Will someone one tell me why?

Daniel~

Daniel~

Chief BBS Administrator
Staff member
This is going to a bit of a "Frustrated consumer" rant, and so may get ugly.

So If you retain the childlike mis-conception that our toys are here to please us...you may want to sit this one out...

I recently had to give up the ghost on my 15 year old 7.1 audio receiver, and being at a later time of life and more restricted financially, settle for quite a bite less.

I bought a $250.00 return for $!79.00 and over all am rather please with my little cheap O"

But this has been bugging hell out of me.

Along with many other welcome and useful features it has a USB plug.

You can put your music files on a usb and listen to your music...

Well some of your music...

You see unlike ANY USB reader I've come across My new MUSIC RECEIVER will only read 37 music files...with a limit of 1000 files...total in sub folders...So you can't cheat it by putting your music into 37 files...

Why would they do that?

Also their music player is crap, It can only shuffle one album at a time, can't list or change category, it can only read MP3 formatted on fat 32.

As free open source has Players with just a bit more capability one would think a receiver would have at lest a half ass'ed player...wouldn't you?

My 2 year old TV has a USB that will player your music, it's crap to....

But then..

its a TV! Not a receiver!!

Nearly every music player I come across is crap. PS3, Crap! LG TV, likewise crap, Roku has a better piece of crap than PS3 or my LG and all it claims to be is a very good streamer... My Computer has the only player that really satisfies me.

I would hate for anyone to avoid the reviver I bought
(OR have to settle for any reviver under$15,000, but life is cruel":O})

Because of my disappointment over their player. Especially as it over performs in it's class nearly everywhere else. So I'll Just say Don't take USB player for granted! ":O}

(Thanks I needed that.)


Has anyone else come across a USB reader that's limited like this or is some sort of DRM thing?
 
I think it mostly comes down to "hey, we've got a USB interface, let's see if we can put a music player on it". Bear in mind that it is a receiver, NOT an MP3 player. Its job is to take audio inputs and send them to speakers in a reliable and pleasing way (and, with the advent of HDMI, it has to do the same with video signals from video inputs to tvs).

My receiver has USB and bluetooth. I didn't purchase it for either of those functions however, and I fully expect them to be crap, because they are marketing gimmicks. If you bought your receiver because of the USB or Bluetooth, then you bought it for the wrong reasons. There are perfectly good MP3 players out there that you can jack into your receiver; there's really very little reason to spend time duplicating functionality that someone else already does very well. And the main reason your receiver has USB is NOT for playing MP3s, it's to make it easy to update the firmware if necessary (and probably because it's a function that is included on the microcontroller they are using for everything else).

I use an MP3 player called PowerAmp on my Android phone, and I quite like it (I ended up actually purchasing the full version). Whenever I want to listen to tunes on my stereo, I just put the phone next to the receiver and use the audio cable to jack in.
 
Yes, I have a Boss car stereo with USB connector. I thought "hey I can put Mp3s on my USB drive, plug it in and listen to music"... It worked the first time and has not worked since.
Crap!

Too bad you can't install Linux on the receiver :(

I also have a 14 year old Sony 5.1 receiver. It still works GREAT with my 14 year old DVD player with surround outputs. But the day my DVD breaks or the receiver breaks, I'm going to be pissed. Either I have to buy a DVD player from Goodwill or a Pawn shop, or replace both. I still have VHS tapes as well. My VCR is wearing out.

My solution?
Watch less movies :D

Or watch more movies online on the PC. I'm still mad that both of my powered sub woofers are dead and I don't have surround on my PC anymore. I burned out two of them (The first one I won at AOA in a case mod contest) and the second replaced it, but not both are dead and I'm no electrician. So either I fork out more money for another cheap surround setup, or I go to Goodwill and try out different subs. What sucks is I need RCA jacks for surround input/outputs on the Sub. If it has speaker outputs that is fine, but the inputs need to be RCA because my PC has 1/8 in jacks and my cables are 1/8 in to RCA.
 
Daniel~ said:
How many files can YOUR USB player play?
Click to expand...

Thousands. But that is ALL IT DOES.

Let's look at this a different way: your USB player has an audio output jack, right?

Why can't you hook it up to those big speakers? After all, it produces sound! A lot of USB players even have BUILT IN SPEAKERS! Why don't THEY sound as good as your nice big speakers?

Look, I know it seems like something that should be really simple, and in principle it is, but that's not what you buy a RECEIVER to do! IMO they shouldn't even provide the function, because of issues just like this.

This is what happens when marketing people override the engineers. Stupid features get implemented in a half-arsed fashion.
 
You said it Gizmo. USB inputs "sound" nice but they don't put real development into it and we get a crappy feature.

Just plug your PC into the Receiver and play music off of that.
Most Recievers should have HDMI by now so you can run audio through that
 
Gizmo said:
Thousands. But that is ALL IT DOES.

Let's look at this a different way: your USB player has an audio output jack, right?

Why can't you hook it up to those big speakers? After all, it produces sound! A lot of USB players even have BUILT IN SPEAKERS! Why don't THEY sound as good as your nice big speakers?

Look, I know it seems like something that should be really simple, and in principle it is, but that's not what you buy a RECEIVER to do! IMO they shouldn't even provide the function, because of issues just like this.

This is what happens when marketing people override the engineers. Stupid features get implemented in a half-arsed fashion.
Click to expand...

I do get it that the USB drive was a bit of freebie and as I said I knew I couldn't afford a lot of bells and whistles and wasn't looking for them. What struck me as odd and perhaps unusual is a USB reader with a filenumber limitation...

AND

I'm kinda hung up on the old "if it's worth doing...at lest get it half-assed right! ":O}

I'm Kinda of use to it....
did you know:
if you put a micro reader chip in a PS3, to put anything on it you first have to put the contents on the main PS3 drive, then copy if off the main drive to your chip then you can delete it from your main drive.
No matter how you put the music files onto the PS3 drive, when copied from the drive you get randomize MP3 no way to find an album or artist, the PS3 DOES have that capability, just didn't use it for the chip...sigh...LOL
 
booman said:
You said it Gizmo. USB inputs "sound" nice but they don't put real development into it and we get a crappy feature.

Just plug your PC into the Receiver and play music off of that.
Most Recievers should have HDMI by now so you can run audio through that
Click to expand...

LOL
I've gone a bit mental and have put my music EVERYWHERE!
Computers , PS3, Roku,TV's USB and Reciver's USB...WHY?
Have I mentioned tat I'm retired and live alone in the woods?
This was a bit of a learning exercise for me...I was learning to exercise patience in the face of my ignorance! ":O}

I have my computer and Roku as well as my PS3 connected to my TV and do every thing from one place now.
 
Sounds like you are finding new ways to frustrate yourself... just cause you can :p
 
Daniel~ said:
I do get it that the USB drive was a bit of freebie and as I said I knew I couldn't afford a lot of bells and whistles and wasn't looking for them. What struck me as odd and perhaps unusual is a USB reader with a filenumber limitation...
Click to expand...

I'm sure the code is not specifically written to limit the number of files. What I suspect is that the engineer essentially implemented the reference code provided by the chip vendor, and that reference code has a bug in it that limits the number of files.

Daniel~ said:
I'm kinda hung up on the old "if it's worth doing...at lest get it half-assed right! ":O}
Click to expand...

Well, one would think, yes. But programmers these days are under enormous pressure to produce a new Monet every day while being paid for a Sarah Irani instead. This forces even good programmers to take shortcuts that look good at the time, but turn out horribly later. This coupled with the attitude of "We can always release an update, who CARES if it works?" results in some truly bizarre code.
 
Tasked with producing a Monet, but paid for a Sarah Irani? Just looked up Sarah Irani. "Mama and Babe" featured at the Museum of Bad Art. Hoo, that's some dreadful art. And not in the Rastafarian sense.
 
As you know all to well...
I know nothing....
But I'd never seen this before, it will read a 64 gig USB 3.0 no problem, but only what's on the first 37 files.

It even has the G.D. Gaul to tell me it's reading a 64 gig USB right before it tells me it only has 37 files on it!

Hey for what I paid and what I got they could have left the USB out.

But as you surmised, it's really there to handle any firmware updates... Like one fixing the USB reader?

Who knows! As you pointed out...stranger things have happened for stranger reasons.":O}
 
Oh! Oh!
To add insult to injury!
They actually warn you in the manual that there's a 37 file 999 song limit...

They didn't even try to tell us why!! ":O}
 
If you are really really really bored, just create one Mp3 per album. This way you can have 37 albums to play
 
Really? Did it work? I know the Mp3 will be really long, but if you like listening to full albums it would be perfect.
I'm sure the software has a song length limit anyways :confused:
 
Nah, but I did try dividing them up into 37 folders and changing formats on the USB as well as various codex,m4a, Ogg, MP3.

It's pretty much a lost cause as the player is so bad as to be ALMOST unusable...it plays songs that's about it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Its not a "lost cause" because it really plays Mp3s
No really it does, just not how any human would listen to them :D
 
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