wow...all i can say is wow. as for your "expose" it was more difficult to
understand than my college Lit book, and even more cryptic. if my critical
reading skills serve me correctly, you're asking what HU's work well with
MP3's in folder format. cause if thats your question, then the answer is
Alpine. model CDA-9813 is what i recomend. it suppors mp3 and wma files.
good luck in your search, and next time, you have a question, try to submit
in 50 words or less...j/k

spanky
"suckmysav" wrote in message
...

Being an up-until-recently satisfied owner of an aged Kenwood head +
stacker combo I have of late taken to cursing the Gods of Music along
with Those Who Hath Inflicted Commercial Radio Upon The Innocent People
Of The World. This has occured as a result of the untimely demise of the
aforementioned CD stacker. Verily, come last weekend I have decided to
trot on down to the local car audio store on a mission to obtain for
myself a brand new CD/MP3 head unit. For testing purposes I carefully
made up a test CD-RW that contained some folders that in turn contained
MP3 files, all cleverly arranged with things like playlists & "hidden"
folders specially designed so that I may see how the track navigation
user interface has been implemented on the various players that I was
perusing in anticipation of parting ways with several hundred dollars. I
had decided that an MP3 Player with a craptastic user interface would be
an MP3 player that one would be best advised to avoid if at all
possible, especially when parting company with large amounts of money
for the privilige of doing so was concerned.

So, I arrived at the store, CD gripped firmly in my trembling hand and
made my way eagerly past the in-store displays which consisted primarily
of mountains of cardboard boxes with various product samples perched
atop them, to the rear of the store where I could see the several large
and inimidating wall displays, all brazenly festooned with a vast array
of dancing and pulsating LED displays, and they were all waiting for a
taste of the sweet delectable fare that was my MP3 Test Disc.

Before long I had attracted the attention of one of the nearby store
persons whose vast knowledge of all things car-audio I had hoped to
profit from in my quest to select my own small piece of car audio
nirvana. Alas, it was not to be. My suspicions were first brought into
sharp focus in this regard when he began pointing at various models and
reading the names of the manufacturers to me. "This one here's a . . .
Sony, and here we have a . . . Kenwood and this is a, err, Pioneer and
it is clearly the best because it is on special and has free
installation.". It was at that point that he had apparently reached the
nadir of his sales technique and I half expected to hear him pleadingly
ask me Homer Simpson style "can I have some money now?". But no, before
he could do so I interrupted him to ask whether I could try out my CD on
the Pioneer unit that is clearly the best because it is on special and
has free installation.

The disc was duly inserted into the unit on the display wall. This
activity was in turn followed by some protracted seek noises which then
culminated in a cryptic error message that had my heart aflutter as I
recalled those dim and ill-remembered days when I was unfortunate enough
to have been tasked with the mission of providing tech support to the
easily befuddled owners of apple macintosh computers.

Error 11.

True, the old MacOS error 11 would also be accompanied by a comforting
cartoon image of an old fashioned ball-bomb replete with lit fuse but I
don't think that the LED display on the Pioneer was capable of such
advanced error reporting techniques. I'm sure the good folk at Pioneer
are working diligently to rectify that ommission as we speak though, but
I digress.

While the sales person stabbed buttons frantically on the offending
Pioneer head, I took the liberty of perusing the units fine multi-
language manual. This produced no clarification as to the nature of the
"error 11", but it hardly takes a brain the size of a planet to figure
out that it doesn't like something about the format/layout of my
lovingly crafted disc. The store assistant clearly was not in possession
of a brain of even the size of a walnut however and this was not clear
to him at all. He insisted it was simply a failure on his part to push
the correct sequence of buttons. Clearly, another sales person would be
called for here.

Accordingly, Sales Droid Mark II was tagged in to take over but
unfortunately Droid II's technical knowledge surpassed his predecessors
only in as much as he managed to helpfully point out that they also have
a Sansui model that plays MP3s. Droid II scampered off at the first
opportunity to present itself, never to be seen again.

I asked whether I could try my disc in any one of the many other
non-pioneer head units that had been liberally installed on to the
multiple display walls but alas, it was not possible to do so.
Apparently, none of the other display walls are connected up at this
moment, it has something to do with them being 2003 models and it
currently being the year 2004, at least where I live. Perhaps the flow
of DC current has been reversed due to a last minute rewrite of the law
of physics by God Almighty or something but unfortunatly the testing of
other non-Pioneer brands was deemed to be impossible due to the date.

I consulted some more manuals for various brands which were of varying
degrees of usefulness. Most of them say they can take CDs burnt to the
usual ISO standards, 8 levels of nested "folders" (blast ye microsoft,
they are "directories" not "folders" but that is the subject of another
diatribe I'm afraid) and these "folders" can hold 255 files and file
names can contain alpha-numeric characters. Spaces are not explicitly
verboten but I suspect they are, all pretty normal stuff. My main
discovery of note is that M3U playlists are often NOT supported. The
Pioneer that is clearly the best because it is on special and has free
installation, for instance, falls into the "does not support playlists"
catagory.

Which brings me to the nub of this long-winded, rather pointless article.

The true "Guru" was called for. A man who is so fluent in the ways of
car audio AND computers that it was promised that he would have the
answers to all the questions of which I seek. Trembling in anticipation
and biting down hard on a ridiculous urge to ask him "Are you really the
head of Kwik-E-Mart? Really?? YOU???" I awaited the arrival of The Great
Guru, albeit somewhat confusedly as it became increasingly apparent that
there was in fact no red-carpet being rolled out upon the shop floor in
anticipation of his arrival. I wondered why I was not taken instead to
his place of meditation, from where I, a mere lowly mortal might gaze up
into his all knowing, dead eyes in mute wonder. Perhaps they realised
that it might be a touch too awe inspiring and that it would be better
for all concerned if he just came to me.

While I was lost in such lofty thoughts, a fat bald guy loitered over
and asked if he could help me. No, I informed him, I am just waiting for
The Guru to appear with The One True Answer. "Yeah, that'd be me mate"
he replied. As I regained my composure after being momentarily afflicted
by a sudden and severe coughing fit, he went on to inform me that "most
of the problems people have are to do with folders. If you just put all
your songs in the root directory then you won't have problems." End of
lesson. No flowing robes, no lotus position, no mildly nauseating
incence pots, nothing like that at all. Not even a damned sitar! Just
"put all your songs in the old root folder and smile smile smile"

Now, it must be said that I'm sure The Guru was correct in what he says
here. I'm sure if you just named every one of your songs in the form
001.MP3 thru 255.MP3 and then dumped them all in the root of your CD you
would in fact have a CD that works flawlessly. Too bad if you want to
sort them into groups of songs though. Groups that are sometimes
referred to by the great unwashed masses as "albums" for instance. Nay,
verily, begone such foul and evil thoughts! The root is the lord, and
the lord is root! From that path ye shall not stray!

My voice wavering almost imperceptably at the mere thought of even
implying anything contrary to the Words Of The Guru, I neverless managed
to point out that this may in fact work perfectly, technically speaking
wise, but it would in turn be such a heinous and cumbersome way of
listening to music that it would make returning to the cold embrace of
the nattering imbeciles on commercial FM radio appear a positively
uplifting and mind-expanding experience by contrast. I followed up this
observation with an invitation to The Guru to expand upon his lesson,
and provide me with the names of any brands that might work better with
these troublesome folders than others to which he pondered thoughtfully
for what was surely several microseconds only to reply with "Oh, their
manuals all SAY they work with folders and stuff, but none of them
really do. You are better off putting all your songs in the root folder
like I said.". With that he returned to the installation bay out the
back of the store to be seen no more.

At this point I had began to tire of my two children running between
myself and the mobile phone display at the other end of the store in
order to regale me with loud and exuberant cries concerning which phones
cost "zero dollars and can I get one!? Can I? Can I?". "read the fine
print" I would reply. I don't think they ever did figure out what that
meant.

So, if any of the fine folk here have doggedly and against all better
judgement persisted through to the end of this utterly worthless, but
strangely cathartic, expose, what say you all regarding the user
interfaces of common "name brand" car audio MP3 players? Are some better
than others in the usability stakes or is (heaven forbid) the guru
correct in his view that we should just dump all our tracks into the
root and say Begone! to thoughts of attempting to sort them in any
logical fashion? I intend next week/end to visit some _other_ stores but
today I am bored, and felt like doing some writing.

And this is the result.

Have a nice day :-)