Loren,

I have a Sony with a USB input.  When playing music off the USB Thumb, the
display shows song and artist.  To move through songs, hit the > or < button
(which can take awhile if you have a large library, the Thumb drive I used
for testing purposes is 512mb, so it only could hold a few songs).

Be sure to check the how big of a USB Thumb you can use with the unit.  For
mine, the literature states it won't read anything of 2gigs.

Jim
Wilmington, NC

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com> wrote:

> First, there has been a bunch of good info added to my original thread
> about
> 'Good experience with Crutchfield', thanks.
> Second, I mentioned in a later post in the thread that I might exchange my
> $70 unit for a $90 unit that had USB input so I could keep my MP3 player
> charged while driving (the Aux cable doesn't charge the unit).  Well,
> yesterday I tested my little MP3 player and it goes well over eight hours
> before it might need charging (and I have a 12v USB charger for it) so that
> shouldn't be a problem.  If ordering again I'd make the change but not
> worth
> the effort of reordering and returning.  And that leads to another
> observation.
> Several people have mentioned that with the USB port on the front of their
> head unit they can use a thumb drive and have very large music libraries at
> their command.  But I have to ask this question:  How do you manage to pick
> and choose what music to play while on the road?   I have to assume all the
> information is displayed on the front of the receiver, not really readable
> or usable when driving.  What I've done is put the MP3 player on a six foot
> cord.  I can pick it up and select music while driving.  But more important
> to me that long cord reaches back into the living space when parked so that
> I have full control over what's playing.  And the little remote for the
> head
> unit give me the ability to turn the whole thing on and off from the rear.
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the ability to have gazzillions or
> hours of music on a little thumb drive.  But that setup just doesn't look
> like it would work for me.
>