Hi everyone, I'm thinking of getting either a 128 GB or 256 GB thumb drive to play music on my (still waiting to get delivered) SE with the harman/kardon system. The owner's manual says that exFAT is supported, and that it plays common file types, but not much else. Has anyone run into problems with a thumb drive with that much storage, or with certain file types? Does it play m4a, WAV, ALAC (Apple Lossless)? If I just copy my iTunes library into the thumb drive, will the system read it, or do I have to copy the files/albums over individually? Thanks!
I expected the audiophiles to reply by now. I found this 2014 article about music on a USB thumb drive that says: Playing music can be done via the arm rest usb connection. This connection supports the formats wav (lossless), wma (lossy), wma (lossless) and mp3 (lossy). I've tested the support for higher resolution (ie. 96kHz and 192kHz), but this failed and only the 44.1kHz are supported. A more recent thread on a BMW forum has one person claiming 512GB thumb drive works.
m4a should also work. I have mine organized similar to my itunes folder, with artist folders at the top level and album folders within those.
Thank you, both! I'll probably go for the 128GB thumb drive, since I figured out it would hold 160 CDs in WAV format, which I may not ever have the time to digitize anyway. Still, I'm hoping Apple Lossless works. I'll report back after I get my car and try things out.
I am so sorry to be delayed on this one. I had family in town and really behind. I have been using the USB for music for ages... though I am pretty sure mine are all .mp3 I'd check but my new laptop is USB C only and I cannot find the adapter. Our server is unplugged at the moment that holds my music too. I have not used iTunes since... well decades so most of mine are ripped or downloaded songs. I just keep the USB in there at all times in case I forget my phone or something like that.
