USB drives and music

[mollie2]

I download MP3 music to my laptop and copy it to a USB thumbnail device. Most of them seem to perform differently depending on their size and where I purchased them (the cost).
Is there a limit to how much music data you can put on a USB stick before the playing device, like a home stereo, has trouble reading it. I have a DENON RCD-N8 and once I get over 7 or 8 gigabytes of music on the stick it starts having problems playing the music or says the device is empty. I also have problems with the car stereo where it won't recognize the USB at all but I think that's for a different reason. I have tried re formatting them and repairing them but it doesn't help. Can somebody give me a bit of advice please.

 

[hang-the-9]

All devices have different limitations, especially if it's not just a standard computer. You have to check each one with the vendor support and manual to see what they need to run.

 

[mollie2]

Thank's for your assistance hang-the-9. Not sure what you mean but I probably confused you with my question. I like to listen to music and download quite a lot of MP3 music which I transfer from my laptop to a USB flash drive.
The Denon stereo I mentioned is a good quality device. However I think randomising music from a USB drive is not one of it's stronger attributes. My car stereo has less of problem doing the same thing. However even the car stereo has a problem when I plug 10 Gigs of music on a USB device into it and choose random playback. I suppose what I'm really asking is more to do with random or shuffle playback. Do devices which have that method of playback have limitations as well? I believe this is the case because when I "overload" my devices/stereos with hundreds of tracks to randomly play back they start repeating them shortly thereafter, it's like they are confused.

 

[KWB315]

I have 64 gigs on my phone . I plug it in to the car. i get the same thing . im using foobar. I figure its the program . Maybe they dumb the memory. Would love a fix.

 

[mollie2]

I have 64 gigs on my phone . I plug it in to the car. i get the same thing . im using foobar. I figure its the program . Maybe they dumb the memory. Would love a fix.

Gidday KWB. I've been playin with USB's and MP3 music for more hours than I care to remember. I find the more tracks you put in the device the more it confuses it. If you've got say 1,000 tracks on the device it'll only pick on a portion of it. That's why you'll be scratching your head wondering why you're hearing music from the same albums when it should be selecting from about 100 them and even repeating the same tracks after a while. That's my theory anyway.
My Denon receiver, which I love, was giving me problems randomising music on a USB stick and I was told it only randomises music from the current folder/album. Media players like Windows and MusicBee synch music in folders for each Artist and a sub folder for the album title and you can imagine how many folders I was getting at times. So basically I have to extract all the music files from the folders then delete all them before the Denon will accept them. Even then if there's too many files I get the same old problems.
Maybe the size of the files has a bearing to? I always download my music at maximum

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Hang-the-nine is right on. It will depend on the individual device as to how much data or how many files it can effectively deal with. You'd have to look at the manual for your exact Denon receiver. Another model Denon may have a different USB controller and perform very differently.

For the PC it's simple. MP3 on the drive and <player of your choice>. I also use Foobar. You can create playlists pretty easily and set them to play randomly. Other devices than a PC don't conform to any one standard like a PC does though.

 

[mollie2]

Hang-the-nine is right on. It will depend on the individual device as to how much data or how many files it can effectively deal with. You'd have to look at the manual for your exact Denon receiver. Another model Denon may have a different USB controller and perform very differently.

For the PC it's simple. MP3 on the drive and <player of your choice>. I also use Foobar. You can create playlists pretty easily and set them to play randomly. Other devices than a PC don't conform to any one standard like a PC does though.

Thanks' for your input anort3. Since I last posted I just happened to try using a SanDisk 3.0 16GB which I haven't used for a while. I've always used USB 2.0 under the misconception that there is not a lot difference between the 3.0 and the 2.0 for transferring music. I'm aware that 3.0 is faster but it definitely seems to work better in my case with the Denon. As you may have perceived in my reply to Hang-the-nine that the manual for Denon instructs that the it will only play tracks randomly from the currently folder which is half true because I've had problems for years. However I don't seem to be having nearly as much trouble using the SanDisk 3.00, which means speed must have something to do with it , which is a bit strange, wouldn't you agree? Also I stull have all the tracks in separate folders (albums) which is supposed to prevent me from using random play. It does bark a bit when I first put the stick in. It displays a format error but I've found ways around that.