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2Addicts | BMW 2-Series forum Technical Topics Navigation, iDrive, Audio, Video, Bluetooth, Phone, Cameras, Electronics Best way to listen to music

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      08-17-2018, 12:25 PM   #1
liebetrau88
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Best way to listen to music

Just recently picked up an M240i(awesome car) but I'm curious as to the best way to listen to music and what gives the most functionality. I would love to use spotify with my android phone, but I've already experienced all of the issues involved with that and how unreliable it can be. I used a USB drive in my last car, but I can't seem to shuffle all folders in the M240.

Would I be better loading it all into the car's memory? I like being able to use the controls of the car instead of having to mess with my phone while driving.
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      08-20-2018, 01:03 PM   #2
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Even with all songs loaded on hard disk, I could not find a way to shuffle all. I could shuffle an artist. Further, for my 2018 there was a limit of 20 GB for music on the internal drive. So it's not a perfect option either.
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      08-20-2018, 03:12 PM   #3
liebetrau88
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Yeah, it sucks so far. Hopefully sometime in the next year BMW will actually address the issue, haha.
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      08-20-2018, 04:14 PM   #4
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IMO, the most functional way is Spotify via the iDrive app in the Technology Package ... on an iPhone.

(Sorry, OP: You bought a car that doesn't play well with Android, and hasn't since it was introduced in 2015.)

As for the 'best' part of your question: Please describe what you mean by 'best'. This subforum has a myriad of discussions about this from many different viewpoints.

I advise you to scan through some of the longer threads on this subforum; that will likely answer a few other questions you likely have. You'll find that the 2 Series audio is, by many estimations, the worst part of the car. It can be improved upon in some ways -- but functionality within iDrive is not one of them, unfortunately.
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      08-20-2018, 05:00 PM   #5
liebetrau88
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I've tried searching through here, but haven't had much luck. I'll continue trying though!

Last edited by liebetrau88; 08-20-2018 at 05:09 PM..
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      08-20-2018, 05:17 PM   #6
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I'm using a 128GB USB stick, that's about the size of my thumbnail, for music. It is far superior to BlueTooth streaming.
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      08-20-2018, 07:36 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FX TR8R View Post
I'm using a 128GB USB stick, that's about the size of my thumbnail, for music. It is far superior to BlueTooth streaming.
That's the best option, assuming you're using lossless, short of making major changes to the car setup.
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      08-21-2018, 01:52 PM   #8
liebetrau88
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Probably a dumb question, but could one use an iPod? Or does it need to have cellular signal to work with the bmw connected app?
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      08-21-2018, 02:13 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by liebetrau88 View Post
Probably a dumb question, but could one use an iPod? Or does it need to have cellular signal to work with the bmw connected app?
It needs a cellular signal to work with a streaming service.

That said, you can download music for playback anywhere onto an iPod Touch from a streaming service when you have access to a WiFi signal (you can do the same on an iPhone, etc.). What is unclear on my end is if the Spotify app will play that downloaded music through the iDrive interface without a WiFi signal.
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      08-21-2018, 08:33 PM   #10
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easiest is to use a super small usb drive.

I have a 32gb its tiny.... load it with my favorite cds, movies, videos, etc...

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruze...32gb+usb+drive
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      08-22-2018, 07:04 AM   #11
liebetrau88
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Any way to shuffle all with a USB? I've got a 64 gig filled with stuff, but could only shuffle a single ablum.
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      08-22-2018, 02:05 PM   #12
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I have no issues using my iPhone X to stream Spotify or Google play music or Apple music or SoundCloud or YouTube. Anything I want to listen to is on there and I can control it all from my steering wheel.
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      09-01-2018, 12:03 PM   #13
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I have my music on a 500gb h/drive connected in the armrest and it has never had a shuffle function, that's only available for a cd or the cars memory I think. Sometimes I will connect my mp3 player to it and that gives me shuffle availability and the sound is far better too coming from the mp3s superior sound processor.
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      09-18-2018, 12:38 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FX TR8R View Post
I'm using a 128GB USB stick, that's about the size of my thumbnail, for music. It is far superior to BlueTooth streaming.

Same here. I've honestly never actually even tried to stream music with bluetooth since there's no point to it for me- I can drive from coast to coast playing just from the tiny thumbdrive in the center console and never hear the same song twice.


EDIT: I made a mistake and looked up my purchase from 5 years ago, mine is "only" 64GB. Still haven't filled it up

Last edited by zentanker; 09-18-2018 at 12:48 AM..
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      11-06-2018, 12:04 PM   #15
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Using a 256GB Flash Drive. Mix of Music, Music Videos and Movies. But still can't get an answer when it comes to MAX # of files can be read/indexed by newer versions of the iDrive.
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      11-11-2018, 08:50 AM   #16
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Beeing a hardcore audiophile i can mainly recommend two options:

TIDAL (lossless streaming) via Apple Carplay sounds absolutely gorgeous. It works over WLAN do its fast as well.

Second thing i do is a USB stick packed woth lots of High-Resolution lossless FLAC files. Even the 24/192 i have do work perfectly and sound accordingly good.

Cable would sound very good too but is not convenient to me. Bluetooth is a nightmare both in terms of sound quality and speed.
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      11-15-2018, 08:31 AM   #17
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I have a 128gig thumb drive and "synch" it with JRiver Media Center 24 runing on my Mac Air. I have only .wav and flac sound files. The metadata includes album art on "each song" I also have playlists. I can search. The art shows up while playing. It sounds good to my old ears. my build date is 9/15.
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      12-19-2018, 03:17 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by liebetrau88 View Post
Would I be better loading it all into the car's memory?

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? There's an internal hard drive?!

Anyways, get a USB thumb drive big enough to hold your collection. Then dump your collection on the thumb drive. Don't use subfolders as these confuse car audio systems AND help corrupt storage devices. Place all the music files in the root folder of the thumb drive.

I've used MP3Tag to rename all my files this way: "artist-year-album-track-song.mp3". Your files remain in alphabetical order whilst their music remains in chronological order then by track number. But you can rename your files as you see fit.

I hope this helps.
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      12-19-2018, 09:34 PM   #19
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yes there is storage on board.
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