Thinking of specifying an MDI as an option. I see they have connection cables for iPods . . . . can't see any options for Sony MP3 players. Has anyone been able to connect a Sony player through MDI? Or does it mean having to buy an iPod?

You can connect the Sony, if the player presents itself to windows as a Mass Storage Device then you can get the USB connection cable and plug the player into that via its USB cable.

If the Sony player does not appear as a disk drive in windows (under my computer) then you can still connect it (via aux in cable) but will be unable to control the player via the headunit.

Thanks mannyo.

Sony mp3 player does indeed show up as a disk drive under windows. So does this mean I use the Sony usb cable and a usb cablefrom the MDI and join the two usb's together? Is the MDI usb female or does it need a connector? Will it also power the player? If so - how about using just a cheap portable hard drive?

A cheap portable laptop drive will be fine. That's what I use and I synch that drive from my main music library using Media Monkey.

The usb MDI interface does not read mp3 or other tags when browsing music on the hard drive (although it does when displaying infomation about a track while playing) - it can only browse by directory name and files within a directory so make sure you order your music on the drive in a way that makes sense for you.

I prefer the usb drive to an ipod because, at least for me, the first second or two of every track played via the MDI ipod interface stutters and is not seamless - that for me ruins listening to my music via the ipod. No problems going through the USB drive.

Thanks for the info.

So if MDI cant read the file information off a hard drive/mp3 player - is it any better then just feeding the Bolero with an SD card??

Just looking for the best quality/cheapest option to play mp3s.