MML-L1 MultiMediaLinQ - USB, iPod/iPhone integration interface kit for Toyota/Lexus vehicles

Price of admission steep. But being able to bring an almost 15 year old car to play FLAC and MP3 as OEM-like as this is quite a god send.Installation did take a good 45 minutes to one hour. I tried to fit it behind or around the CD player inside the dash, but it didn't fit anywhere. However i noticed that there was a hole that lead directly into the passenger side glove box. Slid the cord through there and placed the MML box/console in the glovebox. Bam installation done and put everything back into place.So getting down to business. You're probably going to be slightly confused when you first try to use this. But i'll try to explain as much as I can because this little thing is deceivingly powerful.Loading files onto the thumb drive:The manual is stupid confusing, even for a UNIX administrator like myself. Apparently there are three ways that the MML will identify and play music. But it uses the word “playlist” for everything from a list of files in a folder, to describing an M3U file containing a list of songs. Whatever. I gave up trying to decipher it and just dumped all my folders into the drive. That worked to a certain extent, but theres a catch. The unit will only go by a folder at a time.Lets say you have two albums of songs you want to copy onto the thumb drive./Jazz/UpTown.mp3and/Pink Floyd/The Wall/In The Flesh.mp3Sometimes I group albums inside another folder, like in the case of “The Wall” album. I do this because I have more than one Pink Floyd album. The problem is that the MML won’t see the files in the “The Wall” folder. It can only go down one level before it stops and tries to find music files. So the “Jazz” folder with the “UpTown” file will play because its just one level deep.So you have to either do some manual work and move them out of the “Pink Floyd” folder, or create an M3U file that tells the MML where to go exactly to find the file. I dont have the time to create M3U files from scratch so I went with the having everything one level deep.Sound Quality? It's as good as it gets. It's not going to IMPROVE what you already have in the Mark Levinson system, however it is by far much much better than any FM transmitter i've used. No hiss, buzz, pop, or snaps. With the good quality FM transmitter i had previously it was really good sounding. But when you turn up the volume, it's limitation became apparent. Notably the noise floor rises to the point that the hissing becomes moderately annoying. With the MML the noise floor is pretty much non-existent. Raise the volume as much as you want but you wont hear the noise floor. That's proper engineering right there.Second. Actual use? Pretty decently good. But im going to point out two negative first. You can decide how this affects you but the good outweigh these negatives for me.#1. It's not the fastest thing in the world. Pressing the next-track button on your steering wheel 8 times super quickly will result in possibly only going to track 6. So you have to be slightly more patient. Not too patient though. Maybe just under a half second for it get going to the next file.#2. No ogg support! Bleh! THANKFULLY it has FLAC but im super curious why they didn't go the extra mile and include OGG support. And unfortunately (this could be negative #3 in a way) support for new features are probably never going to come. The forums for VIAS Tech are all but dead since 2012.Okay so its installed and you have a FAT32 formatted thumb drive loaded with some music. Plug it in go right? Well. You can sure. But i suggest switching the device to MD mode. Read the manual on how to change but basically in CD mode (which mine came in by default) it wont show the names of the files on screen. This was important to me so i switched it to MD mode. There is also MP3 mode and that allows you to (apparently) have up to 999 albums (aka folders [henceforth will be called folders in this review]) instead of 99 folders. But you still don't get file names to display on the navigation screen.So now it's switched to MD mode and you turn your car on like everyday. Peculiarity #3 encountered. For some strange reason the MML box doesn't go in alphabetical order in folder names. Instead it goes via folder creation dates [need to test this more, will update if i find more info]. So you might have "A album" and "B album" folders on the thumb drive, but if you copy "B album" on to it first, that will become the first folder the MML will play.On Screen Controls:On my 2003 LS 430 display, the "Audio" screen will have 8 important buttons for use.DISC RPT, DISC RAND, and DISC SCAN on the top tow.RPT, RAND, and SCAN on the bottom.And finally "up" and "down" buttons on the right.Some of these buttons will act differently depending on if you also use the "up" and "down" buttons.If you activate/press DISC RPT, it will play all the music files in a folder and when it reaches the end, it will cycle back to track 1 in the same folder. Deactivating it / not having it on will make the MML go to the next folder with new music files.If you activate/press DISC RAND, it alone won’t do anything. But if you press that along with the "up" or "down" arrow, it will switch to the next FAT32 partition. I'll explain this in detail later.If you activate/press DISC SCAN, it alone won’t do anything. But if you press that along with the "up" or "down" arrow, it will skip to the next available folder. On the display, these are called "discs". If you have “The Wall” and “Dark Side of the Moon” as folders on your thumb drive, these will appear as separate “Discs” to the MML. So on screen it will say something like “DISC 1 The Wall”. DISC SCAN + “up” arrow will switch to the next folder, and correspondingly on the screen it will say “DISC 2 Dark Side of the Moon”. Etc. etc.If you activate/press RPT, it will repeat that single track/file. It akin to a loop pretty much.If you activate/press RAND, it will randomize the tracks in that folder. It won’t randomize across the entire thumb drive however. JUST that disc/folder. Peculiarity #4. If you have RAND activated when you turn the vehicle off, when you re-start the car whatever track it played last now becomes track 1 and starts a whole new randomization.If you activate/press SCAN, it alone won’t do anything. But if you press that along with the "up" or "down" arrow, it will skip ten files. Eg. you are currently listening to track 14, press SCAN and “up” arrow once, now you will be on track 24.Note that you cannot simply skip a track using the on screen menu. This is done by either the dedicated physical buttons on the dash or on the steering wheel.Back to the partition thing. It’s a feature that potentially less than 1% of the consumers who purchased an MML use because it’s slightly difficult to understand, and the Windows OS doesn’t make it easy to take advantage of.So in Windows OS, when you plug in a USB drive and go to My Computer, it usually pops up as a new drive right? Something like “DRIVE E” and a bar that show the space used and available. Without getting terribly technical, the MML has the ability to see up to four of these. And there are 3rd party programs (I used one called “BOOTICE”) out there that allows one single thumb drive come up as four smaller drives. So instead when you plug in that single thumb drive, it will have DRIVE E, F, G, and H available for use *1. They will be smaller though since it has to be divided up amongst what is available. Now how or why is this useful?Remember, in MD Mode you can only have up to 99 folders in one drive. With partitioning a thumb drive, you now have the option to have up to almost 400 folders spread across 4 partitions (up to 99 in each). And if you DO choose to go with MP3 mode, that mode allows 999 per partition for possibility to have up to almost 4000 folders.It’s a drag that the MML can only see 99 folders, but with this unique (if somewhat esoteric) feature it’s mildly alleviated. If only MP3 mode allowed text to appear on screen I wouldn’t have to use this feature. But 99 folders isn’t enough.All in all, I have to say I’m personally quite satisfied with this product. It’s got its quirks, and its not perfect. But I bought it to play music first and foremost, and that it does with aplomb. As good a quality as you can get and it works every single time. It has never froze, acted without input, skipped files for no reason, or glitched in any way. If you’ve got the cash to spend I would say its a pretty good investment to your enjoyment of your digital music files.*1 okay not 100% true, but again I’d rather not go into too much detail.

Great way to add new functionality to an old car. My 2001 GS430 ML no nav now sees my iPhone6s+ as CD2 in addition to the in dash changer, steering wheel controls work as expected.Installation is a breeze, music plays/pauses with power on/off of car or stereo. Navigation audio cuts in over music just as with a headset.Only nit: there is a small delay between stereo controls and device response due to buffering by the device, but it's only a second.Great device, well made.

the perfect solution to add a USB connection to your Lexus factory radio. The installer had a bit of a problem installing it since I already had a VAIS XM modulator installed in the car but technical support dept at VAIS was very quick and efficient in solving the problem. The only objection I have is that volume level between sources can vary a lot and you have to be careful in turning the volume down before switching sources and avoiding blowing your speakers.

Thanks A lot

I love the Mark Levinson sound system in my Lexus but it is a bit dated. It will play just about anything from cassette to CD's but cannot play MP3's.......until now. After a lot of shopping around I purchased this unit and spent a few hours installing. I removed the radio/CD from my dash to access the factory wiring. You unplug the factory wiring and "daisy chain" the included new harness into place. You then mount the MML unit anywhere you choose (I tucked mine in the glove compartment) and either plug a USB extender cable or USB flash drive into the base unit. It will playback MP3s, FLAC or WAV files through the factory radio using factory controls. It will display song titles on the radio. Factory steering wheel controls function to change between songs and playlists. Sound quality is very good depending on the quality of the original. MP3's with low encoding rates will only sound as good as the rate encoded. FLAC and WAV are nearly flawless. I love that you can fit up to 999 folders with up to 999 songs on each folder. I copied 700 songs in various formats onto an 8GB flash drive and it is only 80% full! As an added bonus you can program this unit to automatically bypass the "I AGREE" lawyerese nag button on your navigation start-up screen. Very nice and I am only sorry I waited so long to buy.