Hello,

I am an owner of a new 2024 Mazda CX-5. My previous car was a 2016 Mazda CX-5 and its great performance made me buy this one. Things have sure changed but for the better.

In my 2016 Mazda I had a CD player and my 2024 doesn't have one. I have read some articles that say that it is easy to rip the CD's (I have 118 in my travel pack) and load them onto a USB drive using Microsoft Media Player. I have several questions that I would like your help with. I presume that someone looking at this forum has done this so I would get the best answers. So far the Mazda manual is lacking in information. I apologize for my lack of knowledge where these USB devices are concerned and asking questions that to others are obvious.

1. The Mazda manual says that USB 3.0 isn't supported. Is that true? If it is I presume that I would use USB 2. Correct?
2. The manual shows two USB ports in my console storage they say one is Audio and one is Video or is this misleading and they are interchangeable?
3. I can't find anything in the manual that describes the USB connection it is not the rectangular one like on my computer so what is it called?
4. On the basis of each CD being 700mb I would need a USB capacity of 82.6GB so that would fit easily on a 128GB USB stick. Anyone have experience with this size USB and if so a suggested vendor? I know that some USB sticks are not suitable for music so any help would be appreciated.
5. Since the Mazda USB connections are different that my computer rectangular USB would I be better off using the standard rectangular USB connection since it is compatible with my computer and then find some sort of adapter to connect the rectangular USB to the car. If this is not a good idea is there an adapter that will allow me to connect a Mazda type USB stick to my computer rectangular USB connection.
5. I presume that a CD would be ripped to MP3 files and each CD's MP3 files would be stored in a folder that would be labelled with the name of the CD. I would presume that you select a folder and the system would play all the MP3 files in it. Any other things like length of folder names or what they contain such as CD title and Artist that I need to be aware of?
5. I presume that I can play music from the CD at the same time I am running Waze or another map program. Is that correct (goes back to question 2)?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

To make a long story short, in the newer CX-5s they changed the ports from USB-A (rectangle) to USB-C (Oval). You could get an adaptor for an old USB-A flash drive to connect to your car's USB-C ports, but you'd be better off just getting a USB-C flash drive all together. I linked ones from SanDisk and Samsung below for reference. I'll also attach an image of the different connection types so it's easier for you to see the difference. Someone else who uses the flash drive feature will have to explain how it all works since I stream my music from Spotify or use the radio.





The different connection port types.

 

1) You can use both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 sticks. (USB 3.0 is compatible with USB 2.0).
2) You can use both USB ports for audio and video.
3) I have two USB-C ports in the centre console
4) Maximum filesize: 4 GB, Maximum volumesize: 2 TB (With FAT32)
CD's use an uncompressed audio format (.wav). If you rip your CD's to .mp3 the filesizes are smaller due to audio compression.
5) Use a mini USB stick with both a USB-A and a USB-C connector.
example: https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Compatibl.../dp/B0C4DQF4JJ
5) It depends how you rip the CD's
5) sorry, I use the in-board navigation and have no experience with smart phone navigation programs in the car.

 

Good explanation... that's how I proceed... I use the FAT32 format as my data is currently 50GB.

I find it difficult to format a FAT32 drive. Are you aware of an easy method to this this?

Regards

 

I think a new USB stick of that size is already FAT32 formatted.

If not, right click on the USB drive in the Windows explorer and choose Format... > File system > FAT32
I have no experience with Apple operating systems (except Apple II, but that was in the last century).

 

On Apple devices you can use the Disk Utility application that's built in.

 

The easy route for you, if you want to cart your CD's around, is get a portable cd player and hook it to the auxiliary input.
As for me, all my CD's and albums, over a thousand of them at last count, are now on hard drives in my dedicated music computer.
Yes, it was time consuming, but it was a winter project my first year of retirement, and they are also backed up on SSD drives and in the cloud.
I repurposed two of my old Samsung smartphones as music players plugged into the aux input in my 2020 CX-5 and for my wife's 2016 Buick Encore (which has a cd player).
I wiped the old phone drives of everything but operating and music player software.
It gave me over 5 hours of music time and at no additional costs plus it recycled the phones. You can also get more storage room with an additional micro-SD card.
All I need do is copy flies or complete playlist from my computer to the phone, which literally only takes seconds for a complete CD.
You can also do the same with any of the music players that are now available.

 

i have been meaning to try my old 80 gb 5th gen ipod video...it's totally full of music...couldn't even fit everything from my external on it...need to get a usb a to usb c adapter to give it a shot

 

Hi All,

Thanks for this great Input! I have my work cut out for me.