I've had a similar problem, only mine will play songs 1-60 or so, then it acts like the rest of the songs don't exist. I think you guys are right, buy good discs to begin with. Second, if one type of software doesn't yield good results, try burning with different software. I haven't tried itunes burning yet, so I'll give that a whirl.
EGK

 

Mine, too.


Some people just know everything.....

 

So your HK didn't read the manual either, eh? LMAO

 

YES it is recorded from an MP3 format, but the disc has to be burned in a DATA format, This gives you a disc full of MP3 songs recorded in a data formatthat the CD player can read. Once again, read the manual because no matter what I tell you here, your mind's made up. Bye Bye

 

You bet. Thanks for playing!

 

Just this weekend I burned 179 songs to a CD. These are the only things that I know to check

1. If you want over 30 songs on a CD you MUST burn them as a data file
2. You must burn the files as a MP3, YOU CAN NOT burn them as a WMA, or CDA! Must be MP3
3. You should burn the songs at a speed of 8 or slower
4. If you downloaded these songs for the net, some songs are locked where they will only play with your ISP server, example if you buy them from AOL they sometimes put a lock that they can only be played on you PC.
5. Some newer car radio's are able to play MP3's or CDA's or WMA's so that might throw you off!
6. You might want to put the CD back in your PC when done and view disk and view by LIST, check file type again.

Good luck, I know it works!
One last thing you might want to check is the version of your HK player.

 

It is not necessary to burn the disc at a slow speed... in fact that can cause the problem. Look at the CDs you are using and burn them at their rated speed. CDs are made to be burned at a certain speed. Increasing or decreasing the burn speed will degrade the image since the CD material is made for a different speed.

 

Make certain that you close the session when burning the disc. If you aren't familiar with what that means, I'll briefly explain. CDs were originally intended to be written to one time only (unless they were the R/W kind). Later on they developed a process called "Multisession" which allowed you to write to a once-write CD, then later come back and add data to it by writing another session on the disc. Essentially, instead of closing out the disc as originally intended, it writes the data to the disc in a manner that allows additional recording sessions to be added. By default, a lot of recording software automatically chooses "multisession" for the burn type. Non computer CD drives often have problem with CDs that have been recorded as multisession discs. It previous years, it really used to be a problem but with the advent of MP3 capable car units, the CD drives are much better behaved with multisession media. I'd more than expect a Harmon-Kardon CD unit to be capable of reading a multisession disc, but this a radio unit on a motorcycle we are talking about.

Also, the HK unit seems to be extremely sensitive to the disc media and how it was burned. There a tons of threads about trying to update the firmware on these units and people having problems with it reading the discs. I guess if I ever get around to actually making a CD for my Street Glide, I'll test one as multisession and one as regular to see if it makes a difference.

Drel

 

Drelkor beat me to it! I've seen a similar problem before on different computers reading data, and closing the session fixed it.

Also, concerning the number of MP3 files you can get on a CD: There are sampling options for the music quality of MP3 files. Many times a default of 128Kbps (or higher) is used. Set this to 64Kbps, I assure you the sound quality will be more than sufficient for your scooter. The higher the sampling rate, the larger the MP3 files will be, that is, less of them will fit on the disc.

 

Okay. Here's what I've tried...

- Tried recording with the Mac and the PC with iTunes.
- Recorded as "MP3" and as "Data" (no difference in result on the H/K)
- Recorded at slow and fast speeds. No difference in the result.
- Tried different CDs, didn't make a difference.
- Made sure all the MP3s had the same ID tag version (I'm reaching, I know...)

Unless I'm missing something obvious, I guess it's a problem with the H/K.

Any other ideas?