USB memory stick into truck radio aux input?

Are you sure you do not have a USB port somewhere on your Silverado? In doing a Google search I found references to using a USB port on 2012 and 2013 Silverados. I would be surprised if it didn't.

If you do have a USB port, I agree with Gdetrailer on the type you should use. I have damaged USB ports on a couple of laptops with larger thumb drives. Now I only use the tiny ones.

APT wrote:
I recommend a prepaid Android based smartphone. Target has 3 on sale this week at $20/$50/$100. No need to activate it as a cell phone, but they work well as easy to use ipod touch competitors.

:h

You CAN by regular MP3 PLAYERS with touch screens for $20-$50..

You can buy Android based tablets with 7" touch screens for for $30..

But in reality buying over fancy gadgetry just to play a simple MP3 MUSIC FILE is over the top silly at best..

Phones, touch screen players, and tablets add layers of difficulty in navigating and playing simple music files..

Think simple, a simple MP3 player with play, skip and off in most cases will suffice.. Some with screens to see what file is playing may work but the screens are often small and may be hard to read.

THE BEST WAY is to replace the indash unit with one that has a purpose made USB interface built in.. This way you can navigate your music easily..

I used to use all kinds of ways to get my music, tried external $100 CD players back when CDs took off and indash CD units cost $350 and up.. Had power wires, aux input wires hanging all over the place.. Not to mention having to turn the CD on/off..

Then MP3 players came out, ditched the external CD player for battery powered MP3 players, nice that 256mg player gave me 2hrs of music but what a hassle..

Now I have an indash unit with USB connection and I plug in a 8gig flash drive and have 80 hrs worth of music that I can control from my steering wheel.. PRICELESS. Beats the pants off a bunch of wires or even dealing with blue tooth pairing issues..

OP asked about a USB STICK. Answer is still NO. If you want to spend the money, other choices have been offered.

I recommend a prepaid Android based smartphone. Target has 3 on sale this week at $20/$50/$100. No need to activate it as a cell phone, but they work well as easy to use ipod touch competitors.

No such adapter.. but there are many Small MP3 Players that will take your card, some as low as 10-15 bucks,, and they often hafve a 3.5mm headset jack and Radio Shack sells a 3.5 stereo to 3.5 stereo cable and there you are.

I use such a cable.. with my Smart phone,, but it does not take the cards easily.

(laptops do but. alas, different problem).

1492 wrote:
Though I didn't mention it, I'd personally avoid using flash drives in car stereos with a dedicated USB connection. I used to do so in mine, but would tend to leave the flash drive connected which protrudes out significantly. So one day when loading a large box into the front passenger seat, promptly destroyed the flash drive and the stereo USB socket, which was pulled completely out. So no more USB drive capability, but do use the SD-Card to keep music files in the car.

I actually intentionally avoid car stereos which have the USB connection on the front of the unit for this reason. This HAS gotten a lot harder now days, seems like manufacturers have cheaped out. I don't like the mess of wires or USB dongles dangling down my dash, just looks like a backyard hack mechanic installed it..

Instead I opt for the ones that have the dedicated USB port on a cable which is on the back panel of the radio. This allows me to route the USB port to a pocket in the dash or even the glove box.

Out of sight, out of mind.

But, if you are concerned about a physically big flash drive sticking out, there is a solution.. Now days you can get LOW PROFILE USB flash memory drives, they tend to stick out no more than 1/4"!

They look like this..

Though I didn't mention it, I'd personally avoid using flash drives in car stereos with a dedicated USB connection. I used to do so in mine, but would tend to leave the flash drive connected which protrudes out significantly. So one day when loading a large box into the front passenger seat, promptly destroyed the flash drive and the stereo USB socket, which was pulled completely out. So no more USB drive capability, but do use the SD-Card to keep music files in the car.

You can get a generic player such as this on Amazon.com for about $25., and transfer your MP3 files to it using a USB cable or a separate microSD card.

I installed an inexpensive $49. Pyle MP3-Bluetooth/USB/SD-Card stereo in one of my cars, so could use it as a hands-free speakerphone, hate headsets, but also to stream music from my smartphones.




This Sony is the only dedicated audio player I have, but don't use it in my car. It does have a built-in USB flip-down connector for file transfers, a rechargeable AAA battery, and is very lightweight. I actually use these primarily to record on camera talent with lav(clip-on) mic when shooting video. Can record both uncompressed lpcm and mp3. But can also be used for "walk-in" music, or recording events for podcasts from a mixer. Yet, overkill unless you also need a quality recording device.

An extra thing: if your car stereo has an mp3 decode function (should indicate u-disk), then you can use a u-disk usb drive and a u-disk usb to 3.5mm adapter to play directly from the stereo. Not sure how common these are.

Exactly - it was an mp3 player with the controls on the device and the storage was external (usb drive or SD card).

Without the controls on the device, there is no way to tell the stereo what to play. The stereo controls will NOT work on the flash drive.

The other issue is that the stereo may have requirements as to how the files are saved on the usb drive. Sometimes, they do not allow any folders, other times they allow a certain max number of folder with a certain max number of files in each folder and no sub-folders.

The easiest solution is to get an actual mp3 player and connect it via the 3.5mm input. The cheapest mp3 players will not have screens, so you'll only be able to forward through the songs one-by-one, spend a bit more money for a player with a screen and you'll be able to select specific albums, songs, etc.