I have been searching for a way to connect an mp3 player to my 2008 XK, without spending any money if possible. Being a convertible which is more noisy than a coupe and my typical higher driving speeds lessens my need for great high quality listening.

That said I was happy to read yesterday the 2008 XK sound system will play MP3 encoded CDs.

I was apprehensive but anxious, this morning I put one of my old recorded CDs in the player and WOW…there it was!

The real story is that many years ago I passed around a portable HDD to all of my friends and acquaintances asking them to load their music libraries onto this hard drive. This request resulted with approx. 800,000 recordings…a lifetime of listening.

One of my friends was so nice that they gave me their high quality encoded top ‘100’ recordings.

1960 through 1999, 100 top hits of each year! Actually over 4500 recordings.

My late wife was a musician with a profession recording studio, I took these top 100s and equalized all of them to my taste, one at a time, and then recorded each year to one cd, in high quality MP3 (128 kbps). This task took about two years to complete, a little at a time

I now have many hours of happy listening in my XK convertible…happy days! (and no need for Bluetooth, yadayadayada)



wj

 

Depending of file size, a standard CD can hold about 300 .mp3 files, times six disks is 1800 songs in the stash. Not bad.
I can't remember though.... I have/had a vehicle that could play DVD disks with .mp3 files, but dangit I can't remember which one that was. My XKR is tucked softly into the garage now so I don't want to wake from slumber to test it.
Also, for those with the USB slot in the center console, you can use a flash drive with all the files you wish to play using USB Input. Be aware though, if you have 10,000 or more files it may take awhile for the system to load and start playing.

 

I’m right there with you.
But sadly, https://ottverse.com/mp3-aac-ac3-wav...s-differences/
As the codec in our stereos are less than adequate by modern standards, I prefer to use wav files.
fyi:

 

I can't tell the difference, not in the Jag and not on my home stuff (that was higher-end about ten years ago, so still nearly that, actually).
Plus, according to your link:
.WAV = "It is not suited for consumer or end-user applications due to the large data sizes."