USB flash drive sort order with a Sony CDX-GT640UI.

[olds97_lss 10+ year member]

New here and thought I'd ask a question since the answer I got from Sony support was lame... "turn to page 15 of your manual..." Gee, why didn't I think of reading the manual?!?! I suppose many people don't read these things, but I'm not one of them. Read it cover to cover.

mp3 sort orders. A real pet peeve of mine when using a USB. My last head unit supported a USB but did not allow me to play the music in a sorted fashion. I wanted it to sort by folder->filename, but to no avail, it would not. Then I found online you could make play lists and sort those. So, after much fiddling, that's what I did and it worked great. I created a play list for each folder so the play list would represent the folder more or less. Then sorted the play list as I saw fit.

Then my receiver died, a kenwood KDC-X692. Lasted a little over a year, then just died on me. After checking wires, fuses and all connections, it's now a paperweight.

So, with a bitter taste of kenwood in my mouth, I picked up a sony. When I bought the kenwood, I had tried and returned 4 different head units. 2 pioneers and 2 JVC's. For various reasons that the kenwood did a better job at.

So, now I picked up a CDX-GT640UI and after thumbing through the manual, I'm not seeing anything about play list support or anything about USB sort order other than "random" and "shuffle". Since it's a USB... "random" and "shuffle" mean almost the same thing. USB's don't store files sequentially in any discernible order. Trust me, either I didn't find a piece of software that would do it, or it just doesn't exist. After extensive searching and reading, I found that USB's write files all over the memory chips in random sequences. Partially for helping to prolong the life the the USB and partially because most people don't have to worry about sort order since most flash drives are used for PC use when files are manipulated.

So, with all that said, does anyone know if the sony can sort how I want or support play lists? Or am I just stuck at the mercy of the USB storage sequence?

Thank you for your time.

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[olds97_lss 10+ year member]

I took the sony back as I was able to figure out and repair my issue with my kenwood.

On the power/speaker plug on the back of the kenwood, the main positive wire apparently was making a bad connection and over time generated enough heat to melt the plug:

I tried unsoldering all the pins going into that plug, but I couldn't get teh solder to wick out of all the holes. So I took out the inductance coil next to it so I could at least cut away part of the plug so I could run a wire to the main +/- on the circuit board.

I bumped the capacitor on the left with my dremel when cutting the plug block... Took the paint off of it but otherwise left it undamaged.

I then installed a wire that is a bit heavier (thicker sleeve and more copper strands) than what goes to the plug. I ran the plug out the back beside the main plug since I had a gap there anyway after cutting some of it away to get the pins out. Then I cut the wires from the plug and shaved off the plastic where those wires went. I used a RC (remote control trucks/planes) high current plug so I could still disconnect the harness if I wanted.

Took half a morning today... but I got my $160 back from BB for the sony I didn't use.

I did plug it into a power supply though before beginning the repairs on the kenwood so I could see how it sorted. I had found a program that forcefully sorts files on a USB and the Sony seemed to follow that sort without an issue.

The program can be found here:

Anerty's Lair - DriveSort

I'm glad I saved the $, but I did like one thing for sure about the sony... it had two color schemes. Blue and Green. My car is all green. The kenwood I have doesn't have that ability...