Advice Needed On Board Music

[Sailorbob8599]

OMG! sounds like the younger generation. Can't go anywhere without your electronic toys. What ever happened to going sailing just to get away from all this electronic trash & noise? Joshua Slocum didn't have an i-pod why do you need one? Ever heard the saying "silence is a virtue?" Just stay away from my anchorage if you're going to make a bloody racket.
That is, unless it's something I like!

[GeneM]

I just installed a Sirius satellite radio, put a car antenna up on the fly bridge and enjoy music everywhere. I love channel 32 - the bridge. We boomers also like the new Beatles channel - 18.

[hellosailor]

"Plug a USB into the stereo and then pick and choose directly from that. But I've not seen anything like that."
Old hat for car stereos. The problem is, pretty much all car stereos and dedicated "portable" music players have lousy interfaces and you will need to be driling driling drilling clicking up and down to get anywhere, and trying to avoid folder and file limits.
It becomes much simpler, and more cost effective, to take an old cell phone or tablet (with adequate storage space on it, that can vary widely) and use that as the music source, because there are so many well-written Android and Apple (or even Windows) music players out there.
In dedicated equipment, I think the only option I've seen is the Fiio X5 3rd generation, a pricey portable player, which allows the option of using Android software to control it. And for "car stereo" type equipment that can pump volume? Yeah, not yet.

[Three Sisters]

Originally Posted by All is found

We are planning to begin a cruising life this winter once we find a boat. I am wondering about music. We have hundreds of CD's which I would rather not bring. To have these on an iPod requires internet as you need to 'sign-in' to iTunes.
How do people manage music storage without internet access?

If you can get ahold of one of these they are great



The sound quality at low volume is terrific...even better with the input from the headphone jack of your laptop. The more recent models have the dock for "i" equipment.
It's a JVC.

[UNCIVILIZED]

There are even automobile stereos that work via built in touch screens. And I'm guessing that with a bit of DIY wiring manipulation you could connect one to a 2nd screen in the cockpit, or even to an MFD. If such aren't on the market already.

[Rock-Head]

Originally Posted by Geek_Guy

But I would like to not have to use my computer or Ipod etc. I'd like it to just work like my TV. Plug a USB into the stereo and then pick and choose directly from that. But I've not seen anything like that.

I've got a dual boot R-pi with Raspian (for running OCPN) & KODI OpenELEC (for watching mvies & listening to music). Load up a ton of music/movies on a flash drive (or build your pi on a large SD card) and plug the pi into the HDMI port on your TV. 5V @ .5A (not including the TV draw of course but there's a dimming screensaver in KODI)

Edited to add:
OH, and there's a web server built into KODI as well, so it can be remotely controlled via anything with a browser.

[autumnbreeze27]

What really sucks about itunes is when you go to delete an annoying song, or add a new song, and your computer says "This iphone was synced with a different computer, so your options are: 1) Wipe it and start over 2) Do nothing"

That's why I went with USB sticks. But I've found the random play on most car stereos on the usb stick is not very random at all. There's like 5 or so random patterns that seem to persist.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by hafa

ITunes also limits the manner of file transfers and the number of devices you may use and therefore determines how, when and where you listen to your music. No thanks. DRM is BS, pure and simple. I always pay for tmy music, supporting the artists I love, but I'll give no one the right to tell me how to listen to it. Apple software has no place on any of my devices.

Think you missed the point, iTunes is handy for ripping cds, no limits, nothing like that, that's just for buying through apple isn't it? I shop elsewhere but no point not using some free software for something it's quite good at just because you disagree with other parts of business. Doesn't change anything.

[CarinaPDX]

To those with old classic iPods: I replaced the 1.8" hard drive with an SSD. While there are 1.8" SSDs available, mine was an adapter for PCIe flash drives so will be easy to upgrade in the future (installed 128GB but larger is possible). The SSD is much more robust. I like the user interface of the iPod for selecting songs.

iTunes is only needed for installing the firmware when a new drive is booted. I wouldn't buy DRMed anything (through the store in this case) nor will I stand for all of the other limitations of iTunes. I have used the Floola app instead, but it is getting a bit dated. Linux has several solutions for managing the content of iPods.

For storing movies, music, backups I use a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box on board. Mine is a compact Synology NAS that contains four 2TB laptop drives that holds about 5GB in a hybrid RAID, and can recover from losing one drive. I will also be configuring it for recording TV and as a cloud server (for synching contacts,calendar, etc). It is a very good solution.

Greg

[JasonDS]

If you love your music, convert to FLAC lossless which doesn't loose any info.
Backup to m-disc blu ray or dvd which has a 1000 year lifespan. Make a copy and give to a family member on land to store. Keep the other backup on the boat

Now convert to a lossy format like mp3 192bps or higher.

Either store on a phone to Bluetooth to a speaker system, laptop, usb stick or however you're going to play them.

I personally have a blu tooth car stereo and stream from my phone or laptop.

[Sandibar]

Ditto. I have ripped abt 400 cds to lossless flac with foobar. For the boat I have converted them to mp3s on an sd card which my onboard car stereo system accepts. Ripping is a pain but then your music is safe (I have multiple copies) from cd degeneration. They dont last forever in my experience.

[hellosailor]

"Backup to m-disc blu ray or dvd which has a 1000 year lifespan."
I've never heard of m-disc, but the only media with lifespans that long are magneto-optical discs, which are rather pricey and obscure things these days. The Library of Congress has done testing on conventional "burned" CD and DVD media, and the lifespans they found on even the best, are more in the 10-100 year range, 10 being most common.
Carrying two archives (lossless and everyday) on a boat, or carrying glass magneto-optical discs and the burner/player for them on board a boat, defeats the OP's original intent of getting the music off the bulky CD's and into compact form.
One USB stick, one thousand albums. Two USB sticks, now there's backup. And every five or ten years going down the line, you copy one or both off to newer media.
No thousand-year archive needed.

[abuzman]

I use an iPod Classic, iTunes and a Bose Sound Dock. I buy music on the iTunes Store , rip CDs and put old mp3s in the iTunes app on my MacBook. Sync the iPod and they are ready to go. Plug the iPod into the Sound Dock and I have high Guaita sound with more volume than I can use. You can rip CDs and and also convert the Apple format music (AAC) to MP3 s if you like or want to put them on a regular MP3 player. There are those that just want to drag and drop files to manage their music and say Apple stuff is too hard or bad juju. It's just different. If you are new to Apple get an "iPod for Dummies" book, or similar. They aren't just for dummies. They have tips and tricks you don't get through Apple help or forums. Oh, the Bose Sound Dock runs on AC or rechargeable batteries . I use mine almost every day and I have had it for years. Still great. I do not leave it on the boat during the Summer here on Galveston Bay, TX where temperatures in a closed up boat can easily reach 100+degrees F. I also have at least a dozen movies on the iPod, also managed with iTunes. I believe it takes a special adapter to output movies to a TV.

[ReMetau]

We used to have an IPod, but have switched to a Sony player which has 80 gb internal storage and 130 gb card reader.

We use an Apline head unit which can take line-in audio, Bluetooth, USB front and back. I like the Apline because it has a true wireless waterproof remote instead of ir.

I use the line-in to play stereo sound from the tv. We have about 800 movies and hundreds of tv shows on hard drives that we play through other media players.

The head unit connects to an Alpine amp which drives 4 salon Polk Audio component speakers, a Bazooka sub on a switch, and via a switch 2 cockpit tubie speakers for outside listening.

[Van Der Beek]

Finally done with ripping my record collection, now I'm looking into replacing the speakers and the stereo.