H & B Car Audio MP3 CA-5555i
For those Techlounge readers that can’t wait to solve their in car audio problems and find a way to be able to listen to all of your Mp3’s with the Kenwood HDM-555, then we have a solution for you that will cost you less than £100
H & B, who are a French manufacturer who specialise in DVD/Mpeg4 players have produced the CA-5555i. They are not up with the big name in-car audio manufacturers such as Kenwood, Pioneer, Panasonic and Sony but they have the technology. The audio unit will do everything that a normal car stereo will do with a slot loading CD player that supports CD-R/CD-RW and an FM tuner, but this gadget also supports an Mp3 playback. When you are playing your Mp3’s, thanks to ID3 tags, the track names will scroll across the display and the search function will allow you to find your favourite tracks easily.
The big difference with this device is that there is a USB port on the front, for Mp3 players and USB sticks, along with a SD/MMC memory card reader enabling you to play your Mp3’s from your portable storage devices. This car stereo looks good but it has great technology for a small price.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
This looks great and such a good price. What is the sound quality like on it though?
November 16th, 2005 at 5:40 pm
A great USB stick to take your Mp3’s into your car on would be the Corsair Flash Voyager as it has a big capacity and is very resistant to damage.
Techlounge
November 17th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Would the sound quality on this be better than a cassette converter plugged into an mp3 player?
November 17th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Chris > I’d say yes without a doubt. Cassette line-in converters anyway use the simple and usually low-end cassette player head for sound transmission, which of course cannot reproduce the full bandwidth of an mp3 track coded at even 128kbps.
November 17th, 2005 at 2:35 pm
We would have to agree totally with Martin on this. The cassette converter is just not an option when it comes to handling Mp3’s.
Techlounge
January 9th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
I have one of these, and it’s good, but I’m having a few problems with it - the playback from the USB stick keeps resetting itself in the middle of the track. And I can read MP3 CDs, but it doesn’t play anything on them. CDs work fine. Haven’t tried the SD card reader yet. Their documentation is terrible, and their website isn’t much help either.
January 26th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Joe, Are you still having trouble with this? I would be very interested to know if this is a problem across all these models or just the unit that you have. Anyone else have this (or any other) sort of trouble with this car stereo? Thanks all.
January 31st, 2006 at 2:16 am
i bought what i thought was the ca 5555i but recieved the ca 5555 with a big “compatible with ipod” sticker on the front. well, my ipod shuffle is having none of it and the unit isnt picking up the device at all. can anyone confirm to me wheather or not you have an “i” on the end of the “5″ or have i been stitched up here?
January 31st, 2006 at 9:17 pm
I also bought it and got the same thing Elliot did. Don’t have an iPod to test it, but bought it for the USB flash drive feature. Well, it tries to read the files off the drive, occasionally it displays a file name/ID3 tag, but doesn’t play back the MP3s… ever. I get no error messages either.
That said, the SD/MMC and CD-MP3/CD-RW works flawlessly. The big silvery knob on it leaves a little to be desired as far as taste, but for this price I can’t complain. I just wish I could remove the face plate without tearing off my dash trim - the stupid silver knob won’t let it flip down the whole way to remove it.
The 4x RCA outs are great for those relentless infinity sound systems found in Mitsubishis. I was able to get it working without bypassing the factory amp. MITAH adapter and factory harness is all u need.
February 1st, 2006 at 3:59 am
thanks for that russ, ive contacted the people i bought it off and they have agreed to have it shipped back to them. im just wondering if theres a problem with either the player or the packaging as there was no fuss at all about my problem.
on the plus side ive had no problems using a 128mb pen drive at all, even picks up the tags.
just a thought but do you have any other files on your drive apart from mp3`s? if you have it may be confusing it. just an idea.
February 5th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
i have just some problem with a microdrive arcdisk 4gb based on hdd CF 2 type
the car audio don’t read the disk. how must i solve this problem?
Which it is the max Gb that it supports the Car Audio MP3 CA-5555i ?
February 6th, 2006 at 10:12 am
stefano, be warned, that is only my guess, but most devices support memory cards up to 2gb.
February 6th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Martin, I have made an attempt. I have created a partition smaller than than 2gb. Nothing to make does not work. I thing that the arcdisk 4gb is incompatible
February 7th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Hi All, I got a H&B ca-5555 delivered today, pluged all wires via an adapter to my mitsubishi shogun via iso plugs, easy peasy. however I get a buzzing noise from the speakers on low volume its worse as the sound of the music playing doesn’t drown it out. Also I have one mp3 on my USB gizmo and the damn thing will not recognise my usb stick, tried all mp3 formats 64 128 and 196. The manual is a joke, as is the H&B website. I can see this player going straight back tomorrow, even if its cheap, it should still work or its just a door stop.
February 10th, 2006 at 12:55 am
hello there.. Bought the ca5555, with the “I” sticker.. cd, mp3, card reader works great! but the usb is terrible… keeps reseting in middle of the tracks, and sometimes it cant even play them at all! I’m using a pqi 1gb usb drive, but I tried a few more and the problem persists..
February 21st, 2006 at 8:21 pm
I just installed my CA-5555i today. No luck with USB devices yet. I posted a short report and some pictures on my website.
http://netwalker.nl/2006/02/21/hb-ca-5555i-first-impressions/
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:32 am
hi, bought one of these the other day, fitting went easy, good sound, however, when i tried my creative zen micro in the usb slot, no joy, recognises it, charges it but doeasn’t play it, tried a creative touch, same again, it will play my lexmar usb stick though. i purposely bought it for the mp3 player option, supplier has agreed to take it back as it does state that it is compatable with creative zen mp3 player, disappointed. oh, and mine also says CA-5555 not Ca-5555i, is there a difference?
March 6th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Hi,
Chris: I don’t believe you will be able to use a Creative Zen with this as it does not behave as a removable disk (charging is the best you can hope for!).
I have tried to get this working with a USB (Lacie 40GB mobile) disk drive however 2 problems persist. First, playback is bad and will often stop in the middle of a track and return to the beginning. Secondly, if I fill the drive up the unit will display MAX 2000 and will not play any tracks above the 2kth one (how is this IPod optimised?? It is only about 8GB of music!).
Having read the above posts I believe this unit is flawed regarding playback from a USB device. Has anyone managed to get this working with a USB hard disk?
Lastly, I think the CA-5555i unit is just a FW updated CA-5555. The stickers say CA-5555 on mine - with the same IPod optimised sticker on the box.
March 19th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Here’s my dilemma. I have the H&B CA-5555i (With the attached “iPod” sticker.), granted the Face-plate clearly states, “H&B CD MP3 Player / Reciever CA-5555″ Seems like the manufacture would stincle the proper modle number on the face-plate as well.
Anyway, I have a 97 Dodge Intrepid, I purchased the Wiring kit and Mounting harness for it as well. Matched all the wires and so forth. Got everything set to go, hit the [Power] button and the system will not come on. I get the flashing light and the glowing [Eject] button. When the door / face is closed and I push the [Power] button, nothing happens. No lights, no screen, no nothing. I can put a CD in, hear it access the disc, close the face / door, and still get nothing. I hit [Eject], and the CD comes right out. So I know I’m getting power. But the Face-plate itself is getting nothing. Has anyone else had this problem? Or am I missing something here in order to get it working. By the way I even hit the [Reset] button as stated in the manual and still have a blank display screen. I spent damn near the whole day trying to figure out what’s wrong with this thing. My final thought is that it’s defective and I need to return it. But I thought I’d see if any of you guys here have had this issue during install. Thanks for any help you can offer.
March 20th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
I’m getting this deck so have been reading these comments with some apprehension. I read the manual (in the broken English version as my french is worse) and came up with a theory I’d like to see if anyone can verify. The limits on file and directory names for both MP3 cds and memory cards is 32 bytes which would equate to 16 characters in most modern character sets, computers don’t have this limitation and many of my files and directories don’t fit this model (i.e. Morphine - Birthday Cake.mp3). I’m wondering if this might be the source of a lot of the issues I see here.
It makes sense that a car stereo would not have the file handling characteristics of a home computer, space and $$$ impose limitations on the hardware. USB handles connections not file systems. It would take most of a laptop to give the flexibility our computers give us.
Has anyone setup a device using only 16 character names?
April 15th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Hey Guys,
Got me a CA-5555, never getting a budget thing ever again. got it to connect my zen sleek, no joy, will only charge it up, then the sleek will “crash” and ill need to reset it (the sleek). it wont work even if zen sleek is on hard disk mode with a low set capacity. I updated the firmware on the sleek (play for sure the upgrade is called….ye right)….still no joy.
Will work with a usb stick, got a 512mb by twinmos but when songs are added they dont come up with any sort of order watsoever so finding a track is hard work.
Dont matter i thought, its a cd player after all so if the cd works fine then i wouldnt care. Now for some reason it wont play some specific mp3 written on discs. I am talking about specific songs, which funny enough can be played when they are in the usb stick. this is irrelevant of the bitrate, character length, brand of cdrs, artist etc. when it comes to a such song then the player shuts down and when i turn it on again then its completely reset. now how weird and irritating can that be?? means i have to sort the equalizer settings, esp, and radio stations all over again.
Plus the time wont set no matter how many times i put it right. Why does it have a remote sensor if there is no remote for it? Why does it say vcd on the front panel display….bet some of yous must have noticed….when there is no tv out? bet im gonna stick to the brand names from now on. you pay more and you get less features most times, but they do whatever they claim.
if anyone has such problems with some ideas about solutions, i will be most grateful for their help. (especially the thing with the resetting cds is a major pain.)
April 20th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
hi i have been trying to buy a H&b ca5555i on the net but been informed it is now discontinued,glad after reading adverse comments. now looking at in phase ips 920sd. it looks like 5555 expt, facial is silver & power is 60 watts.
has anybody got any comment on920sd. is it manf,by same company?
any comments would be welcome. thanks herby
June 7th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Recently bought H&B CA5555 from Pixmania experienced similar problems as other people ie tracks on Freecom Databar 256mb usb stick would begin to play then repeat also not a peep out of my Creative Zen mp3 player. However when I bought it I also purchased a 1mb SD memory card. I have no card reader so I purchased one of those card driver adaptor thingees from Mobymemory popped the SD card inside used it as a usb memory stick with brilliant results. Haven’t tried SD card in slot yet but can only assume it should be ok
June 8th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
bought the ca5555 from pixmania.usb thumb drive has dropouts on playback but plays iriver h340 fine.cd player great for mp3 discs.ended up using mini jack to phono plugged into aux input and using iriver line out.works fine.usb is a bit annoying though.
June 20th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Hi Seen the comments, v.confused? can anyone recommend a good inexpensive car radio with usb interface???? please. Herby
June 21st, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Hey there, I bought one of the ca5555 (no ‘i’) units back at the end of december and since day one it has skipped and jumped on mp3 cds tried various disks and formats, no luck with anything, after about a month it started happening on commercial cds aswell, i have however had no problems what so ever with usb devices or sd slot… I am annoyed though because I have been trying to get in touch with the company i bought it from http://www.savastore.com and have had no luck even getting a reply to emails or phone calls answered. Any one else had problems with the cd part of this device??
December 10th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
I have owned a CA-5555 and loved it! Never had one single problem with it. One big problem though is that my car was broken into and it was stolen! I’ve been looking all over the internet for a replacement but can’t find one, somebody please help me!!!!!
January 2nd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I’ve got the 5555 (No i as far as i’m aware) and the only things i can get to work are the radio and cd-player!!!!!, my Creative Zen is unrecognised and when i try an SD card or USB stick it comes up saying it basically doesn’t recognise the file format (Even though the files are straight from windows media player so they aren’t anything fancy) and idea’s where i might be going wrong here because i’m going to lose my temper and be forced to take a rather large hammer to it in the near future if i can’t get it working properly
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:19 am
I’ve had the CA-5555 and works great. most of time i use a 4GB Sandisk SD card. The files must be mp3 format stripped from cd using CDEX. don’t use windows media player , they get encrypted. One time i found the cd player not working. Problem was inside the player. 2 dry solder joints caused the cd motor wires to come lose. re-soldered works great. Downside is the USB socket. I can get a 2Gb and even the newer fast accesss 6Gb MEMORY STICKS to work. The problem comes when trying to use External Hard Drives. They must be externally powered. there isn’t enough amps from the CA-5555 usb socket to power a 3.5 inch hard drive. At first i thought is was the NTFS format so reformatted to FAT32 . ah success USB DRIVE detected BUT won’t play the files. Reformat to FAT but problem here is the max size for FAT is 2Gb. FAT 2Gb is detected and works but doesn’t solve the problem of wanting 40Gb
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:34 am
Back again , those of you trying to find one try http://www.pixmania.co.uk and search for H&B the updated model is CA-6565