JGE Wrote:

I would suggest the next model higher that places the USB input on a
pigtail from the rear of the unit; it can be placed, for easy access, in
the govebox or pocket beneath the unit.  Having a 3" USB stick out from
the front panel of your receiver is inviting damage .. one thoughtless
reach by the front can result in broken USB as well as damaged receiver.
I sell these and have seen all kinds of things happen.
JGE Wrote:

Yes, and it works beautifully; I usually suggest nothing bigger than 2g
sticks due to the amount of time required to index (read) the contents,
but some have told me they were alright was it up to 4g sticks -- it can
take a full minute to start working once the stick is inserted.  Kenwood
states that you can nest 8 levels of directory's:
i:/rock/90/Lenny_Kravitz/Let_Love_rule/ is an example of 4 levels ..
I've never imagined anything required beyond 4.

I have a Dual unit with a USB port on the front.  I love it and so far
haven't had
problems with passengers or myself hitting the usb drive sticking out.

Depending on your model, there might be different features.  I have a
4GB stick right now (I think
owners manual said it can accomodate up to 8GB), and I don't have any
lag issues when it reads
the drive.  It takes maybe 1 second to initialize, then it's playing
songs, and moving from
song to song or directory to directory is pretty instantaneous.

Mine doesn't navigate by the ID3 tags, but does display this
information.  It navigates by file and directory.
So I just stick it on random and just skip something I don't want to
hear.  I think you also have to stick
the files into directories, because having too many in the root will
cause problems.  I made three directories
on my thumb drive, one for me, one for my wife, and one for my
daughter, so we can each have our songs
on the drive, and just flip to their respective directory to listen to
their music.  It is really convenient.

My unit also has the CD drive that plays regular audio and CD-R/RW
data discs.  Now, it takes forever to read
CD if it's loaded with mp3's.  But having 4GB worth of music on a
thumbdrive only taking 1 second, it's really
a no brainer.  I'd look for different make/models to see if they offer
different options when it comes to playing
your music, like by artist or genre, etc.

Overall, I recommend a car unit with a USB connector.

Chris.