I had it installed here locally in my 430. They did a great job. I had my iPod connected and it all showed on the screen. This one adds the Bluetooth audio and USB. not sure my contact us still in biz which is why I haven't done it yet.

 

hey man, im glad to hear you found something to play usb thumb drives. I want to throw in a terabyte flash drive in with every song i got on it and jam out. But i was wondering if youre able to put music videos and movies and suck on this device you have. Im in a 2007 ls460. Let me know. Id appreciate it. Late posting apologies.

 

The unit in my 430 only played songs from my ipod or I could hook up a mp3 player with a mini jack. Have no idea about dvd's.

 

From what I've seen it only plays mp3 files. And the UI is so slow that even with just 80 albums it takes forever to find and play what you want, and I've yet to figure out how to play all on random unless they're all in the same folder.

Gonna keep it in there for music I don't want taking up space on my phone but will likely be using BT more given that I can play FLAC files and truly enjoy the ML sound.

 

Although I typically stream over BT in our 2013 LS, I've been intrigued by keeping a USB drive/MicroSD card permanently installed with tunes. All I could find was a USB business card from a dental convention but it worked fine. 4 GB capacity that I filled with 1 GB of MP3s (201 songs). After reading a few tips from other forum posts, I created a "Music" folder and placed all the MP3s inside. I had formatted the drive as FAT32. I left the spaces and hyphens in the filenames and the LS didn't have an issue. Navigating through the song list was quick without any lag as other posters reported.

 

You're in a 2013, you got the updated infotainment that is likely quicker than those of us with pre-2013 460s.

 

I have a 64Gb Sandisk Ultra USB drive with over 400 CDs on it ripped to MP3 at 320kbps (courtesy of my NAIM HDX) - that's over 4,000 songs. It takes about two minutes after turning on the ignition to register all the albums, artists and songs but after that it's not too bad. The more songs you have on there, the slower it gets!

 

Thanks, Keith. That does make sense. I just ordered the SanDisk UltraFit due to your posts/experience. I don't think my music collection will approach anywhere near yours so I went with 32GB, and a little paranoid about the limit of FAT32 (although I realize other programs can format FAT32 beyond 32GB). I imagine read speed on the SanDisk will exceed that of the give-away USB stick I'm testing with so hopefully it won't be too bad to load my meager collection of tunes. I didn't notice a real difference in sound quality while listening to the MP3s (320 kbps) on the ML system. I expected to. Perhaps my ears aren't the good. Can the system play WAV files from USB like reading off of a CD? I may test identical tracks, one MP3 and one WAV, to see if I notice a sound quality difference. If I do notice a difference then WAV is gonna be 10x larger file size and may necessitate a larger USB drive.

 

I used one of the free web programs to format the the 64Gb drive in FAT format. Seems to work just fine. Unfortunately, the Lexus system won't play WAV files (tried it) so that's why I had to use MP3. I do hear a slight difference between CD and MP3, but since I'm over 65, I think I'm probably hearing a placebo effect(?!)

 

Wish I could have this in my 2007 LS460L... It would be so much easier to bring music into my car...

I wonder if I could swap the ML head unit from a 2010, pull off the wood grain off my 2007, put it on there and drop this into the car., wire a USB cable in center console and I could have it...

sigh... anyone attempt this ?

 

Don't know if this is possible. You might just want to find a high end car stereo place to install one of the aftermarket adapters. I don't know anyone in CT but I'm sure you could find one. If not, there's Rich Inferra's CarTunes in Boston - try calling him - his reputation is one of the best in the business.

 

Eww gross. I don't think it will fit; and all the other electronics would have to be upgraded.

Don't bother. Order one of these:
http://www.vaistech.com/product-category/usb-aux-input/

It will come up as an additional CD Mp3 changer in the source list. I've had it in my 600h for the last three years and an earlier version in my LS430 for over 10 years. I have a couple old iPods that I just leave in the car but it supports mp3, wav files etc.

I tucked it between the carpet and the central transmission tunnel near the passenger seat; then ran the wires into the space under the center console.
You can swap the factory connector in the center console box for the later version with the USB / Aux input. You have to do some surgery on the usb extension cable that comes with the unit but it will fit. Wiring in the aux input was a bit of a challenge.

I put some details here:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...ml#post9186242

It's pretty much bulletproof; I don't really care to do media management outside of iTunes but in theory a usb drive (or another USB android phone) would work.

I still have the CD changer (and the 1 dvd player in the back) so nothing's lost. The RSES won't see the additional source but I figure that's their problem.