kenwood cd player usb jump drive issues

[ppia600]

Recently I bought a couple of "20 bit remastered" cd's and I wanted to get the most information when transferring them to my thumb drive so I upped the kbps from 192 to 256. Well, the first time playing in my car there was random popping and distortion and several spots where the audio to drops out. I would think its sometthing with the transfer or the thumb drive, but the problem doesn't happen in a sony cd player I tried at work. Is it possible my kdcx890 won't play information transferred faster than 192kbps? I mean, the program that came with the kenwood (phatnoise media manager) has the selections for 64, 192 or 256 so it seems the deck would work properly with it. Is there something I could be doing incorrectly? I even tried clearing the thumb drive and transferring the cds onto windows media player first, then onto the drive. It still happens randomly. Could there be an issue in the cd player causing this? I've never spilled anything in it or abused it whatsoever..

 

[ECM]

Is your thumb drive USB2? How about the radio? It seems as if the radio can't retreive the information fast enough and causing dropouts, etc.

I beleive a USB1.1 drive should be able to stream an mp3 file at 256K without any issues, but the symptoms you describe seem to indicate a transfer issue.

Borrow a different thumb drive and load the exact files and see if you can replicate the issue.

 

[ppia600]

Well I bought a sandisk 2 gb cruzer to try and see what would happen and it still does it. Its a usb 2.0 but I'm not sure if the original 1gb lexar is. Funny the files are fine playing from my computer and sound great. I wouldn't think the circuit in the deck that transfers files from the usb cable could be damaged so easily.

 

[ECM]

Are you using variable bit rate on your mp3's? Does the headunit work at 128kbs?

Since the files work fine on your computer and on the sony radio, it's obviously a flaw with the kenwood. Is there a way to update the kenwood firmware?

 

[ppia600]

I'm not sure. There isn't any information in the manual about the deck's bit rate capability either. I went to Kenwood's site, but can't access any updates or links to them. I'm going to click on the media manager program and see if it will link to the site for me...

My friend was thinking maybe using the 256 rate was causing issues when transferring from the computer to the memory sticks, could that be a problem? Maybe its not the deck. I've got to get this thing going right, I'm not going to let all of my equipment go to waste on sub standard audio signals

 

[dark_avenger]

try encoding the files at a lower bit rate and see if you have the same problem it might not be capable of decoding higher bitrate tracks

 

[ppia600]

That is what I am kind of thinking, but some of the music in the library is very high rate wma, like 1011kbps. The format I am having a problem with is M4A and I can't change it to any other format without getting some kind of subscription and "upgrading". I would try to use mp3 format with my windows media player, but I don't think it changes the format for the external device transfers, only for burning cd's. Wow, looks like I might have to settle for m4a at 192 rate.



I need to correct my earlier statements above as the selections on the kenwood program weren't 64,128 and 256kbps, they were 96, 128, 192 and 296 in M4A format. The other settings I was thinking about were from another format..

 

[ppia600]

I deleted the music files from my computer and re burned them into the kenwood media manager at the 192 rate. I went to their site and the info. links suck to try and decode. I'll report back tomorrow after work with the results. I hope the pops go away but I also hope the music doesn't sound gritty and compressed.


Oh yeah, and does anyone know what the purpose of the "M4A" format is? I've never heard of it until using the kenwood but then I'm not very experienced in audio converting.

 

[Flyin11]

I don't know ppia600...I just installed the KDC-X891 in my car last night (Next model up I guess) and the USB on it plays 320 rate songs with no issues or pops or anything. That issue doesn't sound right though Might be something with the HU....

 

[ppia600]

I don't know ppia600...I just installed the KDC-X891 in my car last night (Next model up I guess) and the USB on it plays 320 rate songs with no issues or pops or anything. That issue doesn't sound right though Might be something with the HU....

I believe yours is the same model with the newer year number.
How do you like the deck so far? I love mine (aside from what's happening now ) Also, what format are you getting the 320 rate from? Mine will only allow me to use the M4A at 96,128,192, or 296. It will also allow me to use the WMA format I believe, but haven't tried that yet.

 

[Flyin11]

I love it!!! A shame it took me 2 Alpine decks to get another Kenwood but it rocks!! When I went to the Audio place during lunch, I was able to flip through 21 folders of music on my 8gb USB flash drive. I'm going to have a little fun with the uploading of your own backgrounds to the deck though I don't know...If I ever rip anything off a CD I have, it's just the normal 320kbps from Windows Media 11...Other than that, I really don't have a clue on how they are coded. Just says MPEG Audio Layer 3. Yeah, I was able to play wma tracks on mine as well and even wav tracks....

 

[ppia600]

So you're not using the phatnoise program to rip the tracks? Are you using your windows media player program? Maybe that's how your getting 320. Good luck on the background stuff, let me know when you get it figured out, haha. I'd like to get some custom backgrounds on mine.
I re ripped the cds at the 192 rate today and it sounds fine. No pops or any distortion that I can tell. It actually ends up being anywhere from 175 to 230 depending on the song?? That is cool though because apparently my cd player likes it in that range, at least in the M4A format. I actually deleted several cd's I had in my hard drive and re ripped them all at 192 because apparently I had them originally in 128, so now everything is at about 192. Can't wait to listen to it tomorrow! I also can't wait until my 4gb firefly drive comes in. If it doesn't have lame read only spam junk like my sandisk did, I'll be buying a few more.

 

[I Am An Idiot]

You can remove all of the Garbage on the Sandisk Drive. It has been a while since I have done one.

 

[Flyin11]

So you're not using the phatnoise program to rip the tracks? Are you using your windows media player program? Maybe that's how your getting 320. Good luck on the background stuff, let me know when you get it figured out, haha. I'd like to get some custom backgrounds on mine.
I re ripped the cds at the 192 rate today and it sounds fine. No pops or any distortion that I can tell. It actually ends up being anywhere from 175 to 230 depending on the song?? That is cool though because apparently my cd player likes it in that range, at least in the M4A format. I actually deleted several cd's I had in my hard drive and re ripped them all at 192 because apparently I had them originally in 128, so now everything is at about 192. Can't wait to listen to it tomorrow! I also can't wait until my 4gb firefly drive comes in. If it doesn't have lame read only spam junk like my sandisk did, I'll be buying a few more.

Yeah..I'm not sure on all the little details I just pop in a music cd and go through the rip process on the media player. I set the options in the options menu for the ripping music part to 320kbps on a mp3 and after ripping it comes out 320. The USB isn't reading all the folders and seems to be skipping a few for some reason but I will just probably have to learn more about how it reads folders and stuff. It just skipped like from folder 4, to 6, to 8, and then went to folder 13. I don't have it on random or anything. Just might have to do trial and error and do a couple folders at a time and find out which ones might not be playing and why. Other than that, I love the looks and sound of it...Can't beat it. I just hope the internal amplifier doesn't burn or die out in the next 2 years like my other radio was beginning to do but it is a Excelon and should just fine. I got it off Ebay for $204.00 with a Ipod accessory wire and the radio itself retails for $399.00 at the audio stores so I think it worked out great

 

[ppia600]

You can remove all of the Garbage on the Sandisk Drive. It has been a while since I have done one.

Please let me know if you remember.. it aggravates me because every time I put the sandisk drive into the computer there is a popup asking me to click on it for the sandisk website.

Yeah..I'm not sure on all the little details I just pop in a music cd and go through the rip process on the media player. I set the options in the options menu for the ripping music part to 320kbps on a mp3 and after ripping it comes out 320. The USB isn't reading all the folders and seems to be skipping a few for some reason but I will just probably have to learn more about how it reads folders and stuff. It just skipped like from folder 4, to 6, to 8, and then went to folder 13. I don't have it on random or anything. Just might have to do trial and error and do a couple folders at a time and find out which ones might not be playing and why. Other than that, I love the looks and sound of it...Can't beat it. I just hope the internal amplifier doesn't burn or die out in the next 2 years like my other radio was beginning to do but it is a Excelon and should just fine. I got it off Ebay for $204.00 with a Ipod accessory wire and the radio itself retails for $399.00 at the audio stores so I think it worked out great

The reason it isn't reading some of the folders is because they are in the wrong format. It did that a few times with me because of that. Also, when you put the drive in the computer, click on the files to see if there is actually music. You may have just the playlist name and not any actual music files for some of the songs. Yeah, I love my kenwood too. I sell pioneer, but don't really like the huge knob and the plain blue color on the 6900ub. And the kenwood has higher preamp voltage, seperate hpf for front and rear and the performance meter.

 

[Flyin11]

Hmm...I'll have to look into that...What's the right format? Or I guess I can just check the manual later It just confuses me sometimes how they put it on the page...

 

[Flyin11]

The reason it isn't reading some of the folders is because they are in the wrong format. It did that a few times with me because of that. Also, when you put the drive in the computer, click on the files to see if there is actually music. You may have just the playlist name and not any actual music files for some of the songs.

My folders have songs in them...Just kind of weird...It'll play them individually. Like I have 67 music files on there and they are numbered 01-67 and it will play each and every one of them. If I add a folder in, it'll play that folder. I tried adding 2 more folders today and it won't read it. It's like it's not on there or something. A friend of mine here at work showed me what the meaning is of the playing order they showed in the manual. I'm guessing that's why it wouldn't play it. I added a attachment of the playing order it says to use. From what he said it means that you have to make like a main folder saying "Rock 1" or something and then you can add all your seperate folders of artist/album names/ and so on in there. Does this look like it's what it's talking about?

 

[Flyin11]

Ok..Just really quick...Just tried to do it the way it is shown and I ended up with the same problem I had before. I'm getting a bunch of files with different letters and symbols and it tries to duplicate folders and stuff like that. Is my flash drive corrupted? It won't delete those symbols or files...Says "Cannot delete file: Cannot read from the source file or disk" Any ideas why it's doing this? Here is a attachment...

 

[ppia600]

I can't tell by looking what type of files the middle ones are. If I want to delete everything I just insert the drive without the kenwood program on and right click and delete the ones I don't need after the window pops up and asks what I want to do. I also click "view files" I think.
When I delete anything with the kenwood program I always click on the "also delete from hard drive" box in the corner.

 

[Flyin11]

Oh...You use the disc that came with the receiver? Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong. I thought you could just stick the flash drive in anywhere at anytime and put your music on it and then play it. Maybe I need to try the disc...

Well the other weird thing is that I can play the music files in the folder on Windows Media Player but if I try to copy and paste the folder onto the USB drive it comes back saying it can not play the file that the file is not a true .wma (or what type) or it doesn't support the codec that was used for it. I'm like what the..??? I mean it plays right on the folder on my PC but won't on the flash drive...