Alpine KCA-620M: USB interface for Ai-Net

**jbuck2029** · 12-14-2006, 10:54 PM

I just got the KCA-620M yesterday. So far, I am not the happiest camper.

Installation was the easiest part: Two cables, Ai-Net and USB. No power, ground, etc. Sweet.

Then I had my first "gotcha" which is that it did not immediately recognize my USB hard-drive, giving a "NO MAGAZINE" error. The manual is not worthy of an RTFM (even though I did). Searching the net did not offer much (you search these forums and you know what I mean, not a slam on MP3CAR.com, but the lack of *any* hard info on the KCA-620M). I was able to use a 2GB USB thumb drive without fail, where I found the difference to be FAT vs. FAT32, even though the "manual" clearly says "FAT or FAT32". I wont bore you with the rest of the experiments, but the final solution was to use an older FDISK (Win98) to re-create the partition and format the drive. It seems that using Windows XP or 2000 wont cut it. Fortunately I have a few extra 2.5" drives and USB enclosures to "test" with.

The next gotcha: it does NOT use ID data from the files! All that shows is <filename>.MP3 in the "song" field. Artist and Album show "NO TEXT". The same files on an MP3-CD do show all data fields on my head-unit (CDA-9835).

The searching is cumbersome as it is very different from how the MP3-CDs are treated by the head-unit. EVERY folder is listed alphabetically, even sub-folders, into ONE list. Think of it as sorting all of your CDs by Album Title and not two-stepping it as Artist, and then Title within Artist. There is also an "ALL" folder you can use, which has every file on the device sorted by filename (which, for me, is "Track#_song title")

The last gotcha is the thing that annoyed me most about my old Archos Jukebox, and that is when you power down, it does not remember what you were doing. That's right, it starts off with file number one on that sorted list when you get into your car the next time.

There is a 255 file limit per folder. I know this because I have one "junk" folder of orphan MP3's I have (where I took the one or two good songs from a CD and did not want to waste a whole Artist\Album folder for it). There are 465 files in it, but the KCA-620M shows only the first 255.

I would assume that using what the manual calls a "Premium Support" media player, where there is access to search by Playlist, Artist, Album, and Genre, the KCA-620M might actaully shine. I am going to borrow some various modern media players to test this theory. My ancient Archos Jukebox 20 won't cut it. Yeah, I tried, it does not even see it ("NO MAGAZINE").

The KCA-620M is like a KCA-420i that supports more than one player, and it happens to also give limited access to USB mass storage devices. IMHO, this is a serious let-down after waiting almost a year.

**kwchan** · 12-15-2006, 02:14 AM

thanks for the review, i almost wanted to get it for my 9855, now i have decide to sell away the 9855 altogether and use a CarPC instead

**Jahntassa** · 12-15-2006, 02:44 AM

Originally Posted by jbuck2029

I would assume that using what the manual calls a "Premium Support" media player, where there is access to search by Playlist, Artist, Album, and Genre, the KCA-620M might actaully shine. I am going to borrow some various modern media players to test this theory. My ancient Archos Jukebox 20 won't cut it. Yeah, I tried, it does not even see it ("NO MAGAZINE").

Possible theory on that Archos. The drivers for it are not built into windows, and it doesn't show up as a USB MASS STORAGE device as such. I wouldn't be surprised if the Archos, or any other unit that requires drivers (Creative Nomad 3) doesn't work.

Anything that shows up in windows as soon as you plug it in, will most likely work.

**jbuck2029** · 12-15-2006, 09:40 AM

Originally Posted by Jahntassa

Possible theory on that Archos. The drivers for it are not built into windows, and it doesn't show up as a USB MASS STORAGE device as such. I wouldn't be surprised if the Archos, or any other unit that requires drivers (Creative Nomad 3) doesn't work.

Anything that shows up in windows as soon as you plug it in, will most likely work.

That was my theory before I got KCA-620M as well. I never expected it to work, nor did I really need it to. But I had to try, because it is possible, however improbable, that Alpine would build support for many legacy players! Yeah, right...

That said, I found some more quirks this morning.

I was listening to Sirius for a while, then decided to play with the KCA-620M at the first stop-light. Remember how I said it starts over with the first song? Well, it was well into the THIRD song. That's right, it started playing without me! Odd.

I used the oh-so-efficient search to pull up a particular CD I wanted to listen to. After two songs, I decided to skip to the last song and let it play out. I wanted to know what would happen when it finished playing that CD. Would it go to the next folder? Would it start over again with the first song? Well, it *tried* to start over with the first song. It pulled up the title, but never played. I bumped it up a song, still no audio. I had to go into search and select a song, that worked. More oddness...

**jbuck2029** · 12-18-2006, 11:05 AM

FYI, it does not recognize the iPod at all, not as a USB storage device, nor as a "Premium Support" player. I am waiting to find out if this thing supports firmware upgrades and if more functionality is coming. If not, I probably wont be keeping it.

**jbuck2029** · 12-27-2006, 09:30 PM

The Toshiba Gigabeat is a Windows Mobile player. It supports PlaysForSure as well. From what is posted at microsoft.com on the KCA-620M, this should be what I need for a "premium support player". Well, it did not work, either.

**janomeg** · 01-02-2007, 04:16 PM

Hi guys..im writting to u from Lebanon..nice forum u have here and very useful.
i just wanted to ask if the kca-620m interface supports hard disk drive in an usb enclosure..thx in advance

**jbuck2029** · 01-02-2007, 04:57 PM

Yes it does. I am using a 2.5" drive installed in a Sabrent SBT-ESU25 Aluminum 2.5" USB2.0 External Enclosure (US$9.99 at newegg.com).

As I stated earlier, I did have issues getting it to see the drive at first. I had to use an older version of FDISK (from Windows98 era) and partition the drive as Fat32. For some reason, it did not like it when I did it on Windows 2000 or XP (even as Fat32).

As also stated earlier, I also have issues with the overall functionality of the unit. However, it does the minimum, which means I can play any MP3 I have on a whim without having to swap CDs.

**janomeg** · 01-03-2007, 10:05 AM

Thank u so much for this quick response..i hope our dealer here will get it or else ill buy it online..

**BiNiaRiS** · 01-04-2007, 02:34 AM

wow, this sucks. i was sooo looking forward to this thing.

i have an iriver h320 mp3 player i wanted to hook up to the alpine 9857 and this.

i organize all my music on it very well in folders: genre->alphabet->artist->album and then the tracks are all tagged/renamed a certain way so i can get to any song easily. but from what you are saying, basically what i've done would be of no use, correct? ...sigh. that coupled with the fact that it can't even read ID2/3 tags....pathetic. keep us informed if there will be any firmware upgrades and thanks so much for your detailed report. i can't really find any info on this thing anywhere else.