instead of filename. I had to get creative and make sure the files got copied in alphabetical order. Also, putting too many files in one folder can cause a significant lag when you first load the USB drive. I think I went with a max of 200 per folder, but I'd have to check to be sure.

vfromd

Oh cool, thank you forthe tip! I'll need to check the dates on my USB drive to see if that is the same issue..

LexRuger

No problem

clemgrad85

There were 2 "random" options to choose from. One would do random from within a certain artist file, while the 2nd random option would be random within the whole music library (jumping from artist to artist). Once I figured that out, the flash drive was a pretty easy decision. A 32gb flash drive is pretty cheap and has plenty of space for my music.

I will factor in the comment regarding not more than 200 songs per file when loading. If my plan is to just keep the flash drive plugged in all the time, will it still need to load the songs each time the LS is started, or is that only each time you plug it in?

vfromd

I've only had my car for a few days, but I started using my flash drive from day one as I unplugged it from my old car and put it in LS. For me it only loaded once - after that it is instantaneous. I have a 64 gig version with thousands of songs, but all in different folders. Don't see any lag. The only issues for me are it is playing the songs in a different order than it should, even though random is disabled. And I don't see "play all" option. For example, if I have an artist folder with several subfolders for different albums, there doesn't seem to be an option to play all albums. I have to use voice command to say play artist such and such - then it will play all songs, but in random order for some reason.
Would be interested to hear about your experience once you get your USB drive working.

clemgrad85

VF.....just barely over a week with my LS (although have had many Lexus vehicles in the past, just back in the Lexus family now), and will be experimenting with the random play. I'm sure someone in here with more experience with a flash drive might have the answer, but if not, I'll let you know as I continue to work with it. Are you wanting to be able to play each album under the selected artist album by album rather than jumping around from album to album? What if you turned off random and then selected the artist? It would seem like it would play each album one at a time? I'll see if that works on my system.

vfromd

The way it works in my wife's MB - same way it worked in my previous non Lexus cars - is when I select an artist, a list of albums is displayed. At the top there's an option "Play All". If I select that, it will play all albums one by one, all songs in correct order. Or instead I can select any one album and only that album would be played - also in correct order. If I were to use a voice command and say, for example, play artist Justin Bieber - it would play all of his albums one by one. All songs in correct order.

This is my first Lexus - which I've had for 7 days so far. So maybe there's a learning curve.. But so far when I try to play any album via any method - screen or voice - the songs are not playing in correct order. Random is disabled.

The only workaround I found so far is to copy all my music to my phone and play it from my phone via Bluetooth. Quality is not as good, but the songs are playing correctly, and I prefer that.

clemgrad85

I'll double check tomorrow, but pretty sure when I was playing an album earlier today, it was going in the correct order of the songs on the album. I will confirm that and then let you know what I see on my screen.

clemgrad85

Okay....had a chance to play around with this some more, and I believe the random (or non random) is working as you would want it to. I did get a 32gb flash drive (very short one so it doesn't stick out inside the middle compartment) and if I choose an artist, "Play Eagles", it will go to the Eagles and play the first album. It seems to go in correct order and then will go to the next album and continue on that way as long as I have the random button off. Do you have the Mark Levinson system? On the "media" screen, it puts up the random options and there are 3 options to choose from. On my system, if the random is off and I request Eagles it will play directly through in proper order. One of the random options will jump among all the files/music on the flash drive and the other random option can be tied to random option within the file/album. So, if that is what you are looking for, it does seem to do that on the ML system. Hope that helps.

vfromd

Thank you for the update.
Yes, I have the ML system, and I have also played with the 3 options for Random. When either random option is on, it works properly and plays either random tracks from an album or from the entire library. But when the random option is off, it also plays random tracks from the selected album, but in a different order than when the Random option is on.
This same USB plays correctly in my wife's MB and in my old car, so I'm blaming my ML stereo for this