[twii]

Drove home our new 2020 Limited last night. Two small items that are disappointing to me are 1, no lock on the glove box and 2, no CD player. With the JBL sound system in the car, I would have thought they would have included a CD player. I realize that CD's are the thing of the past, especially in cars, but the sound quality of the CD is far superior to an mp3 file. Also, the non locking glove box is inexcusable. I know it is just a minor theft deterrent, but in Ohio, if you "carry", you are required to lock it up in a compartment in the car in the locked car in certain circumstances. A very minor expense and should have been included IMHO in a car of this level.

Other than these 2 minor items, a fantastic car.

 

[Bernie Farmer]

Drove home our new 2020 Limited last night. Two small items that are disappointing to me are 1, no lock on the glove box and 2, no CD player. With the JBL sound system in the car, I would have thought they would have included a CD player. I realize that CD's are the thing of the past, especially in cars, but the sound quality of the CD is far superior to an mp3 file. Also, the non locking glove box is inexcusable. I know it is just a minor theft deterrent, but in Ohio, if you "carry", you are required to lock it up in a compartment in the car in the locked car in certain circumstances. A very minor expense and should have been included IMHO in a car of this level.

Other than these 2 minor items, a fantastic car.

Hi Twii, included with the JBL sound system is the Clari-fi software. basically it decompresses the mp3 audio file/ or music being streamed from the phone in order to restore the sound quality. and the great thing is that it is automatically on when in the Bluetooth audio source... it also helps with Sirius XM radio sound quality as this is also a compressed format. overall a much better sound! I hope this alleviates your frustrations a bit.

I understand your frustration with the cd player. but like you said it's an antiquated format, 20 years old, and frankly, with the updated design and location of the radio, it was not possible to add.

 

[dklanecky]

I initially shared your frustration with the lack of a CD player, then I discovered the sound capability of Hi-Resolution music files that can be stored on a USB drive and played through the car's interface. While I used to think that Sirus/XM radio was top of the line audio, my ears have been awakened to the Hi Res USB music.

You can go to a variety of sources for this type of music, and almost all of it will have to be purchased, but once purchased, you own it and there are no generally no limitations to use. I do not use the various apps to store the music on my phone as the Hi Res files sizes can get quite large.

My personal favorite source is HD-Tracks, where you can download several samples to see for yourself the difference. If you sign up for an account, they have sales on a regular basis to reduce the cost of basically replacing music you've already purchased elsewhere.

 

[Evolved_1]

Drove home our new 2020 Limited last night. Two small items that are disappointing to me are 1, no lock on the glove box and 2, no CD player. With the JBL sound system in the car, I would have thought they would have included a CD player. I realize that CD's are the thing of the past, especially in cars, but the sound quality of the CD is far superior to an mp3 file. Also, the non locking glove box is inexcusable. I know it is just a minor theft deterrent, but in Ohio, if you "carry", you are required to lock it up in a compartment in the car in the locked car in certain circumstances. A very minor expense and should have been included IMHO in a car of this level.

Other than these 2 minor items, a fantastic car.

If you own the CD (and you obviously do) then you can rip to a lossless format such as flac. A flac file is the same quality as a CD and can be loaded onto USB. I'm sure the files mentioned above by dklanecky are flac files.

 

[dklanecky]

I know it is just a minor theft deterrent, but in Ohio, if you "carry", you are required to lock it up in a compartment in the car in the locked car in certain circumstances. A very minor expense and should have been included IMHO in a car of this level.

I think the real issue and the reason they don't include a lockable glove box anymore, is that there really isn't a "key" anymore either, other than the emergency key in your fob(s).

 

[Vangm25]

I think the real issue and the reason they don't include a lockable glove box anymore, is that there really isn't a "key" anymore either, other than the emergency key in your fob(s).

Time for a smart lockable glove box...

 

[twii]

Good point there dklanecky! No doubt no key needed makes it hard to lock the glove box. DAH on my part. And thanks for the info on flac, Evolved_1, I will certainly look into that. I guess at 64, I still have enough "old school" left in me that some of this new stuff I question. Still got 350 vinyl record albums that i can't seem to pitch!

 

[Vangm25]

Good point there dklanecky! No doubt no key needed makes it hard to lock the glove box. DAH on my part. And thanks for the info on flac, Evolved_1, I will certainly look into that. I guess at 64, I still have enough "old school" left in me that some of this new stuff I question. Still got 350 vinyl record albums that i can't seem to pitch!

If there was a brand new vehicle downgrade with less technology, I would love it! But that won't happen but personally I would like to not have a moon/sun roof as standard.

 

[fungabriel]

Interesting that toyota left the cd player in the camry, only the audio plus and premium gets the cd player, and the keyhole so you can lock the glove box. Even the es 350 still has a cd player. The trunk can't be locked either with the key. I would of thought that if you lock the trunk with the physical key it will lock and prevent the trunk switch from opening it but it doesn't. I guess its a safety issue?

 

[WolfBandit]

One mistake allot of people make when they connect their phones to cars is using wireless (bluetooth). not only do you have the compression from where every you are listening from but also bluetooth too. For best sound quality always use Apple Carplay or connect your android tot he USB port. Also allot of people forget to choose the playback quality in apps like Spotify. I also set mine to the highest and offline them.

 

[fungabriel]

Also allot of people forget to choose the playback quality in apps like Spotify. I also set mine to the highest and offline them.

Also, turn off audio normalization setting in spotify under playback, it produces better sound quality with the very high 320 kbit/s setting.

Update: I would also say to turn off the EQ as well, though some songs could need it but good quality music shouldn't. The sound producers mixed and mastered the song and it should be heard as is.

 

[twii]

Well, I ripped a few CD's last night to the FLAC format. Will see how that sounds this evening. Even in the lossless format, you can put a boat load of music on an 8GB thumb drive!

 

[Evolved_1]

What am I supposed to do with all my 8-Tracks?

 

[twii]

You might want to save them! Like the old 78's, one of these years they may be worth some money! ? But talk about a terrible format! Those things were of very poor design, both in construction and in operation!

 

[mikemu30]

Well, I ripped a few CD's last night to the FLAC format. Will see how that sounds this evening. Even in the lossless format, you can put a boat load of music on an 8GB thumb drive!

How can you convert mp3s to flac? I have the ML system in my ES and the sound quality of CDs compared with mp3s on the flash drive is incredible. The system is so darn good, the flash drive mp3s sound awful.

 

[Evolved_1]

It does no good to convert an mp3 to flac. An mp3 file is a "lossy" file, meaning that some of the quality is already gone. You don't get it back by converting to a lossless format like flac.

 

[mikemu30]

It does no good to convert an mp3 to flac. An mp3 file is a "lossy" file, meaning that some of the quality is already gone. You don't get it back by converting to a lossless format like flac.

So what is the best approach - convert from CD?

 

[Evolved_1]

So what is the best approach - convert from CD?

Yes.

You can also stick with mp3. One factor people are not mentioning is bit rate. If your mp3 is a 128bit file then there will be noticeable degradation. If you rip to a 190k to 320k bit mp3 then I would challenge you to hear a difference between a cd and the mp3.

Having said that, you cannot upconvert a low bit rate mp3 to a higher one. Well, you can, but again, you won't get anything back. Mp3 works by compressing the source file and tossing out some of the quality. Once it is gone, it's gone. If you rip to flac then nothing gets tossed. If you rip to 320k bit mp3 then very little gets tossed compared to the amount tossed out when ripping to 128k mp3.

 

[twii]

There are several free software programs out there to convert a CD to FLAC. I used Exact Audio Copy. It seemed to be the #1 pick on several review sites. Not the easiest program to navigate through due to all the options, but after an hour or so, you can figure it out. Works very well and it will label the songs and album titles and show up on the menu in the infotainment screen.

 

[dklanecky]

Clean, fresh downloaded, high bit rate FLAC music can be played at a volume level of 40-50 on the Limited's upgraded JBL system with almost zero distortion or listening fatigue.

I spent a LOT of time over the holidays, using EAC to rip about 20 of my favorite CD's to the highest bit rate available in the "FLAC" format, and when I played them in the Avalon, using the same USB drive as the downloaded FLAC files I paid for, the sound quality difference was dramatic. The EAC does not (IMO) create an audiophile quality file. It is also a real PITA to use, again IMO.

I deleted all of the EAC ripped files from my USB drive, and resigned myself to re-buying them from them from one of the services. With several hundred CD's purchased over the years, I'd love to find a way to convert them to high quality files.