USB flash drive to domestic hifi interface?

[mxr...@gmail.com]

Sorry this is a bit OT, but it's related. I now have my CD collection ripped as FLAC by my B2, converted to MP3 on a laptop and saved to USB flash drive sticks which work in my cars.  I now want to be able to play what's on those flash drives through a Denon DM41 DAC domestic hifi receiver in another location, without using a laptop or smartphone to serve the files. This Denon has Bluetooth, optical, and phono inputs but no USB socket. Is there something inexpensive (maybe an MP3 player?) with a USB input and digital or analogue output I can use to do connect this up? The MP3s are 160 KBps, so I'm not looking for last word in hifi.  Thanks, Max

[Mark Fishman]

I have a Marantz SACD player that has a USB input. Also, my Blu-Ray player has a USB input. Both will play MP3s on USB devices. As the Blu-ray player was under $100 new, I don't know if you'd find a standalone MP3 decoder with appropriate outputs for less money, if such a thing even exists.

[Mark Fishman]

I've been thinking further about this, because I thought it would be nice to have, and I see a few issues: basically what you want to do is turn a arbitrary USB stick into an MP3 (or other codec) player. So here are my thoughts:

 - first, you have to be able to read the file system. While we can force the assumption that it's either FAT32 or NTFS (both common), the device still needs to have enough "smarts" to figure out what you have and find the directory, them find the actual sectors occupied by the data.

 - second, you probably want to be able to choose which file(s) to play, or at least where to start in the list, so you need some kind of user interface, and possibly a display. (The original iPod Shuffle didn't have much of one, but you could start and stop it, and I think choose whether to play straight through or in shuffled order.) Buttons, knobs? and more smarts.

If you have a video display nearby, you might consider this:

https://www.amazon.com/Upgraded-Megatek-Progressive-scan-Up-Conversion-Display/dp/B07PNMTP1Y/ 

US$46 -- it has some limits, of course, but maybe it's what you want?

On Thursday, August 27, 2020 at 7:17:17 PM UTC-4 Mark Fishman wrote:

I have a Marantz SACD player that has a USB input. Also, my Blu-Ray player has a USB input. Both will play MP3s on USB devices. As the Blu-ray player was under $100 new, I don't know if you'd find a standalone MP3 decoder with appropriate outputs for less money, if such a thing even exists.

[mxr...@gmail.com]

Thanks Mark -  looking at Ebay, it seems like a number of DVD/BlueRay players have USB flash drive inputs. The problem there is that most have either tiny or no displays, and as they have analogue audio outputs, track and album ID for the 00s of CDs doesn't go to my Denon hifi amp. The amp itself has a big enough display, and it can display 00s of digital radio station details - but the choice is between ta model with Bluetooth or a model with USB input, and I've got the bluetooth one. I suspect the USB model can maybe pull track and album ID and maybe cover art off a flash drive and display it. Maybe I just need to load all the MP3s on my phone and send them to the amp via Bluetooth -  but what with issues of Bluetooth range, phone charging, incoming phone calls etc,  that looks like a complex answer to a relatively simple problem. Oh well...