Quick question.....I'm thinking very seriously about getting a '10 TL. Dealer can't answer this question.

I have some CDs that I love in their entirety, and would record onto the HDD. However, I have many more that I only like a song or two. Don't want to record the entire CD to the HDD.

So, can you record just individual tracks onto the HDD without recording the entire CD?

 

To be honest I haven't burned one CD yet to the internal HD on the system. Mainly the audio quality of the burned CD is pretty bad (for my ears, I think it's saved as 128kbps MP3). I prefer to rip the CD in my own client of choice on my computer, trying to keep it in as good of a quality as possible. 360kbps AAC file - which the car will play. Then I got some dirt cheap 4GB and 8GB USB thumbdrives which I plug into the dash. The sound quality is AMAZING and I can have only the songs I want on the disk, it reads the ID3 data and everything.

 

I just double checked on mine and while I don't use the hard drive, I have copied a couple discs to it. I'm not sure what compression they use, but like petec2010 said, the quality is not as good as say a CD. If your not real picky it still sounds really good, but I can tell a difference.

Anyhow, Yes you can copy an entire disc or manually choose tracks. Even if you copy the whole disc you can go back and rename each individual track or delete tracks if you want. It has gracenote, so it automatically finds the CD information and track names for you and labels them accordingly, which is pretty cool.

This is the upgraded stereo in the Tech model. I'm not sure if the base TL has this same system?

 

Pete....Fast....Thanks!

This would be a tech SH AWD model. Interesting that they're using compression. I thought it would be a straight digital transfer with no compression.

Good suggestion on getting a thumb drive and putting all my Itunes on it, as Itunes is the only music service I use. I guess I'll just rip my CDs to the thumb drive and use that.

BTW.....just signed a deal for a SH AWD CBP w/taupe tonight. They wanted me to take it home tonight and bring it back to have it detailed (supposedly, their detail guy had gone home early). Straight off the truck. Had 4 miles (and another 8 I put on it to test drive). They needed to throw the wheel locks on, put mud guards on it, and tint the windows for me (made those part of the deal). I told them I'd come back on Friday to pick it up after everything's done.

 

Congrats on the CBP! Keep in mind that you can't play DRM-itunes music from the thumbdrive. So if you bought it from iTunes it won't work, but if you ripped it with itunes you should be fine.

 

Congrats on the purchase. You'll love this car. (Good color choice, BTW).

 

Thanks! I've got an iphone that has all of my Itunes purchased songs on it. However, I'll rip my CDs to Itunes and put them on a thumb drive, as you guys suggested. I've got a bunch of those sitting around.

I'll pick it up Friday night.

It's been a long shopping ordeal. Started out 2 months ago with a whole laundry list of cars I was looking at, including a 335i xDrive, an Audi A4, a Taurus SHO, and a G37x. Kept coming back to the TL SH AWD as the one I liked the most.

Wanted to be under $40K, including everything...taxes, doc, license, etc (about $2K in total, so bought the TL for about $38K, maybe a little less). Got there and pulled the trigger. Had to work the dealer pretty hard, though. Plus, I didn't want Ebony interior. Nothing wrong with Ebony, except that's all the dealers seem to want to stock, and the last 2 cars I had were black interior...wanted to change it up a little. Was initially thinking of umber, but those are hard to find. And, I wasn't sure I'd like umber a year or two down the road.

This is a first for me, regarding using my iphone for BT calling, streaming from it, etc.

Can you use Pandora via BT streaming? Sound quality of phone calls, both ends?

 

Congrats, sounds like a great deal!! I'll tell you know, for the discerning ear, streaming bluetooth music sounds horrible. Some people can't notice a difference, but I tried it and it just sound like dead music, like a low bitrate mp3. Stick with ipod hard connected, or a thumbdrive, that sounds great (as good as your source music).

BT audio quality for phone call is very good, i've been told I sound much better on the phone than in my 07. Plus they've finally integrated the phone into the center dash/nav screen, unlike before where it was separate in the MID.

 

Pete....figured as much. I've had some BT headphones I use connected to my iphone when I jog. That's pretty bad. Can't imagine it would be much better in the TL.

I've got a Macbook (which has all of my itunes music purchased on). And, I've to a windows laptop that I'll probably rip my CDs to. I'll assume that WMA is what you use to rip your CDs?

Again, thanks for all the help.

 

Yes, you can rip selected songs from an album to the HDD.

Turn off the setting that automatically begins ripping at CD. See page 320 of the manual.
Under HDD set up turn the Ripping setting to manual.
Then when you insert a disc, you can select an individual song to rip.

 

What phone are you streaming from? Bluetooth streaming from my iPhone sounds identical to the same songs played from my iPod. For devices that fully support the A2DP standard, there should be no degradation in sound quality.

 

Iphone. I thought BT streaming would be compressed. I pick up the car today. So, I'll get the sales person let me give a listen by doing that. Personally, if it's compressed, I probably won't like it. The TL has one of the best car stereos in the biz. Want to take advantage of that to get the best sound.

Iif there is no degradation from the iPhone, I'll do BT streaming.

Thanks!

 

I have an iPhone - I don't know the first time I tried it it sounded like crap... I'll have to try it again and see if it was a fluke or something.

Not everyone can hear the difference between a 128kbps and a 320kbps MP3/AAC file though, so to some people it may sound fine. Same as the ripped CD's on the internal HD, some people may think it sounds OK, but others might not agree.

I agree with the A2DP standard, I believe it "should" support over ~350kbps... but that didn't seem the case.

I'll try it again and see.

 

Not sure of the technical specs when streaming Bluetooth audio, but I've done it with my iPhone and I thought the sound quality was excellent. Songs sounded great and the streaming was pretty good too. I rarely USB audio anymore because the navigation via the car's interface is too cumbersome especially when you have a lot of songs.

As an aside, my kids love having the sounds from their games coming from the car's speakers too.