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The CMD6, Clarion's latest offering in Marine Radios, has a USB cable that Clarion touts for connecting to ipod or to mass storage such as a thumb drive.
I am interested in hearing from people that have connected a thumb drive loaded with music to learn how the user interface is. If you have 4 GB or 8 GB of music (500-1000 songs) how to you find the songs that you want to play?
Location: Solomons, Maryland / Now just visiting Marathon
Posts: 4,683
Crazy thing is, the cable comes out the back and my unit is panel mounted.
No way to use it unless I find some type of mounting plate to come out the fron panel of the wood.
I do know that if I use the 1/8 jack on the front, music only comes out of the left speakers....
Location: Monmouth County, NJ / Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Posts: 908
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glen E
clarion makes a front port called CCAUSB
But the answer is you have to scroll your ass off
the fusion wins here on iPod access and search
I am considering both the CMD6 and the Fusion. Issue for me is that I use the iphone, not ipod. While I understand it will work with the Fusion, every time you get a call you would have to open-up the head unit and eject the phone. For that reason, I am leaning toward the CMD6 with the USB port on the helm.
using an iphone for your music is a PIA...every time the phone rings, you've got to stop and destroy the mood, your guests have to wait while you rudely take the call. Plus you can't pick up email or surf the net. I have an ipod exclusivley for the boat and my iphone sits in the drinkholder when cruising...
Another option is the MB Quart unit. Accessing MP3 lists/Ipod lists on the head unit or wired remote is PITA as above. But, if you have a monitor (tv) hooked up (or use your GPS display), you can use that to easily scroll around thru directories.... with the handheld remote. The beauty of the mb quart is, it's 1/4 of the price.
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like a really nice user interface built into a head unit capable of playing directly from mass storage does not exist. ipod has a good user interface, so you want a solution where you can directly control the ipod.
Even in Birdman's suggestion with the less expensive MB quart driving the music player, you require extra devices which are costly and take up space.
While I understand it will work with the Fusion, every time you get a call you would have to open-up the head unit and eject the phone. For that reason, I am leaning toward the CMD6 with the USB port on the helm.
The Fusion CD500 does not dock the ipod. You can add an accessory cable routed to the helm.
I went this way, and it while it works perfectly for ipod, I will likely get a 2nd ipod just to leave on the boat. Just 1 less thing to remember
I don't understand why they all make this SOOOOOOO complicated. I have a now 8 or 9 year old Alpine dvd/gps head unit in my truck. It plays dvd's, Cd's, mp3's cd's... and ALL very easily. It has a 6" touchscreen display that pops out, and when you insert a CD or DVD with thousands of mp3 songs/tracks and folders on it, ad very simple interface is presented to simply touch the folder you want and navigate thru....search.... and play whatever you want. It's really not a rocket science to select files and folders.
Clarion CMD6 use of USB cable for mass storage 
