[whizfish]

2019 Mazda 3 premium. 2018 was last year that had aux input. I need an analog input. I don't feel that I'm asking for a lot. If this were an older system, I would already have one. But this new Bose system is different. Weird little speakers everywhere. I am no fan of Bose but that's what I've got. And it does have some redeeming qualities, like no door speakers. I read somewhere (and I can't remember where) that these speakers will not handle any added amplification. My intended playback device is a mid-high quality Sony Walkman. It made the Bose stereo in my old Mazda 3 sound far better than it ever had. But it will add some amplification. Mazda will only tell me that it was designed to work as is and I will void my warranty if I make any changes. They refuse to elaborate. Bose just refers me to Mazda. There is also the matter of whether the head unit would even recognize the input which I would like to connect in place of the satellite radio. Does anybody know anything about this system? There was a time when I would have ripped it all out and started from scratch. That time has passed, I don't do computers. And this is not a car for experimentation. Thanks.

 

[theblooms]

Sorry, but you're screwed. And to make matters even worse, I don't think Mazda even recognizes flac files.

My Kenwood does flac, and I was in the same boat as you, over 400 CD's and no real way to play them. I took almost 2 months and ripped all of my CD's to flac. It was a massive PITA, but at the end of the day, I did it. Flac is the exact same signal as CD, so at the end of the day, I have all of my albums on a thumb drive in my car.

The only problem you have, Mazda doesn't recognize flac, only garbage mp3. It's almost 2022. Mp3 was introduced in 1994, even before Windows 95! It's a trash format that was cool in the dial up modem days. But time marches on. There is not one single good excuse to still be relying on 30 year old software. But here we are. Oof.

Sorry dude, don't have any options for you. It is what it is.

 

[whizfish]

Yeah, I figured the answer was checkmate. But didn't know it was that bad. We hoped we were heading off most of the problem future of car buying by replacing our cars in 2019. None of them have aux. input but I think the other two may be fixable. But we're still better off than people trying to buy new cars today. Thanks for listening.

 

[whizfish]

Update. Asked Mazda about supported files since 2019. Answer was currently supported are MP3, WMA, AAC, MP4, 3GPP, WAV, FLAC, OGG. Assuming that "currently" includes 2019. While it's no substitute for analog, (I still haven't forgiven them for fake spare tires), I guess maybe it's better than nothing at all.