Are USB Music Players the future?

2 new CD players launched at this year's CEDIA expo got my attention:

1) Marantz SA8003 $1K

&

2) NAD C565BEE $800

Both players have front panel USB inputs (the rectangular inputs like those found on computers)... Both players appear to be able to access music stored on USB memory devices (Ipods, USB Memory sticks and external Hard-Drives)... they pull files off the USB device much the same way a Squeezebox pulls files off a computer...

This kind of USB connection has been on cheaper products for a while now, some DVD players can access photos from a USB key, I even have a cheap Philips radio that has a USB input for playing MP3s off a memory stick...

Might this be the start of a new wave of USB players? Maybe even some that don't also play CDs, that look like a Squeezebox Classic and function pretty much the same way (except that you plug a USB cable into them, connected to a storage device, instead of a LAN connection (or a wireless network) connected to a computer....

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Originally Posted by Ajani

2 new CD players launched at this year's CEDIA expo got my attention:

1) Marantz SA8003 $1K
&
2) NAD C565BEE $800

Both players have front panel USB inputs (the rectangular inputs like those found on computers)... Both players appear to be able to access music stored on USB memory devices (Ipods, USB Memory sticks and external Hard-Drives)... they pull files off the USB device much the same way a Squeezebox pulls files off a computer...
....

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As somebody correctly pointed out the other day, the narrow rectangle connection implies that the player is fully controlling the USB-connected device, (whereas the square connector implies that the attached is controlling the computer via a device driver). The former usually permits only a very simple device, e.g. a flashdrive or maybe an external HD formated FAT32 and having only a root directory, no subdirectories. It is very important to read the player documenation to understand exactly what its capabilities are -- otherwise you might be disappointed.

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Originally Posted by Feanor

As somebody correctly pointed out the other day, the narrow rectangle connection implies that the player is fully controlling the USB-connected device, (whereas the square connector implies that the attached is controlling the computer via a device driver). The former usually permits only a very simple device, e.g. a flashdrive or maybe an external HD formated FAT32 and having only a root directory, no subdirectories. It is very important to read the player documenation to understand exactly what its capabilities are -- otherwise you might be disappointed.

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Agreed.. you really have to read the instruction manuals on these devices, as some have far less functionality than you might expect... I've the read manual for the Marantz 8003, so I know it provides good functionality (no idea about the NAD though)...

I'm interested to see if these products will be the start of something new though...

I don't know. Will a losless audio track fit on a flash drive?

One of these days I'm going to break down and buy a flash drive, put some high bit rate MP3's on it and plug it into my receiver's USB port. See what they sound like, and what kind of processing I can perform.

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Originally Posted by Rich-n-Texas

Will a losless audio track fit on a flash drive?

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Yep... it should... unless we are talking about a really ancient flash drive with essentially no memory... otherwise you should be able to fit quite a few...

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Originally Posted by Rich-n-Texas

I don't know. Will a losless audio track fit on a flash drive?

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It certainly should, as long as the drive has a reasonable capacity. I have an mp3 player, by the way, but the only files I store on it are uncompressed .wav files, not mp3.

I was actually thinking along the lines of DTS-MA/Dolby-TrueHD audio, but that scenario isn't even on the horizon I don't think.