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Audio Files and Thumb Drives for SYNC 4

CalvinT

Badlands
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It may depend on your source. I use a Mac. I just copied my Music folder onto the thumb drive. I don't get the art work, but music playback has been flawless. I haven't been able download playlists. But, you can manually create them on the thumb drive once you've copied your music over. Just create a folder for each playlist.

/Users/[Your username]/Music/Music/Media/Music/
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rgraphic

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Since I am not at all impressed with the satellite radio service packaged with the vehicle (You know who I'm talking about), I have been working on getting my extensive CD collection ripped to a thumb drive for the Bronco. I thought I would share some of what I have learned.

I was surprised to find that SYNC 4 will recognize a 128 GB drive and even a 256 GB drive. This opens up a whole new world for the mobile audiophile.
These drives have been tested on my '24 Wildtrak with the LUX package with SYNC 4. If you don't have SYNC 4, I can't say for sure that these drives will be recognized.
They access quickly, play smoothly and work flawlessly, even with huge uncompressed files. I am very impressed!
Here are some links:
128 GB: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015CH1PJU?ref=product_details&th=1
256 GB: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XG9XP49?ref=product_details&th=1
512 GB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083ZS4HYD?ref=product_details&th=1 (Tiny Form Factor)

The SYNC 4 player will play a multitude of file types. Apple Lossless, FLAC, WAV Lossless, of course, the lowly MP3 and others. All my files are lossless WAV files. Those are as true to the original as you can get. Apple Lossless is also a very good format, but it is not yet as universally recognized as the WAV format, so I am sticking with that for now. Forty minutes of WAV music is usually around 400 MB. So, the 256 GB will hold about 640 standard LP length albums! That's about 426 hours or nearly 18 days of non-stop music in uncompressed WAV format! Why would anyone want to use MP3s? Memory is so cheap now, the crappy MP3 should be becoming obsolete. Plus, WAVs really bring the B&O system to life!

FYI, I have used the dBpoweramp CD ripper in my home recording studio for years. https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper.htm All my old masters were archived on CDs. This program makes it easy to retrieve my older stuff. It's absolutely the best out there for too many reasons to go into here. They offer a 21 day free trial. You can rip a lot of music in 21 days! If you want to buy it, it's reasonably priced. P.S. I have no affiliation with the dBpoweramp people.

If anyone has tried different size drives in SYNC 3, let us know what you have found that will work.
Thank you I've been looking for this info! Problem for me has been I will format a drive and add a few songs. It will work good for those few. So then I upload a massive library and it is not recognized. What formatting are you using for the drive? I use the old school iTunes folder structure (iTunes>artists>albums>etc). I used to have no issues doing this with my VW but im really fighting to find what im doing wrong. It's entirely possible the thumb drives themselves are the issue and I"ll try one of you recommended.
 

brkdncr

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I’ll have to test this out.

I’m using EAC to rip a lot of my SO’s odd CDs collected as a music journalist in college. I rip them to FLAC, since it’s lossless, compressed, and handles metadata well.

I’m then using mp3tag to fix metadata.
 
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BroncoDave24

BroncoDave24

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Thank you I've been looking for this info! Problem for me has been I will format a drive and add a few songs. It will work good for those few. So then I upload a massive library and it is not recognized. What formatting are you using for the drive? I use the old school iTunes folder structure (iTunes>artists>albums>etc). I used to have no issues doing this with my VW but im really fighting to find what im doing wrong. It's entirely possible the thumb drives themselves are the issue and I"ll try one of you recommended.
I believe FAT32 is the most compatible.
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