Okay I'm tired of trying to organize my mp3's on the USB and run into shuffle/random problems. My questions to iPod owners:

1) Is shuffle/random via iPod truly random?

2) Does Playlist organization work well? I want to have playlist and still organize music files in folders.

3) Can I play mp3/apple lossless/wav files on the same iPod?

4) Can I just leave it in the car all the time like the USB drive? Will it survive the cold/heat?


Thanks guys

 

1. Somewhat
2. Yes
3. Not sure about wave, but yes on lossless and mp3
4. Yes. I keep mine in the armrest all of the time.

 

I had my iPod Nano in my Nissan Frontier for three years, cold winters and hot summers with no ill effect. Now it's in the TL. It's just great. Very convenient and all the info comes up on the nav screen and it's easy to access.

 

Does anyone have an issue with the acura display taking forever to list? Like if I want to scroll to an artist whose name begins with the letter "T", it take like 20 minutes to get to the "T" artists??There doesn't seem to be a voice control to make it scroll to a specific letter...

 

^^^^^^
this is when connected via USB...which is my preferred method

 

Every time that I do this, I am always asking myself how much of this can the dial take.

 

I think the voice control for the iPod is only available for the MDX and the ZDX...which isn't fair...

Apparently they recognize that it is a problem

 

So it doen't seem like I gain that much more function over straight MP3 on a USB (except I can put AIFF,wav files on the ipod).

My main pet peeve is the shuffle/random problem when file# becomes too large in a folder on the USB drive, plus search function is limited.

Sounds like there are more search/playlist options with the iPod but the interface is still not ideal.

Can you shuffle/random play only songs in a particular playlist? If so, does it work well or does it become non-random when you have a lot of songs in a playlist say >200??

 

Im tired of my Ipod in the TL..
120gb.. can only fill half that or it wont load certain fields like artist..
ill sell you my ipod classic with like 14k songs ready to go..$125 shipped

 

I've found that the "random" features isn't really random. Anytime I turn it on, then pick a song manually, then turn it on again, the "random" will cycle through almost the exact songs i did prior to me manually choosing them

 

Just make sure you understand the limitations. I've never been a playlist guy - I always like to scroll through my music and pick the next song I want to hear. In that respect, the iPod is no better than a usb drive. Large collections are greatly hampered by the fact that you can only do an alphabetical search, either by artist, song, or album. God help you if you have a couple hundred artists in your collection, and your favorite is ZZ Top.

On the other hand, if you like playlists, the iPod would give you that functionality.

 

i have 2700 sings in my iPod.

The only thing I can do is turn shuffle ON and play one of my playlists. I have to admit, the shuffle function on the TL's interface isn't legit. Through 2700 songs, if i shuffle through the iPod in my work commute, there are songs in the first 10-15 songs of the commute that do appear for two, three even four straight days...

Search function is useless if you have more than 50 songs...LOL

 

I have found that the only thing I don't relly like about the ipod interface, is I lose the ability to put a podcast in a play list. It is not perfect but it is way better that cheaping with a 3.5mm jack

 

Just got my 2011 TL Tech today, replacing a 2008 TL Tech. I used the Aux In for the iPod in the 2008, which worked well sonically, but no display, etc. The 2011 USB connection for the iPod seems to work very well with the song info shown on the Nav screen. I have a random playlist on the iPod and I just set the audio system to use that playlist. Works great. I have to say the the iPod music sounds much better than it did in the 2008 though. DVD-A's sound better as well. Very nice thus far.

 

The problem is if you use the iPod onboard shuffle then you're forced to play via the wimpy 3.5mm AUX jack, probably not a good way to go for audio fidelity.

If you use the USB digital connection you lose the ability to let the iPod perform the shuffle algorithm. But I guess the advantage over USB is that you can use formats other than mp3 (lossless, wav, etc.).

 

1) yes
2) yes works well
3) yes
4) yes had my ipod 120gb for 4 years now. it's been in a clear case the whole time. 2 years in a black w/ black leather '01 TL and 2 years in my grigio w/ taupe leather.
Acura's center console compartments seem to chilled by the rear ac vents running by.

as for ipods with lots of music i've resorted to keeping lots of playlists
but if i want to find that one song or artist i've made it so itunes syncs my ipod alphabetically by artist.
this is because even though searching with the car's system is slow, skipping songs from the main screen is quick. all you need to do is bring up the artist names and estimate where the letters correspond to the playlist number.
ex: out of 1000 songs Radiohead would probably be around 600-700's

 

This is only true if you go from the headphone output to the aux (the typical 3.5mm to 3.5mm cord). If you use a dock to 3.5mm cord, then you don't lose any fidelity, the signal is a full "line level" signal, and you can simply control the volume through the car unit.

I did this for years in my 08 TL-S. The audio fidelity is as good as it can be from an ipod. Unfortunately, I'll either have to go back to this method, or shrink my music collection considerably.

 

Is there a way to play a PodCast through the USB Interface? I have been trying to no avail and creating a playlist for my PodCasts was going to be my next attempt. I listen to PodCasts when driving more than I listen to music files. I hope I don't have to revert back to the 3.5mm jack.

 

Guess the 09-11s don't have the option because on the 12 it is a feature,

Per the owner's manual;
"You can also select a track from any
category on the list: Playlists, Artists,
Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers
and Podcasts by using the interface
dial."

 

Does anyone know it I can some how hook up my ipod touch to my 04 tl w/o navi??

 

I guess your right. The 2009 manual states:

Quote:

You can also select a track from any
category on the list: playlists, artists,
albums and songs, by using the

Quote:

interface dial.

I tried the "Smart Playlist" and now have each Podcast auto sync to its own playlist and they do show up.