Database Users

[Q] Audio Through USB

I'm currently aching to be able to play my own music through my car speakers, weird place for this yes.. if it's the wrong section to post this please let me know.
But, I was wondering if it's at all possible to feed the phone's audio through the USB.
For example, I have a USB port on my stero in my car, and when I plug it in..i'm able to feed off my SD card to play the music thats on it. But.. I'd like to be able to play pandora as well..which I'm currently unable to do.
Was wondering if this is possible. If i've confused you feel free to ask more questions
XtaC318 said:
Since it isn't possible.. what about an app that allows me to control the music played? I can stream music from the sd, but its got to mount to read therefore I don't have access to the stock music app. Only way to control what's played is the buttons on the stero and its pain staking..
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Click to collapse

I don't believe this is possible. As far as I know, when you use the usb the deck itself is decoding the mp3's (or whatever music files you're using) directly. It doesn't support playing music through the usb, it just uses the usb to get the files. I hope that makes sense...

So is that why I ca never plat music on my xbox whenever I have a phone hookedup to charge? I thought my xbox just didn't play nice with phones
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

XtaC318 said:
I'm currently aching to be able to play my own music through my car speakers, weird place for this yes.. if it's the wrong section to post this please let me know.
But, I was wondering if it's at all possible to feed the phone's audio through the USB.
For example, I have a USB port on my stero in my car, and when I plug it in..i'm able to feed off my SD card to play the music thats on it. But.. I'd like to be able to play pandora as well..which I'm currently unable to do.
Was wondering if this is possible. If i've confused you feel free to ask more questions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So your car stereo has a USB input but no auxiliary? If so, your best bet would probably be to get an FM transmitter. Like the poster above said, your car's stereo is merely mounting your phone as a mass storage device and reading the mp3 files off the SD card and decoding and playing them locally.

It sees it as you do on the computer, just a drive. The only way to get what you want is to use a source from the phone that plays audio. Head phone jack or Blue Tooth. Your stereo... if it has USB should also have an AUX input or BT. Havn't come across to many that have USB and not an AUX or BT. Its nice though... having Pandora in the car.
If you tell me the Model of the Stereo I can help you out. I have seen a BT to FM Mod. Those are kinda cool. If your in a pinch with a stock stereo.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

a454nova said:
It sees it as you do on the computer, just a drive. The only way to get what you want is to use a source from the phone that plays audio. Head phone jack or Blue Tooth. Your stereo... if it has USB should also have an AUX input or BT. Havn't come across to many that have USB and not an AUX or BT. Its nice though... having Pandora in the car.
If you tell me the Model of the Stereo I can help you out. I have seen a BT to FM Mod. Those are kinda cool. If your in a pinch with a stock stereo.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Makes sense. My stero does have an auxiliary port on it, but due to recent events I'm really short on cash lol, was wondering if there was a work around so I'm not limited to my sd for music.
Since it isn't possible.. what about an app that allows me to control the music played? I can stream music from the sd, but its got to mount to read therefore I don't have access to the stock music app. Only way to control what's played is the buttons on the stero and its pain staking..

XtaC318 said:
Makes sense. My stero does have an auxiliary port on it, but due to recent events I'm really short on cash lol, was wondering if there was a work around so I'm not limited to my sd for music.
Since it isn't possible.. what about an app that allows me to control the music played? I can stream music from the sd, but its got to mount to read therefore I don't have access to the stock music app. Only way to control what's played is the buttons on the stero and its pain staking..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope... The phone isn't even connecting to your stereo. When you put it into USB mode so it can read the SD, it unmounted from the phone. Its as if you pulled the SD out and slid it into a card reader. When you pull the plug... It will remount to the phone. You'll notice it scanning for media at the top.
Now when you go BT... You can control it via the stereo or phone, using the Aux you can control it by the phone. "They" could make the phone controllable via USB like an Iphone but they would have to built that into the stereo like they do the Iphones/Ipods. Not likely to happen unless the Galaxy S takes off like IPOD did.

In theory, a rooted Epic with proper kernel support and hacked cable (since they don't exist commercially) can repurpose the data pins on its USB port for left and right analog audio thanks to the Fairchild FSA9480 USB switching chip inside the phone (the same chip enables the USB pins to be repurposed as a serial port with nonstandard voltage levels, enables the normally-unused fifth pin to be used as mic input, enables it to be used with a special "JIG" interface for JTAG reflashing without having to hand-solder anything to the microscopic internal pads, and apparently can also work its magic in conjunction with a chip by Silicon Imaging to use 5 pins to output a signal that can be transformed by a companion chip (embedded in the cable's connector shell) into valid HDCP-compliant HDMI. I'm pretty sure the 9480 can also repurpose the two data pins for external I2C, but don't quote me on it.
Check out the I9000 boards... they're about 2 months ahead of us. If you google for FSA9480, you can find a brief (but revealing) dialogue between a Samsung engineer and the Kernel.org folks regarding a kernel addition to support the chip. He had a few issues, because on one hand he's apparently not allowed to say much about how the chip works or what it does, but the kernel folks managed to wring much of it out of him one juicy detail at a time. If you check Fairchild's site, they don't even acknowledge that the chip EXISTS, but it's been photographed inside all the Galaxy S phones in various teardowns.
In English -- yes, the hardware exists today to connect your phone to a stereo's analog inputs via a cable that repurposes the USB port... but the official software to make it work from Samsung and Sprint doesn't exist, and the information needed to make it work ourselves on a rooted Epic with AOSP isn't quite available yet.
I'm personally quite happy about the uart, because that means we DO have an easy, low-ceremony way to do i/o between something like a gamepad built into a hardcase a-la-iphone-GameBone that doesn't require Bluetooth (note that if something IS using the USB port for UART purposes, the USB port is still active, but the phone sees it as having nothing connected because the signals from the D+ and D- pins are physically re-routed by the 9480 to the CPU's UART pins. Think of the 9480 as being like an old-fashioned telephone panel with cables that can be moved around to connect the USB port's 5 physical pins to different pins inside the phone.
I'm now pretty sure that this is why there are exactly 7 contacts on the microUSB connector inside the phone -- 5 are used to get the pre-HDMI signals out of the phone, and the other 2 (3, if you count the ground/anchor tabs and assume they carry a signal as well in addition to mechanically anchoring it in place) are used to supply +5v and ground, and possibly one wire for half-duplex signaling purposes.

Wow that was a lot of info... lol. I didn't know that about the usb tho. That's good to know. I was thinking of taking it apart to see.
But... I think he's wanting a UI via the USB like the way some players will do for the IPODs, not analog. To go throught all that when the Head Phone jack will do the same... I could only see that if it was broken or if you really really want only one cord to the phone.
; )
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

I've got an Alpine unit, I hook my USB up - turn on the TUNER. Mount the Drive and once the phone is done - swap back over to USB and i can get all my MP3S. sadly I get all of my ringtones too - odd when the radio is full blast and a track changes - none the less works well for me. Try it.

I purchased this Kensington LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit for my phone a few days ago. It works perfectly on my sister's iPod touch (no AVRCP [silly apple]) and an old WinMo 6.1 phone.
I just got my Epic in the mail today so I'll be testing it out soon.

WTF. AVRCP (bluetooth remote control) is really buggy with this phone. I used the LiquidAUX with an old Omnia for a week with no problems. The Epic connects and plays audio just fine. I can also pause and play music but the forward and back buttons don't work. When I first pair the phone with the device everything is fine, but after disconnecting and reconnecting the remote control stops working. I got it to work after un-paring and re-pairing but it only worked once.
The Moment I had before this had really choppy audio.
EDIT: I had the phone opened up in DDMS and the phone is receiving signals from the remote. But it only reacts to them when the media player is on the screen. Weird.

Output Music to Outlaw Amp

I have a Musiland Monitor 01 US portable DAC/Amp hooked up to an Outlaw preamp that I connect via USB port to a Windows computer. I use Foobar2000 as my music player. I can't figure out how to do the same with my A500 via the USB port. Kinda limited in Android know-how....I tried using Clear-Fi to perform what Foobar does, it does play it on the A500 but won't output it to my preamp. Any suggestions???

fishinMac said:
I have a Musiland Monitor 01 US portable DAC/Amp hooked up to an Outlaw preamp that I connect via USB port to a Windows computer. I use Foobar2000 as my music player. I can't figure out how to do the same with my A500 via the USB port. Kinda limited in Android know-how....I tried using Clear-Fi to perform what Foobar does, it does play it on the A500 but won't output it to my preamp. Any suggestions???
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Click to collapse
Actually Android wasn't able to output audio through usb until JellyBean.
And I still haven't been able to find any driver (for A500 or for my Galaxy Nexus) that can achieve that even on JB.
Some devices from Samsung (I think GS2 and GS3) have such a driver, but afaik nobody has ported yet.
So basically I just connect the audio minijack out to my analog amp, considering A500 analog output isn't that bad.

A bit of random info
The hardware can do it. As it works on the A500 running Netham45 Linux Kernel dual booted.
I use my Logitech G35 USB headset and the sound is great.
Just no one has written the programs to activate USB sound cards and shut of the internal one in Android.
Looks like the Android community hasn't standardized how they handle sound.
Some Android devices have been got working by developers doing hacks but it seems to be device specific so far.
To top it of it looks like the manufacturers are coming up with Android specific USB sound stuff, so complications will be even worse if they go that route.
Your normal USB sound stuff won't work it has to be Android compatible (read probably not compatible to PC or Apple)
I for one will not be buying any of that crap!
I dislike proprietary anything and avoid it when possible.
It is pretty sad that I can plug this headset into a PC or Apple (Mac or IPad) and A500 running Linux and it works and the same Tablet chokes on Android. Mind you Apple blocks it out on the I touch.
So maybe your USB sound rig will work but it will be complicated. You would have to Install Linux setup on your tablet just to try. Ouch!:crying:

[Q] Android Dock/Music Player

Now that Google's Cloud stores my music it would be nice to be able to do what Apple iPhone users can do ... dock my phone and play music through quality speakers.
Anyone know any products that do this?
(I don't want an Android Airplay solution as wifi will be connected to the cloud.)

croques said:
Now that Google's Cloud stores my music it would be nice to be able to do what Apple iPhone users can do ... dock my phone and play music through quality speakers.
Anyone know any products that do this?
(I don't want an Android Airplay solution as wifi will be connected to the cloud.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll more than likely have to find any type of Speaker "docking" station that has a 3.5mm audio jack.
iPhones (until iPhone 5) all had the same charging/data port. There is no "Standard" port on android devices (although most do use mini or micro usb) and I believe those ports are unable to output "Sound"
You could always use BlueTooth... Spinnaker Bluetooth Speaker System

croques said:
(I don't want an Android Airplay solution as wifi will be connected to the cloud.)
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure if this pretains to your statement but I have a Wi-Drive that I can connect to via WiFi and it connects to other WiFi sources via a bidge allowing me to use my WiFi for both connection to my Wi-Drive and the internet also. Maybe (I hope) they make a WiFi speaker system that also uses a bridge. Wouldn't that work?

I'd go with a Bluetooth speaker if you only want 1. I've seen a Phillips dock but it is essentially a Bluetooth speaker with a micro USB header to sit you phone on to charge. I wish there was dongle like Iphones have, would be great to be able to sit any android device on a dock and it work
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

USB Mass Storage for Car Stereo

Just picked up the G2 a couple days ago. I've owned an Android before but never got into the rooting and rom flashing process. My problem is mostly that I used my iPhone in my car (a Kenwood head unit) for the stereo. I was able to control the music and sounds via the phone. However, the G2 doesn't work this way. Most I can get so far is the ability to select and play songs via the headunit, which with 1000+ songs is extremely inconvenient. I owned a Samsung Infuse years ago and that was able to work, but it was done by selecting USB Mass Storage I believe. I've done some research but I can't seem to find a straight answer on how to go about enabling that. Is there any way around this? It be awesome to be able to use my phone in the car.

What's the model of your car stereo? Maybe you can connect it with an AUX cable or Bluetooth, if your stereo supports it.

robogo1982 said:
What's the model of your car stereo? Maybe you can connect it with an AUX cable or Bluetooth, if your stereo supports it.
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Click to collapse
It's a Kenwood MP345-U. It does have an aux cable, however there is sound quality loss with that. Bluetooth I'm honestly not sure whether or not it has, I've read somewhere I can purchase a Bluetooth USB that the phone can connect to. My main concern was I was able to charge my phone before along with it pausing the music during a phone call, etc.

chiefnwa said:
It's a Kenwood MP345-U. It does have an aux cable, however there is sound quality loss with that. Bluetooth I'm honestly not sure whether or not it has, I've read somewhere I can purchase a Bluetooth USB that the phone can connect to. My main concern was I was able to charge my phone before along with it pausing the music during a phone call, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since the phone can function only in media player mode (MTP), I don't think you can play it any other way than through the AUX cable. CWM recovery has the option of mounting internal storage as USB storage, but that's a highly, highly impractical solution.

You CAN do this but it is specific to CM ROMs. Probably 10.3. I don't know if its working on CM11 KitKat yet.
Its called USB Audio or something.
I'd also check out a Bluetooth solution if it would work. Then you could just plug in audio and use an NFC sticker to turn on BT and launch a music player. If you have a Verizon, you can also do wireless charging, so you can just drop your phone down on a mat and have everything just start working automatically.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

There is only quality loss with anything OTHER than AUX. The AUX and only the AUX on this phone is capable of delivering 24bit audio. The downside is, well, 2 cords.

Problem Using Bluetooth
The problem with using Bluetooth is that you can't use voice commands to pick tracks to play.

Danester said:
The problem with using Bluetooth is that you can't use voice commands to pick tracks to play.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use multi- mount SD card from the play store...you need to be rooted
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk

vivebatu said:
Use multi- mount SD card from the play store...you need to be rooted
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
I rooted my phone last night and downloaded multi-mount Sd but no luck, it won't mount the phone, what could be wrong?Do I need an OTG cable?I just want it to work USB to the Ford Sync System.

Danester said:
I rooted my phone last night and downloaded multi-mount Sd but no luck, it won't mount the phone, what could be wrong?Do I need an OTG cable?I just want it to work USB to the Ford Sync System.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to enabled mtp fix and then place the widget on the home screen...once you connect the normal USB cable just click on the widget
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk

vivebatu said:
You need to enabled mtp fix and then place the widget on the home screen...once you connect the normal USB cable just click on the widget
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
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I did that. I enabled MTP fix rebooted and plugged in,what I did notice is that it seems to mount for a second or 2 sometimes and then it unmounts right away. I tried it on 2 work computers also and under my computer, the LG pops up as a drive for a quick second and then it un mounts. What the heck is going on.,I have screen shots of what is happening.It always pops up on the top of the screen with SD Card Unmounted when I tap the widget to mount. Something is causing it to Unmount it appears, any ideas?Since I Rooted the phone, when i hookup the usb cable it says that i am connected as installer, could that have anything to do with it?

Music in car through usb

Does anyone know how I would be able to play music in my car through usb? I am currently using tune link which uses Bluetooth and 3.5 jack. The issue I have, is that I have to change the song using my phone rather than the control buttons on my steering wheel. Sounds dumb, but I hate having to pick up my phone and navigate to screen to change the song.
Sent from my SM-G900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Try using an OTG, it enables the phone to be used as a typical computer usb port.

I will try that.
Sent from my SM-G900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Yeah that didn't work.
Sent from my SM-G900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Have 100% the same problem. Did anybody find the solution? My old Xperia Acr connected like a common flash card and worked fine. Now I have to use AUX and this is not so comfortable =/

Why do you use a cable AND Bluetooth ? Does you car have AD2P ? If it has you should be able to play music through your phones BT and have the steerring controls . I have a Kenwood head unit DNX 9140 and when i pair my phone to it, i can play music and still keep steering controls over BT

The music out via USB was removed on the s5...was present on the s4.

Tomo1971 said:
The music out via USB was removed on the s5...was present on the s4.
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Click to collapse
Not true. There is a lot of misinformation promulgated on the subject. Music out on USB works fine on my S5 just as it did on the S4, S3, S2 and S1..
But that isn't to say that Samsung, Google or (especially) the automotive audio equipment cartel make much effort towards standardized interoperability. It's frankly a mess, a hodge podge of half ass implementations and proprietary protocols that usually don't play nicely together. It can be made to work with carefully chosen components or creative approaches. But randomly connecting components from two different vendors typically fails.
While Samsung and Google could be characterized as only having made a minimal effort to provide standardized USB support.. that is still leagues ahead of what most automotive audio vendors have done. Not to mention that it's routine to find inaccurate details, if not outright lies of what automotive component X will supposedly interconnect with. I sometimes wonder if their marketing departments even bother to collate real facts on the subject before they write their copy.
It's not too hard to find decent DACs and headphone amps that will accept USB audio out from the S5, but I frankly gave up trying to figure out what would or wouldn't work on the automotive end. I ended up going with a brute force approach and installed a SBC (miniature PC) in my car. Having a full PC as a middleman, means that there is a vast array of powerful software (and hardware) that can slice, dice and format the control stream to whatever is needed by the auto head unit. But it's hardly a simple or off the shelf solution.
The OP can probably find a working solution if he searches hard enough. The S5 has USB audio out, although making it work with some car decks requires a combination of root, custom kernels (proper USB host support) and audio apps. An app like USB Audio Player, in conjunction with a kernel that has proper USB host support will satisfy many auto decks.
Hopefully Android L will give us better USB support. But it also depends on how sane your automotive equipment vendor was when they designed your car deck too.
Further reading for any stray audiophiles around here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3XYy1FuzDUeZDNBSVpjQU9Nd2s/edit?pli=1
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/173-2...-audio-any-android-4-0-smartphone-tablet.html
http://www.head-fi.org/t/595071/android-phones-and-usb-dacs
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3XYy1FuzDUea3U3aTJ1RkpQdW8/edit
.

The problem is that since 4.1.2,USB Mass Storage was removed.
Most, if not all, radios, media players, etc don't support the MTP protocol. They require a mass storage device, and do not support a media device.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk 2

MTP is a newer and much more capable protocol. The problem in your example is that radio, etc vendors are stuck in the past and not adopting newer standards.
MSC (mass storage) has many serious drawbacks that are overcome by the newer transactional protocol. MTP was standardized six years ago, which is just short of forever in consumer electronics. So one has to wonder why the radio vendors continue to drag their heels and can't get with the program.
It's like blaming Android for having moved to flash memory.. and refusing to go along. Expecting everyone to continue using cassette tapes instead. Yes that would be one way to maintain compatibity. But it doesn't make a lot of objective sense.
.

ShadowLea said:
The problem is that since 4.1.2,USB Mass Storage was removed.
Most, if not all, radios, media players, etc don't support the MTP protocol. They require a mass storage device, and do not support a media device.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, and for activation Mass Storage root is required ...

Guys, but what about using USB analog audio input? I remember I did something like that with Galaxy S II - from 5 mini USB pins one was used to sense what phone is connecting to - for ex if it is a car dock, desk dock or... should it enable analog audio output on USB data pins.
Unfortunately I no longer have dock I made back then, anyone knows if that might work with S5?
EDIT: check this out!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1321491
EDIT2: Oh it seems I completely missed the point, you want to use it as mass storage to connect to car USB port.