In order for a USB flash drive to be compatible for the ADX stereo, it must be formatted as FAT16 or FAT32, which ordinarily limits you to a 32 gb or less, flash drive, which I had no idea this was the case, and I really discovered by accident. I had already been to the Acura dealership, Office Depot and Best Buy for a consultation on my flash drive not being compatible for my ADX, but I decided to go to Office Depot once again to see what they may know about FAT32, they couldn't help me, then off to Best Buy again and the first employee could not help me, however another employee happened to be in college and was majoring in computer science, knew about FAT32 vs exFat and said if I didn't find a solution, to bring my flash drive in and he would format it for me to FAT32.
I was already resolved to the fact I may need to use 32gb flash drives only, but I had bought a 64gb flash drive that was small and it was all brushed metal. I really liked it because of the style and the fact it would not stick out of the USB port too far, thus blocking access to the wireless charging pad. Also, a 64gb drive would allow me to get more CDs on one drive and that way I would not have too many USBs after I uploaded all my CDs. I knew I had a workable solution on my flash drive dilemma, so I continued copying all my CDs to my laptop. One day out of the blue, a video popped up on YouTube about how to format a flash drive larger than 32gb to FAT32, which turned out to be simple through a free program that I downloaded. I was excited about this discovery, to say the least.
Fast forward - I now have all my 400+ CDs uploaded to four 64gb flash drives that are the smaller brushed metal plus one other small 32gb drive. On the 32gb drive, I set up three folders - one for Christmas music, one for classical music and the other for a mix of rock, R&B, country and oldies. That way, when I have the 32gb flash drive plugged in, I don't have Christmas music or classical music playing unexpectantly.
Now here is why I'm addicted to the B&O. It is one fantastic stereo whether I am playing FM, HD-FM, Pandora or wireless Apple Music, but when I play Apple Music that I have my iPhone hooked up to the USB and set to lossless (ALAC in Apple speak) and especially when I am listening to one of my flash drives that has my lossless music CDs, the B&O performs better than any stereo I've ever heard. I take my ADX out early on a Saturday or Sunday morning when traffic is at a minimum, find one of my favorite curvy roads out in the country, shift the gear selector to 'S', select Sport Mode on the Integrated Dynamic System (IDS), the instrument cluster turns red and I'm off. The paddle shifters are unbelievable in this type of driving on how quick they make the CVT change ratios with seven different ratios to use. The music is pristine at higher volumes, the suspension is precise and accurate, and the speed limit is just a suggestion. I'm addicted!

 

Yep, nothing like having a good sound system in your car. When I bought my 2017 BMW, none of the dealers had a 330i with the upgraded HK sound system on the lot, so I custom-ordered the car (a nice option that BMW offers).

I’m pleased with the performance of the ELS system in my RDX Tech. It’s on par with the Harman Kardon system in the BMW. It’s nice that Acura prioritizes sound system quality in their lineup. It isn’t common among auto manufacturers.

 

I still am disappointed Acura got rid of the ELS system and switched to B&O. Now B&O is by no means a bad sound system, but I still find it overall 2nd to the ELS. At one point I had a Acura & Audi at the same time. Acura having the ELS while Audi, the B&O. Audi has had B&O in their vehicles for quite some time. I was able to compare side by side the two systems and found the ELS just a little bit better.

 

Most car audio systems are disappointing. The upgraded JBL system I had in my old Sienna was awful.

 

Interesting. Actually have the JBL in a GH right now. Actually have found it best out of the mainstream brand stereo system. Much better than the upgraded BOSE that Honda puts in their cars.

 

What model is a GH? The BOSE system I listened to in a Mazda CX-5 turbo sounded very good to me, about the same as the ELS.

 

Don't know why Panasonic did not rebrand it. That is on Panasonic. No knows or cares who ELS was.

 

How did you burn 400 CD’s to flash drive. I love this solution but I’m thinking one at a time, right?

Also, I’m OG so not sure if this is a dumb question - but how do you navigate between songs and albums? Is there a user-friendly interface?

I have. 2016 RLX-SH and a 2023 MDX-S and I’ve burned a fair number of CDs to the onboard hard disk drive HDD in the sound system. The Graphical User Interface GUI on both is tolerable but nothing special. The sound quality on both is … fantastic. Audio on the RLX-SH with Krell is very good but lacks deep bass. Audio on the MDX-S is superb.

 

Burn one at a time onto the laptop using a free program called Exact Audio Copy (EAC). This program is very easy to use and it incorporates metadata (MusicBrainz) to apply album cover art, artist. song title and album name. You can really get into how you want EAC to perform different functions, or you can use the default settings, which I did, then upload from laptop onto the flash drive. MusicBrainz recognized 99% of the CDs to make it easy to apply CD info. EAC uses flac then wav for playback and this enables the music to be 'lossless', which will sound great on your stereo.
The USB function on the ADX uses the data to display the album cover picture, artist, song title, and album name. It takes a while for the system to "index" the usb, but after it is indexed, it has a menu that will let you select music by artist, by album or by song. It works great keeping in mind it takes some time for the system to index the usb, especially a 64gb drive. A 32 gb usb is faster for the system to index and you must format any size usb using fat32. While the system is indexing, it will immediately start playing music on the llash drive in random order, which i enjoy.

 

Where the word root is, will be the album name after the system indexes the flash drive.