USB HU question

[King Kong 10+ year member]

I am in the process of picking out a HU for my car and i was wondering what advantages there were for USB over just regular auxiliary input, i have my phone mounted in my car right now which i play music off of and i used a regular auxiliary cord off of that to play music, I know with USB it allows you to control different functions of ipods and mp3 players but is that the only advantage? I have no problem using the controls on my phone instead of the HU to go through my songs. I s there a difference in sound quality and would it charge the phone?

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[DownSouth954 10+ year member]

My Kenwood only charges my phone when I switch the source input to USB, in which case I can't listen to music while I recharge my phone //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

The only reason why I would favor the USB is for mini drives and such. I favor my 8 gb minidrive and its ease of use but then again I don't own an iPod.

 

[lillitnn92 10+ year member]

get a bigger Hard Drive like some do (including me) and you can have "everything" you own with you at all times. that is if you own a lot, then maybe a small thumb drive would do. i'm carrying 30+gigs as of now.

 

[LBC99 10+ year member]

I never even thought about charging my razr with my Kenwood x890. I use a 4GB flash drive, which is plenty of room for me. I love being able to just drop a few tracks or a whole cd on my flash drive and not have to screw around with burning cd's anymore.

 

[King Kong 10+ year member]

well i have a 2gb card on my phone whcih i update with music all the time, its been suiting my needs for my music collection since it changes so often i dont need that much room and 2 gigs is enough, plus my phone is already mounted like i said so a thumb drive is just extra clutter (as small as it may be) ONe more question. where does the USB plug in to the HU, ive looked at pics but dont see a slot on the faceplate...is it a rear slot? and if so do you have to run a cable somewhere or what?

 

[Phreakshow 10+ year member]

Alot of the newer units have the usb cable coming from the back of the unit. My X591 has a cord that I ran into my glovebox. I cut an oblong hole big enough for the end to go through and bought a 3/4 rubber grommet and fitted the hole with it so the cord wouldnt be able to be pulled back through the hole I made. It looks very clean. I think the cord on the Kenwoods like I have are a bit longer than most but dont quote me on that. Mine seems to be about 2ft long maybe just a bit shorter or longer. It also supplies 500ma of power at the end of the cable for powering or charging purposes. If it is front face mounted, the usb port isnt a cable just the usb plug on the front of the unit so the stick would point straight out. I cant imagine using one like that as 1 wrong move you could break it off in the unit or something in my opinion.

 

[traxtar944 10+ year member]

Pioneer has a new (I think) feature with usb....I think they call it 'USB Direct Control'. Some of their newly designed head units have that feature.

This is the cable...to bad it's not standard USB, but that's Pioneer for ya

They also have the CD-UB100, which is a general USB hookup for ANY MP3 player, but it's an additional unit to the HU, like the CD-IB100ii. I kind of wish I got this instead of the 100ii, because you can add anything from a flash drive to an external Hard drive, probably.

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[King Kong 10+ year member]

yea that cable is gay as aids, damm that *****. I'm probably just gonna continue to use the auxiliary port to play music and charge my phone with a separate cord, looks gay with all the cables though but oh well.