How do you play music in your car.? G29 specific.

[BigDave]

Basically as the title is. G29 2019 onwards specific..

How do you play music in your car. IE NON radio.

And preferably NON apple car play/android auto.

Do you use a memory card / transfer it to the hard drive, or do you use a mp3 player. If so which one is best.?

I currently use a Ipod touch 6th gen, plugged into the usb in the armrest area,,, but its not ideal..

Also ive been hearing a lot about "flac", lossless music.???

Obviously the ipod compresses the music, therefore reducing its quality...

I make and play lots of playlists, how would that work on a non apple ipod, what software do you use.

Sorry for the random questions.

 

[PeterE]

For me Spotify and a USB stick which is a copy of all my own music, ripped from CDs and digitised vinyl from pre-CDs as mp3s and currently stored on a Plex server.

 

[ToddG]

Out of interest, why exclude Carplay or AA? I turfed my ipod & CD's 10+ years ago and have only used my phone since then. First via BT and now AA wired or wireless using Spotify. Most of my cars have had HDD for media, but I've never bothered with that. I am aware that Spotify is AAC which is 'lossy'.
Using a lossless format requires you to source the music and transfer it to your playback media without loss at any step. Too much work for me personally. And to be honest, I rarely even listen to music in a cabrio.
Have you upgraded the stock HK sound system, as according to the manual, supported USB media formats are MP3, MP4, M4A, M4B, AAC, WMA.
Not claiming to be an expert on anything...

 

[jock156]

100% Spotify via BT. Cheap/ easy to use

 

[RMB]

CD player and CD changer in my Zed, old school.
Saved CDs to my hard drive in my F22.

 

[PSQ777]

Spotify via the in-car application from the Connected Booster package.

 

[B21]

Use an earlier iPhone with lots of storage and use iTunes to populate it..it works well with consistent art work support ..you can use a usb stick but it’s slower and getting playlists sorted is more cumbersome…this is from someone who has car play, old android phone , seperate Bluetooth iPhone, usb stick etc etc

 

[dr_john]

USB stick with music collection from my ITunes library. Plugged into socket next to phone charger mat.

Pity BMW discontinued the hard drive, it makes things a little messy in this area, but with a high capacity USB drive a 40GB HDD drive suddenly becomes redundant.

 

[Zed Baron]

I've got a hard drive on my G29 but I found it difficult to create playlists when importing from a USB stick (you have to go through search on the USB). I mainly use Spotify via the in-car app, but BMW charge you £80 pa for the privilege. Yes, I have car play and android auto, but they seem to want to take over control of the car (maps/phone system). The car has the upgraded Harman Kardon system, I'm not impressed..... maybe it's me :rofl:

 

[BigDave]

Hi Folks.
Thanks so far for the replies.

I forgot to mention this is specific to the G29 models, as the earlier Z,s have different operating software..

I have been through ALL this with my current DD car, a 2016 BMW X5 40D.

I had a E70 before it and all was well with music playing, then updated to a F15 2016 model, and my ipod wouldnt work, so i had to purchase a newer version. [gen 5 touch]
I then got the 2019 G29 Z and the ipod from the X5 2016 wouldn't work, so got an even newer version for that, [gen 6 touch], but its still not great, it seems to not show or play all the tracks on the gen 6 touch even though they are there and will play via headphones etc...

Just bloody frustrating.. :roll: :roll: :roll:

Maybe i need a gen 7 touch, as they were produced at around the same time. 2018/19...

Ill have a go at uploading a usb stick with tracks / playlists etc....
My car does have the HDD in built and i have transferred some albums across, but not tried the playlists... :driving: :driving:

 

[MikeyH]

I don’t, think I’ve listened to a CD 3 or 4 times in exactly 3 years of ownership.

 

[Phoenixboy]

i just press the media button and it plays straight from my iphones music

 

[Gwest44]

I used to have the USB / AUX Bluetooth cable in my previous E89 which didn't have the mobile phone Bluetooth prep option.

The current one does have the S0633 option so I've ditched the cable and just stream via Amazon Music.

I've also downloaded a few CD's to the cars hard drive for when I get any connectivity issues :driving:

 

[sars]

When I had Spotify premium I would use the onboard app, but after buying into the Apple Watch experience a few years ago, I went back to Apple Music (because of the 100 songs limit on a playlist through Spotify) and listen to it through CarPlay in the car over the WiFi interface. On the whole it's a good experience, with only the occasional connection glitch or an external interference. I also find the HK sounds better at a higher volumes

 

[r2uzenblot]

I use AA Spotify all the time.

 

[deltasierra]

The iPhone integrates so well with Car Play, quality probably isn’t the best but then it’s competing with the sound track of the M40, wind and road noise too.

 

[PaperSniper]

I'm the odd one out here....not a new experience for me, I seem to (slowly, very slowly) dance to a different drummer.

I use Sirius XM radio. Costs about $100 per year, but I've had it on my cars, motorcycles and trucks for many years. Probably since it was XM radio back in 1990 or maybe earlier. Old habits dye hard at my age. It is super convenient, which is why I like it. At my age I have more money than energy to discover new things. <g>

However, I recently bought a Mazda CX-30 as our third car in anticipation of it going to our grandson in a year or two. It is not configured to connect to satellite radio, nor does it have GPS navigation, so I began using Android Auto, something I tried years before but found cumbersome. Since that's all that's available (other than commercial radio), I have learned to like Android Auto, especially google maps. The radio in the Mazda is very poor quality compared to our other cars, but then the Mazda is meant to be cheap transportation. I am thinking of not renewing Sirius XM when my current subscription ends in the Z4. I rarely use radio anyway in that car since I drive with the top down about 95% of the time, even less now that I own the Mazda. I think I have maybe 15k on my 2020 Z4? It doesn't leave the garage when the weather is not suitable for top down driving!

Doug

 

[Ell201275]

I used my old iPod Classic via USB on my previous Z4 E89 without any issue & could access the many playlists & albums & artists options etc.. perfectly.

I've been trying to get it to work on my recently purchased 2021 G29 & the car finds it & can play songs from it, but I cannot find any way to get the playlists to show, which is the main way I listen to the music depending what mood I'm in.

Any ideas? :headbang:

 

[Nanu]

To get Spotify via CarPlay I believe you have to have premium. Does Amazon or Apple music work or do you have to have a subscription service?

 

[r2uzenblot]

I use spotify all the time through my phone. Just connect it through Google and you can tell Google to play whatever. Totally free if you don't mind the adverts.....