09-16-2019, 02:48 PM | #1 |
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2020 X3m40i HK system & FLAC
My car is arriving in a week or so (hopefully, it's "at the port") and I was able to access the owner's manual in "My garage". I just spent two days copying 575 albums into FLAC.
I see this in the manual now: USB storage device Playable formats MP3, MP4, M4A, M4B, AAC, WMA. One of the reasons I opted for Harmon Kardon was sound quality. Can anyone reassure me that my system will be able to read FLAC? |
09-16-2019, 03:13 PM | #2 |
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i haven't tried flac on my car yet, but honestly with road noise I highly doubt you could tell between a mp3 vbr320 and a flac. If the car isn't moving and is in a quiet spot, maybe. Regardless I can try this for you later today if you like. I keep all my music in both flac and mp3 vbr320 formats. One for home listening and one for the mobile/car.
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09-16-2019, 03:27 PM | #3 |
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I want to know about FLAC too, I have a mix of WAV and FLAC. I don't want to have to convert 1TB of music to another format due to the hassle..pls can you try it.. it's fine on my non-HK F25.
Last edited by clivem2; 09-16-2019 at 03:40 PM.. |
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09-16-2019, 03:44 PM | #4 |
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My 2019 X3 M40i plays FLAC off of a USB stick. I'd be surprised if they dropped it in 2020 for any reason.
The one issue I have with FLAC on USB is maintaining album song order. It wants to play the songs in alphabetical order instead of the original song order on the CD. |
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09-16-2019, 03:44 PM | #5 | |
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09-16-2019, 05:22 PM | #6 |
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Drives: X3 G01 30i xDrive
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2018 with HK, FLAC playing without any problems. I also doubt they changed supported media format.
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'18 G01 X3 xDrive 30i xLine, Sophisto grey, Vernasca Mocha, Adaptive
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09-16-2019, 09:39 PM | #7 |
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I use a 256 GB USB flash drive (Samsung FIT Plus, formatted as exFAT) in my 2019 X3 M40i with the Harman Kardon stereo. The flash drive is loaded with about 750 albums. All are in FLAC format and all are properly tagged (artist, year, album, genre, track title, track number, cover art). The car plays them without a glitch. Importantly for me, it plays FLAC gaplessly--i.e., music that transitions from one track to the next without an audible gap (The Dark Side of the Moon, say) is actually played back without any audible gap.
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09-16-2019, 09:44 PM | #8 | |
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09-17-2019, 12:28 PM | #9 |
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Sorry I apparently missed that this was in question for the 2020 model. Works fine on my 2019.
I wrote a little converter about 5 years ago to batch convert flac to mp3 keeping the directory structure. But this Foobar2000 sounds good and is likely far more up to date than my old jerry-rigged tool! And agreed, store in FLAC because it's lossless. Convert from that to any other needed formats but always keep the original in flac. |
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09-17-2019, 01:41 PM | #10 |
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Thanks for the tip regarding Foobar2000. I was using ISOBurner and couldn't seem to get iDrive6 to play the FLAC files in album order. Agreed, you just can't shuffle play Dark Side of the Moon. It can trigger brain snaps (very painful, don't ask).
To the OP: It would be interesting to know if FLAC has been dropped from support in iDrive7. If that's the case, here are some Plan B options you can consider: FLAC files on a phone music player - The phone music player handles FLAC compatibility for you. The catch is you'd want to plug the phone directly via USB. Using Bluetooth will apply a sonic cheese grater to your audio experience. Apple iTunes supports an Apple proprietary lossless format, similar to FLAC. The risk (admittedly small) is that Apple could drop support for the format at any time. You can store the tunes on an i-phone or i-pod and plug it into the USB port for playback. |
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09-17-2019, 07:16 PM | #11 | |
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09-18-2019, 06:01 PM | #12 |
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I'm beginning to think nobody at BMW really knows. HK didn't either. They said it depends on the Head unit and to ask BMW.
BMW says: ========================================== Hi Mr. B., Thanks for contacting the BMW Genius Team. You are unable to play FLAC files in your vehicle. The playable formats are MP3, MP4, M4A, M4B, AAC, and WMA. I hope this information is helpful. Thanks again for your inquiry. For your convenience, BMW Genius Team members can also be reached via the BMW Genius Hotline Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Friday 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time at 1-844-4GENIUS (443-6487). Emily T. BMW Genius Representative Make a BMW product expert your new co-pilot. ================================= This is what my "garage" car's manual says, but the manual doesn't even refer to a Harman Kardon system & I can't find any info on one. |
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09-18-2019, 06:54 PM | #13 | |
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09-19-2019, 10:22 AM | #15 |
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09-20-2019, 01:24 PM | #16 |
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09-21-2019, 10:53 AM | #18 |
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To the OP: Sorry about the delay in responding; I was on a business trip.
To follow up on Foobar2000, it's freeware and can be run in a portable mode. I'll upload my fully configured portable installation somewhere later today if anyone is interested in trying it out without the hassle of going through the configuration process. The attached screenshots show how you convert from one format to another. As I said above, all of my music is in FLAC and properly tagged, and I typically convert to MP3 for my wife's car. The process is as follows:
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04-21-2020, 11:50 AM | #19 | |
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I'm a new BMW X3 user. I've many favorites CDs and I'd like to transfer it propertly incl. all tags and graphics to FLAC format for me and MP3 320 format for my wife. Could you upload to any cloud drive portable application with your settings as you wrote please? What application are you using to convert CDs to FLAC? Thank you in advance. Best regards, Jacek |
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04-21-2020, 02:22 PM | #21 |
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