I played with a new Sport RL at my dealership at length the other day. I wanted to see how exactly the base radio works as I wait for my RTL AWD to come the end of August.
I searched and did not see a dedicated thread to explain to would be buyers who have not test drove an RL on what to expect from the base radio that does not have the cool android and app features of the higher end touchscreen unit.
I am coming from a 2011 F-150 with a non-navigation system with "SYNC". I use a USB stick loaded with all my itunes songs. SYNC allows me to speak the track name, artist name or album with voice commands and it finds and plays that request. I really like it as it is intuitive and hands free. The USB stick i use has all songs in one large folder. I do not use my phone to play music.
Now in the Ridgeline with base radio, they have one USB port in the console. I like this better than how the higher end models make you use a port out in the open by the dashboard. I brought along my USB stick to see how the radio sounds and how I can find songs on it. I wanted to compare this to my Ford that I am trading in. This thread is not about which radio is better, but just to give people an idea of what to expect. I feel I am downgrading a bit in the voice command department, however the sound quality of the RL is better than my Ford even after I upgraded some door speakers and added tweeters.
The Honda owners manual kinda sucks as it really does not tell you much about the audio system's USB functionality/ There are NO voice commands for the audio through the USB. Not sure if you can control anything through a phone with the phone voice commands as I did not pair a phone to it. Because I had all my music in one folder, the radio would only allow me to scroll through the ENTIRE USB stick in the order the files were in it. For me this was by date added I think as it was not even alphabetically. If you wanted to shuffle songs, I could NOT do that by artist or album as it only shuffled the entire folder (which was every song on the stick). So you would need to create a new folder for every artist or album on the USB stick if you wanted the radio to allow more specific searches.
Basically I am a bit disappointed as I cannot find a specific track or artist with the radio buttons or steering wheel controls unless I repeatedly scroll through EVERY song, or if I spend hours making folders for everything on the USB stick. Seems like a USB stick is not a good way to go unless you never want to search for specific music and just want to let the radio play tracks in order or via shuffle.
My F-150 was way easier to use the SYNC with a USB stick, but it did NOT like having an ipod connected to its USB port. I would get errors all the time. I did not have my ipod with me during this ridgeline test to see how much easier it is to search tracks or artists. I am really hoping that it is easier to do with an ipod hooked up compared to a USB stick, but with the small number of buttons, I don't know that it will be very easy. I enjoy telling my Ford SYNC system to play "track XXX" and it does. I think even with the ipod hooked up, it will take tons of button presses and many glances at the screen to see if I can find a certain song.
I am hoping to test the ipod connection out early this week as long as the RL at my dealership does not get sold before then. Maybe if some other members here have used the base radio with their ipods, they can add their experience on how it works to control the ipod in order to complete this thread?
Maybe the voice commands for the phone would be better if I put all my music on the phone? I am not sure because as mentioned above, I did not pair a phone and I have never used my phone in my F150 as a music source...
I searched and did not see a dedicated thread to explain to would be buyers who have not test drove an RL on what to expect from the base radio that does not have the cool android and app features of the higher end touchscreen unit.
I am coming from a 2011 F-150 with a non-navigation system with "SYNC". I use a USB stick loaded with all my itunes songs. SYNC allows me to speak the track name, artist name or album with voice commands and it finds and plays that request. I really like it as it is intuitive and hands free. The USB stick i use has all songs in one large folder. I do not use my phone to play music.
Now in the Ridgeline with base radio, they have one USB port in the console. I like this better than how the higher end models make you use a port out in the open by the dashboard. I brought along my USB stick to see how the radio sounds and how I can find songs on it. I wanted to compare this to my Ford that I am trading in. This thread is not about which radio is better, but just to give people an idea of what to expect. I feel I am downgrading a bit in the voice command department, however the sound quality of the RL is better than my Ford even after I upgraded some door speakers and added tweeters.
The Honda owners manual kinda sucks as it really does not tell you much about the audio system's USB functionality/ There are NO voice commands for the audio through the USB. Not sure if you can control anything through a phone with the phone voice commands as I did not pair a phone to it. Because I had all my music in one folder, the radio would only allow me to scroll through the ENTIRE USB stick in the order the files were in it. For me this was by date added I think as it was not even alphabetically. If you wanted to shuffle songs, I could NOT do that by artist or album as it only shuffled the entire folder (which was every song on the stick). So you would need to create a new folder for every artist or album on the USB stick if you wanted the radio to allow more specific searches.
Basically I am a bit disappointed as I cannot find a specific track or artist with the radio buttons or steering wheel controls unless I repeatedly scroll through EVERY song, or if I spend hours making folders for everything on the USB stick. Seems like a USB stick is not a good way to go unless you never want to search for specific music and just want to let the radio play tracks in order or via shuffle.
My F-150 was way easier to use the SYNC with a USB stick, but it did NOT like having an ipod connected to its USB port. I would get errors all the time. I did not have my ipod with me during this ridgeline test to see how much easier it is to search tracks or artists. I am really hoping that it is easier to do with an ipod hooked up compared to a USB stick, but with the small number of buttons, I don't know that it will be very easy. I enjoy telling my Ford SYNC system to play "track XXX" and it does. I think even with the ipod hooked up, it will take tons of button presses and many glances at the screen to see if I can find a certain song.
I am hoping to test the ipod connection out early this week as long as the RL at my dealership does not get sold before then. Maybe if some other members here have used the base radio with their ipods, they can add their experience on how it works to control the ipod in order to complete this thread?
Maybe the voice commands for the phone would be better if I put all my music on the phone? I am not sure because as mentioned above, I did not pair a phone and I have never used my phone in my F150 as a music source...
