Playing mp3 files - what's the best way?

if you get an AUX cord you can just plug it into the AUX port on the car and the phone.

The audio can be put on a flash drive or played over bluetooth from the phone. The flash drive is messier because they go all out of order no matter how you name them. You can select the file you want to listen to by either scrolling or selecting where the audio file name shows and selecting the one you want to listen to from a list. The list isnt in alphabetical order though so if you have a bunch of files, figuring out which is what would be a hassle.

Bluetooth or an AUX cable would be easiest.

 

There is a program called FAT sorter which is free. That will keep all your songs in the proper order for each album or playlist which you put them on the USB drive

 

I've used an AUX cable with my mp3 player. Works but the signal is quite faint and needs to be boosted a lot. Works better on the phone.
Another option would be get a cheap phone with BT that is not locked down and use that. I get my audio books from the library via PC download, then transfer them to the mp3 player, or, directly to the phone via library app.

 

Quite the contrary. The Prime's audio system has a built-in mp3 player function that works easily with files stored on a USB flash drive ("thumb drive") plugged into the USB port on the console. From the "Select Audio Source" screen on the Prime, choose "USB" and it's fairly self-explanatory.

The built-in player can play by folder, artist, album, or song. There is also a alpha search function using the Prime's touch-screen, but it is disabled when the vehicle is in motion. I believe there is also a shuffle and a repeat function.

While one can use the control on the left of the steering wheel to change tracks, albums, etc., I have not found anyway to seek back-and-forth, something you might want to do to re-hear a particular section of an audiobook.

My practice is to take any CD I now acquire and immediately rip it into mp3s to store on an external hard drive plugged into my computer. I then copy whatever mp3 files I want to inexpensive USB flash drives for use in the Prime. (I am gradually working through my collection of CDs in an effort to get everything duplicated as mp3 files.)

I have found that ripping to mp3 at a bit rate of 128 bps or higher yields much better quality audio. Most ripping software defaults to 64 bps to produce the smallest possible file size -- something which was important when portable mp3 players and smart phones had serious storage limitations. However, the file sizes of the higher bit rate mp3 are not that big (typically about 5MB to 10MB) and one can fit hundreds or even thousands of tracks on a modest size flash drive. (I purchased a 16-GB USB 3.0 flash drive yesterday at Microcenter for $3.99.)

For the purposes of ripping CDs, there are many software solutions available. I have come to like NCH's "Express Rip" because of its various features. If you are using it at home, a free version of this software is available for non-commercial use only. You can set the higher bit rate mp3 format as the default as well as how the mp3 output files will be named. (I use track number - song title - artist name. I save the mp3s from each CD into a unique directory folder with the name of the album, which in turn is organized within a master folder with the name of the artist.)

 

No, Prime does not have internal memory storage function, but Prime has built in MP3 player function as @Old Bear explained above.

If you can rip your audio book CD as a MP3 file into an USB thumb drive, that will be all you need to do to play the book while you drive.

 

While I think I answered your question in my previous post, I thought I'd add a few photos of what you can expect from the Prius Prime's mp3 capabilities. Here's how you can select what you want to play. When headings of 'Folders', 'Artists' and 'Albums' can be scrolled left-right to provide additional search options by 'File', 'Genre', and 'Song.' You can scroll up and down or use the phone-style alpha key pad to search:



For example, you can select by album and then select a specific track:



And then play that specific track:



Cover art will be displayed if it is included in the mp3 meta data or if there is an "AlbumArt.jpg" in the folder which is being played. (Someone also commented that the Prime's USB audio will also reach out to Gracenote for cover art, but I have not confirmed that.)

Note the buttons toward the bottom of the screen. They allow you to browse for other track names, to randomize (shuffle) tracks, or to continually repeat at track

The forward-pause-reverse set of buttons let you pause or advance to the end or go back to the beginning of the track. I don't think you can toggle back and forth, however, if you just want to repeat the last few seconds of what you were listening to. You can also control volume and select track by using the > and < on the audio control on the left of the steering wheel.

Notice there is button labeled "sound" at the lower right in the photo above. This is where you go to get to the screen to set bass-mid-treble and left-right/front-back balance and DSP (digital sound processing):



These screen shots were taken in my 2017 Prius Prime with the "Advanced" trim's wide-display screen and JBL audio.

 

I put a bunch of music on a thumb drive for my wife and it works great. One thing I remember doing is removing
the word "The" from all the album titles because so many album titles begin with the word "The".

 

Hmmm. When I connected the thumb drive, I didn’t get any menu, and every time I made a rest stop, and turned off the engine, I had to reinsert the drive to get athe usb option to appear in the navigation screen. It was surpringly hard to get the flash drive into the slot. And I didn’t improve with repeated attempts. Any ideas of what I did wrong?

 

How big is the USB drive you were using and how many songs were on it? Apparently, people have had problem with a large capacity USB drive above 64gb especially with a large number of files. Staying with 16 or 32gb seems to work best. Also some USB drive gives difficulty, not exactly sure what is the cause, but trying different USB drive may work better.