[txcruze26]

What's up fellow cruze owners, I wanted to ask, what is the best way to play music in your cruze?

Radio- the signal and static on ANY radio station makes it unbearable, is this something everyone experiences? I've seen some posters post some shark fin antennas, is the quality significant?

CD- I haven't owned a cd in a while..........

Bluetooth- I figured this would be the best one, since I could just get spotify/pandora and play any song, BUT the bluetooth connection SUCKS on this car, I lose connection alot, and have to unpair my phone and then connect it to bluetooth again for it to work and this is with ANY phone I have tried it with.

USB, the usb feature lags and takes forever to load, especially if you have alot of music.

So any recommendations on best way to play your personal collection of music?

 

[ChevyGuy]

I have a thumb drive. Yes, it take a bit to initialize after starting the car, but otherwise works fine.

 

[txcruze26]

I have a thumb drive. Yes, it take a bit to initialize after starting the car, but otherwise works fine.

what brand of flash drive do you have? and what's the max size flash drive that the car supports?

 

[ChevyGuy]

what brand of flash drive do you have? and what's the max size flash drive that the car supports?

Sandisk Cruzer. (Cruze for the Cruze) seems to be the brand of choice. Others don't always play well.

I've used a 64GB and it worked OK. I'm not sure as you can push for more than that. But you could have a USB for every "mood" you want. (Like one for Christmas, one for mellow, one for pumped up, etc.)

 

[txcruze26]

Sandisk Cruzer. (Cruze for the Cruze) seems to be the brand of choice. Others don't always play well.

I've used a 64GB and it worked OK. I'm not sure as you can push for more than that. But you could have a USB for every "mood" you want. (Like one for Christmas, one for mellow, one for pumped up, etc.)

thanks! I'll be picking one up tomorrow and see how it works

 

[ssnscruzeeco2015]

I think the spec is 10000 songs for the playlist from the stick to load into the Cruze.

 

[Aussie]

I use a USB for when I go tripping in the country, but both AM and FM radio work fine for me within 100km of the city. I have kept the standard aerial on the roof because I have no trouble with it. The USB is 8 GB as I only have about 1 GB of music on it. Leaving it alone it lasts a 4 hour trip without repeating songs.

 

[Snipesy]

Wait wait wait. I got the answer. It's genius.

3.5mm

 

[chevrasaki]

Wait wait wait. I got the answer. It's genius.

3.5mm

No steering wheel controls using this method.

I just leave my old iPod 160GB Classic in the center console. No time to initialize, and the music seems to be much louder and crisper compared to XM or CD.

 

[pL2014]

Not sure how similar the non-mylink systems are. With my MyLink setup, bluetooth worked pretty close to perfectly with my iphone 5s. I gave up on usb because I got annoyed with it switching to my phone when I didn't want it to (like when I just wanted to charge the phone but was listening to something else), so I switched to using a 12V-> USB adapter for charging and bluetooth for music. I did have to re-pair my phone with the radio maybe 2x in over 2 years, but all in all, it worked well. It also worked better if I didn't leave the radio on. If I left the radio on or turned it on right away after starting the car, it wouldn't see my phone and switch to FM radio. If I just kept the radio off, and turned it on after putting the car in gear and starting to move, it would find my phone and pick up where it left off.

 

[obermd]

Wait wait wait. I got the answer. It's genius.

3.5mm

The 3.5mm jack is the worst input you can use for music. It's designed for human speech ranges (3.5KHz) and not music. Music generally uses about 15KHz of the human audible range.

 

[obermd]

What's up fellow cruze owners, I wanted to ask, what is the best way to play music in your cruze?

Radio- the signal and static on ANY radio station makes it unbearable, is this something everyone experiences? I've seen some posters post some shark fin antennas, is the quality significant?

CD- I haven't owned a cd in a while..........

Bluetooth- I figured this would be the best one, since I could just get spotify/pandora and play any song, BUT the bluetooth connection SUCKS on this car, I lose connection alot, and have to unpair my phone and then connect it to bluetooth again for it to work and this is with ANY phone I have tried it with.

USB, the usb feature lags and takes forever to load, especially if you have alot of music.

So any recommendations on best way to play your personal collection of music?

I think your radio is bad. Unless the radio station is weak you shouldn't get any static or popping (AM with lightning - yes; FM - never). I have a sharkfin and there was no noticeable change in reception when I installed it.

The Bluetooth in my Cruze is the "aftermarket" GM PDIM and is very stable. I get an occassional hickup but that because the PDIM is a Bluetooth 3 device and my phone is Bluetooth 4 that doesn't quite handle Bluetooth 3 streaming properly.

I rarely use my CD and never use the USB interface.

 

[Snipesy]

No steering wheel controls using this method.

I just leave my old iPod 160GB Classic in the center console. No time to initialize, and the music seems to be much louder and crisper compared to XM or CD.

Well me, I surrendered to spotify. I used to hold hard drives full of music, and I still do somewhere. But i dont worry about it anymore. The quality is par to a copy off of iTunes or a CD copy. Trust me, I tested it.

Using it however, throws USB out immediately. Bluetooth is finnicky at best. Therefore, the only option is with the good old 3.5mm. Sure you need to fiddle with your phone or tablet or what have you to chage songs, and then crash into someone. But that's the price to pay I guess. Sue GM for not adding USB support (you'd probably win, and I wish I was kidding).

 

[TheDog]

My experience is based on the MyLink system.

For me, the built in USB plugged into a phone/iPod is the best. To me, it's hard to beat the combination of a high quality audio connection with charging and full control from steering wheel/touch screen. Bluetooth is not great audio quality and it more rapidly depletes the battery compared to USB which (albeit not rapidly) charges it. As for the two USB annoyances:

Music source always switches when device is plugged in... Just press source to hop back to the one you want. It's a tiny bit annoying to me but as many times as not I DO want it to switch to iPod when i plug in and is a convenience.

Long time indexing... A bigger irritant. One work around is that you can open the music app on the phone and pick whatever song/album whatever you want while MyLink is still initializing and begins playing immediately. Since you usually plug the phone in when getting into the car, fiddling with the phone (or using SIRI) to start something desirable playing isn't a big problem and by the time the first song is over the index is probably done.

 

[Orion215]

I use the 3.5mm connection for my phone, playing pandora or random music videos, and I have to crank the volume on my phone all they way up as well as turn the volume on the radio up to 30 or 35.

I didn't think about using the USB for my phone but will definitely be giving that a try. The bluetooth only works for hands free calling for me but then again I haven't really played around with it.

 

[03glgold]

Using my ipod with usb it occasionally freezes and the newest thing that has happened is that it will get a bunch of static and/or start popping. I have to use the knob on the dash and skip forward about 10 songs and it goes back to normal.

 

[Wickman]

I usually listen to XM, Hair Nation and Blue Collar Comedy are my staples.

 

[Chris Tobin]

Is the CD a single or multi-disc player on the Cruze? AND will it play MP3 encoded CDs? Will it play DVDs and MP3 encoded DVDs? For mass volumes of music storing MP3s on a CD or DVD works well. That's what we do in our VW TDI with its 6-disc CD changer than plays encoded MP3 CDs and in our Tahoe with an aftermarket Kenwood DVD receiver that plays MP3 encoded DVDs (talk about fitting a ton of music in a small package)...

BUT, for sound quality nothing beats playing a CD or DVD. I know the iPod generation looks at quantity of music more than quality, but playing from an iPod thru USB or 3.5mm (which by the way is a simple connector and should not be bandwidth limited in any product) verses playing an MP3 from a CD vs playing the original CD will EASILY reveal that the CD has the best sound quality.

MP3 even when ripped at high bitrates is still a compressed format and there is loss and degradation of Sound Quality when playing MP3 from any source.

I showed the difference to my son in his car after we installed a Kenwood Excellon head unit and he was so happy that it would USB control his massive iPod collection. He was blown away by the sonic differences and how much better the original CD sounded than playing a high bitrate MP3 from his iPod. He still listens to his iPod a lot, but when he wants sound quality he turns to an original CD!!!

I installed high end car audio and electronics for many years and competed in IASCA for years as well. I was also the Executive Editor and Technical Director at Car Audio & Electronics magazine as well as the Senior Editor and Technical Editor at Car Stereo Review magazine. So I do know the topic of sound quality pretty darn well even if I am not as familiar with the intricacies of some of the newest factory sound system offerings lately...

I hope this helps! If you have more questions feel free to ask...

 

[Chris Tobin]

The 3.5mm jack is the worst input you can use for music. It's designed for human speech ranges (3.5KHz) and not music. Music generally uses about 15KHz of the human audible range.

I am not sure what the bandwidth is for the 3.5mm input on the Cruze, but as a blanket statement you are wrong my friend. 3.5mm is simply a connection method and a convenient size for automotive and portable electronics. The size and shape of the connection does not determine the range of the input or output from the system.

 

[ChevyGuy]

I am not sure what the bandwidth is for the 3.5mm input on the Cruze, but as a blanket statement you are wrong my friend. 3.5mm is simply a connection method and a convenient size for automotive and portable electronics. The size and shape of the connection does not determine the range of the input or output from the system.

He's talking about the 3.5mm in the Cruze. I haven't tried it myself, but others have reported significant sound quality issues. And these are guys who may not be able to hear the difference between a CD and a good MP3.

Also, the Cruze is quite happy with M4P, I think that's the AAC format. I have both on my USB and they work equally well as far as operation.