BOSE system, MP3 issues, update and a solution

All Porsche Macan Related Discussion
Post Reply
mjrennie
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:10 am

Post by mjrennie »

I posted in the Introductions thread, thought it would be useful to share the complete solution so others my benefit. I think some others may have suggested this route, so thanks:

Ensure portable item has the correct format...FAT32 or NTFS, as far as I can tell. exFAT, I think, is IOS...the system doesn't like SD cards formatted this way. Just right click in My Computer and format with either FAT32 or NTFS, whichever is offered...both work.

Divide your stuff into files of LESS THAN 1,000 songs. 1,000 might be OK, but play safe and go 990 or similar. My collection is 4,100 odd songs at 18GB. I got it chunked into 5 files.

Insert the USB and allow it to load.

Select any of the root files that it reads...it should read them all...and select a track. Play it.

Go to Player and select random shuffle (interwoven arrows)...it will randomly play from ANY root file, not just the root file you selected the track from. You';re sorted.

Your entire music collection becomes playable from a single stick.

It didn't like my SD card, which is 128GB and 'modern' with fast file transfer speeds, but it came with with an out-of-the-packet exFAT format...it just didn't work on the system. So I reformatted as NTFS and it works.

The Jukebox at 10GB is not big enough, IMHO. My old BMW had 20GB, much more helpful. I just put 1,000 of my favourite tracks ion another SD card and transferred them to Jukebox as an option.

I hope this will help others. It's been a right hassle, to be fair.

wizzzard
Posts: 145
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2018 11:58 am

Post by wizzzard »

Good to know - and definitely helpful for those not using Apple Music or Spotify. Thanks for taking the time to write this up and share!
Jet Black GTS | 21" Sport Classics Gloss Black | PanRoof | Air Suspension + PASM | Pebble Grey Interior | Sport Design Mirrors | PDLS+ | Light Comfort | Bose | PS+
Col Lamb
Posts: 9323
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2015 8:38 pm
Location: Lancashire

Post by Col Lamb »

The following may help others with problems.

Do note that the Jukebox size was reduced by Porsche when the second generation of PCM was introduced and it will be interesting to see what the facelifted Macan will have. As it is I only use my Jukebox for the FLAC audio files that I have which pretty well fills the Jukebox.

My SD card is 64Gb and is formatted ExFAT, there are 350 folders and 45 Playlists in M3U format visible in the root of the Card.

Inside each folder which is named as the Artist, Band or Orchestra there are folders each of which bear the name of the album and inside each Album folder there are the MP3 files.

My SD card has 55Gb of material stored on it, with 250 as the largest number of mp3 songs in one folder.
.
.
.
MACAN AUDIO

Options
Standard, Bose or Burmeister
Listen to them all if considering upgrading for the base system fitted to your Macan variant. Take anSD card or USB stick with a few of your favourite music tracks and to get the best out of your listening encode the MP3 files from a CD at a high data rate such as 320 kBps. You may want to obtain a FLAC music file and recreate the test as I explain later.

Preparing your music for in car listening
This depends upon your listening preferences:-
Music can be placed on a USB memory stick or SD cards (2slots currently available)
Music can be transferred into the inbuilt 10Gb Jukebox
Music can be streamed from mobile telephone
iPod or similar will connect up directly to the PCM

If your music is already digital then it is simply a case of copying the music albums/tracks onto the memory device and inserting the device into the car.

If your music is on CD then you can rip the discs to folders on your PC or Mac.
iTunes is a free download and you can use this to rip your CDs to a specific folder, do change the standard encoding format and data rate to MP3 and 320kBps for the highest quality. Once you have ripped the CDs copy the whole Music folder which contains all the ripped albums to the memory device and you are good to go.

If your digital music is oldish rips them you may wish to download MP3TAG and use this freeware to check the data that there is on each album and that it is consistent between the tracks, t may well be that it needs editing and this software will do that. Generally if album art is not being displayed in car then the PCM will use the Data SIM to go online to Gracenote and it will download the artwork. The software will also enable you to download album art (800x800 max) that Gracenote does not find and place the jpg file in the album folder and link each track to the jpg file. Once you have checked the albums copy all the music onto the memory device.

If you use Playlists or would like to within iTunes you can create your own Playlists. Once you have created one you can export it as an M3U file into the root of your Music folder as a belt and braces situation as the iTunes Playlist will be in the iTunes sub-folder within your Music folder and also within this sub-folder iTunes will have placed copies of the album artwork that it has found. iTunes also has a Genius mode, enable it in Preferences, select a specific favourite track and select Create Genius Playlist, it uses your selected track to add other similar style tracks, or at least that is the theory.

Do note that other CD ripping software is available and many do a better job than iTunes, I only suggest this as its free easy and certainly compatible with the PCM.

CD audio is sampled at 44.1kHz/s 16 bit stereo therefore if considering re-encoding it to a Lossless file if you try to increase the sampling rate it will not produce the quality of file you expect, you would be better advised downloading a new FLAC file at the sampling rate that you desire.

Upscaling MP3 audio files will not upscale the audio quality.

Cataloging your music if you have not already done so will help. I have a Music folder and within this folder there is a folder for each artist and then within each artists folder there is a folder per album. Now do note that ripping software may not do as expected and sometimes the ripped music may well be in a different folder entirely, this is down to the data that is written with the album and music file. MP3Tag will be needed to correct the data. The ripping software will also look for album art in a location like Gracenote, do a search youself for missing artwork and download a 800x800 max image of said artwork and place it it the album folder, then use MP3Tag to like all tracks to it. Now that you all your music in the correct format create the Playlists you want as previously described and finally copy your music collection onto an SD card or USB stick. I prefer to use SD cards myself as that keeps the only USB port in the car free for a wired connection to my mobile phone which again I prefer as I can then place the phone in the central armrest within the signal booster holder.

Playing your Music in Car
Insert the memory device in the appropriate slot, select media source and you are good to go. Once you have your music playing spend some time adjusting the balance, fade, base, trebble etc to get the quality of audio that suits your taste. With a Bose system do also check the Surround mode or uncheck it to see which is best for you.

You also have the option of transferring the music to the Jukebox, but remember it is only 10Gb and can take quite a few attempts to get the music all transferred. I would only initiate the transfer once all the album art has been correctly assigned and that the PCM is accurately displaying the albums/artists, do not that compilation albums may cause issues if you have not checked and corrected the data with MP3TAG.

Porsche Communication Management (PCM)
Technical data: Audio and video files from MY17 manual

Supported media

SD cards up to 128 GB

DVD drive Audio CDs up to 80 min., CD ROMs up to 700 MB, DVD±R/RW, Standard Video DVD, Video DVD compatible DVD Audio

Portable players MTP Player, USB 2.0 devices of “USB Device Subclass 1 and 6” such as, for example, USB sticks, USB MP3 players without special driver software, external USB Flash memory and hard drives

DVD changers Audio CDs up to 80 min., standard video DVDs, video DVD-compatible DVD Audio

File system

SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC memory cards

USB mass storage exFAT, FAT or FAT32, NTFS file systems with a maximum of 4 partitions

DVD drive ISO9660, Joliet, UDF

Format

MPEG 1/2 Layer 3; Windows Media Audio 9 and 10; MPEG 2/4; FLAC, MPEG 1/2; ISO-MPEG4; DivX 3, 4 and 5; Xvid; ISO-MPEG4 H.264 (MPEG4 AVC); Windows Media Video 9

File extension

.mp3 (does not apply to DVD changer); .wma; .asf; .m4a; .m4b; .aac; .flac; .mpg; .mpeg; .avi; .mp4; .m4v; .mov; .wmv

Playlists

.M3U; .PLS; .WPL; .M3U8; .ASX

Characteristics

max. 320 kbit/s and 48 kHz sampling frequency; max. 2,000 kbit/s and 720x576 px. at max. 25 fps

Number of files

DVD drive max. 1,000 files DVD

Jukebox (max. 10 GB storage space) max. 3,000 files can be copied

USB mass storage and memory cards max. 10,000 files per medium

Metadata

Album covers up to 800 x 800 pixels; GIF, JPG and PNG formats or via Gracenote database

Video DVD region codes

Code 1: USA, Canada and US Colonies

Code 2: Europe, Greenland, South Africa, Egypt and the Middle East, Japan

Code 3: Southeast Asia, South Korea, Hong Kong

Audio Comparison Test
I took one of my FLAC audio files and put it into one of my Audio editing programmes (Adobe Audition for those interested) and converted it into mp3 files with various encoding bitrates, and as a matter of interest I encoded the FLAC as AIFF and WAV to see what file size they produced

Source as a FLAC of file size 85,444kB

MP3 encoding data rate ----- File size in kB
96 ---- 2,264
160 --- 5,435
320 ---- 10,863

As a matter of interest I encoded the source into a WAV file and it was 208,394

Also being fully lossless the AIFF encoding gave a file size 208,394

With another forum member we sat in my Bose equipped Macan and listened to the FLAC and mp3 files.

FLAC was a clear winner with rich tones and a clarity of the brass instruments that the mp3's failed to come near.

MP3 at 320 gave a perfectly listenable file for most music but even at the high data rate there was a lack of clarity in the tonal quality and a slight edge to the brass.

As the MP3 data rate was lowered the audio quality got worst as expected, with the 96 file listenable but not something you would want to do regularly on a £800 Macan extra, you would certainly want the higher quality media files.

Whist it was certainly not to lab standard of testing it was an interesting exercise to actually be able to hear the difference and for me and my old ears I was pleasantly surprised that I could discern as much difference as I did.

FINALLY a tip on FLAC format audio. Do a search online for free FLAC music files, one such source is the hdtracks site (I have no affiliations too then but have bought FLAC albums and songs off their site) where a sampler compilation is available. You can download this and use he files check out the quality of this format within your car or within a car at your dealers. Useful to compare Standard audio v Bose v Burmeister if you are considering upgrading.
Col
Macan Turbo
Air, 20” wheels, ACC, Pano, SurCam, 14w, LEDs, PS+, Int Light Pack, Heated seats and Steering, spare wheel, SC, Privacy glass, PDK gear, SD mirrors, Met Black, rear airbags
User avatar
SAC1
Posts: 3784
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 8:24 pm
Location: near BATH

Post by SAC1 »

^.^ :idea: alternatively just turn your radio on!
Steve

2020 GTS in Sapphire Blue
(sold) 2017 SD in Rhodium Silver
User avatar
pmg
Posts: 2983
Joined: Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:31 pm

Post by pmg »

Col Lamb wrote: Wed Oct 17, 2018 1:26 pm The following may help others with problems.

Do note that the Jukebox size was reduced by Porsche when the second generation of PCM was introduced and it will be interesting to see what the facelifted Macan will have.
Facelift lift Macan Jukebox reduced to 0 i.e. gone . I use a USB stick with all my digital files stored by artist folder then sub folder album then track
2019 Macan S Porsche code PKW8WKI8
paulmac
Posts: 141
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:14 am

Post by paulmac »

Does the new Macan still have a limit of 10,000 files for a USB stick?

Paul
Current : Macan Gen2
Current : Cayman 981
User avatar
pmg
Posts: 2983
Joined: Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:31 pm

Post by pmg »

paulmac wrote: Sat Jul 13, 2019 5:52 pm Does the new Macan still have a limit of 10,000 files for a USB stick?

Paul
Good to know app still says max 10,000 files per media and 1000 files per directory/ payback list.

However, to date, I have not yet personly tested it as my digital music files total 62GB 433 folders and about 4300 files.
2019 Macan S Porsche code PKW8WKI8
RAA
Posts: 245
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2018 5:04 pm

Post by RAA »

I was mortified when I discovered that the new Macan didn't come with a CD player. I don't have a modern smartphone, don't know anything about 'apps', don't have anything to do with itunes etc., so can anyone tell me how I can copy my favourite music from my CDs onto an SD card to use in my Macan, please ?
User avatar
Paul
Posts: 8603
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2014 6:19 pm
Location: Bristol
Contact:

Post by Paul »

RAA wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 5:03 pm I was mortified when I discovered that the new Macan didn't come with a CD player. I don't have a modern smartphone, don't know anything about 'apps', don't have anything to do with itunes etc., so can anyone tell me how I can copy my favourite music from my CDs onto an SD card to use in my Macan, please ?
You’ll need a PC, a CD reader,SD card writer and some form of programme to copy the music files into the PC and back out onto the SD card.
I-tunes is easy (I hear your reticence) but microsoft have a similar standard package (music maker)

1st Sapphire SD
2nd Sapphire GTS
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4296
Current 992 S Cab
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=9845&p=196465#p196465
Post Reply

  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post