Cd drive

[Teresap]

Hi my new RAV4 is nearly here.

i was wondering weather anyone on here has fitted a cd drive to there new RAV4 via the usb connection?

I'm watching one on eBay apparently for it to work the Toyota audio system has to be WAV playback compatible 

does anyone know weather it is as I can’t find the information in the online handbook 

[chris ha]

you would much better off copyng them onto a usb stick, tkes 5 mins on a laptop to convert them, and a usb stick can hold thousands of tracks

[roadster-rav]

7 hours ago, chris ha said:

you would much better off copyng them onto a usb stick, tkes 5 mins on a laptop to convert them, and a usb stick can hold thousands of tracks

Yes I agree with that suggestion in principle. If you have a windows computer that has a cd reader the conversion process is simple and quite quick. I convert to flac format which is lossless and doesn't take much space. If you need some information on how to do this ( I use some free software called foobar2000 ) just ask and I will provide details. There are a few tips which can help with navigation through the tracks when your music collection is installed in the car.

[Buff69]

12 minutes ago, roadster-rav said:

Yes I agree with that suggestion in principle. If you have a windows computer that has a cd reader the conversion process is simple and quite quick. I convert to flac format which is lossless and doesn't take much space. If you need some information on how to do this ( I use some free software called foobar2000 ) just ask and I will provide details. There are a few tips which can help with navigation through the tracks when your music collection is installed in the car.

Hi roadster-rav, I’d be interested, I do buy lossless music online but I’d like to convert our cd’s if that’s possible please many thanks 

[PeteB]

and portable USB CD players work fine with PCs/laptops if they done have one built in.  The portable players don't cost very much either.

[roadster-rav]

OK here is quick how to on my method of converting CDs to flac files using a windows computer that has a CD reader and using foobar2000 both to extract and convert each track.

First install foobar2000 downloaded from http://www.foobar2000.org/download.

Put your CD in the drive and use open audio CD and play from the file menu. All the tracks will be loaded into a playlist but with no meaningful descriptions.

Select all the tracks ( ctrl-A ) the right click the selected area and choose tagging - get tags from freedb. In most cases the CD will be recognised and all the useful fields will be populated with metadata.

Now select all tracks again ( if necessary ) right click and select convert then … (ellipsis). In the right hand panel set each of the three options. flac as the output format and destination being the key ones.

My advice would be to save the files on your computer before copying to a memory stick. Plan the folder structure carefully, for example if you start each track name with the track number as a prefix it is much easier to sort in track order later. You can specify keywords for this under the "convert each file to an individual track" option. For example  %track%-%title% would name the third file 03-Stones in the Road.flac, and you could go a bit further and create a folder at the same time %artist%\%track%-%title% becomes Mary Chapin Carpenter\03-Stones in the Road.flac or try %artist%\%album%\%track%-%title%. Once you have a configuration for the converter click the back button and then use the save button and this will save a preset that you can use for the next CD. Hit the convert button and the tracks will be copied and converted at the best speed that your computer can manage.

It is always possible that foobar2000 will need some extra components but if so just follow the instructions to download them from the recommended locations. (Try not to just google them as there are plenty of phoney download sites).

This all might sound complicated but after you have done it a few times each CD only takes about 5 minutes.

 

[chris ha]

I just hope the RAV audio system is good enough for Lossless, I can appreciate on my Naim system but not sure it would be worth it with Road noise etc etc

[PeteB]

Found found the standard audio of the demonstrator I had for a couple of days was surprisingly good with my USB stick music (just MP3 too).

My car has the JBL upgrade (not that I wanted it, I got it to get the panoramic cameras) and that's very good too (can't actually tell the difference myself!).

[roadster-rav]

15 hours ago, chris ha said:

I just hope the RAV audio system is good enough for Lossless, I can appreciate on my Naim system but not sure it would be worth it with Road noise etc etc

Allowable file formats are quite versatile but high sample rates are all downsampled anyway so there is no point using anything greater than 48KHz and for CDs the standard 44.1 KHz files cannot significantly be improved. There are all sorts of tweaks that could be applied to the FLAC files but as you say you wouldn't notice the difference inside the car. Having a collection of flac files available is useful for me because I can also use them on some low grade devices such as radios and portable players phones etc. with usb input. My 'proper' system is based around 192KHz wav files but that's another story.