Fashionable audio-video receivers (AVRs) have extra ports than you possibly can shake a stick at, however one in every of them—the standard USB port—is usually forgotten. I lastly determined to see what mine can do by plugging in some random USB units I’ve mendacity round.
A Pixel 8 Professional or a Cellphone
Some units are capable of mount your cellphone and read the phone’s content as storage. I wasn’t certain what file format my AVR supported going on this, so I figured I might attempt it.
Sadly, my AVR stubbornly refused to do something, no matter which port I attempted and what USB mode my cellphone was in. It did not even throw an error; it simply ignored it fully. My cellphone did slowly cost, nonetheless.
An Exterior SSD
My exterior SSD, which was formatted as NTFS, was picked up immediately. The audio information and photographs might be readily seen. I did not check a drive formatted as FAT32, however I totally count on it will work—FAT32 is supported by nearly all the pieces.
Disappointly—however unsurprisingly—the AVR did not acknowledge the SSD when it was formatted for exFAT.
I used to be a bit of shocked it acknowledged a 4-terabyte drive with out challenge.
An Exterior Arduous Drive
Having had success with the SSD, I went for an everyday spinning arduous disk subsequent.
As you may count on, a standard 3.5-inch drive didn’t spin up when powered solely by the USB port. Connecting an exterior energy provide solved the problem, nonetheless.
You could possibly get a small, sluggish laptop computer drive to run solely on the ability offered by the USB port, since they eat much less energy. Nevertheless, there in all probability is not a lot level when SSDs work with out a problem.
A Keyboard, a Mouse, and a Controller
I did not count on any enter units to work, however I made a decision to provide it a attempt simply in case one thing fascinating occurred. All of the units clearly obtained energy (because the lights got here on), however the AVR wasn’t able to doing something with the indicators it was getting again.
A Wi-Fi Adapter
Simply to see what occurred, I disconnected my AVR from the Wi-Fi and eliminated the antenna from the again.
I then plugged in a small USB Wi-Fi adapter to see if the AVR had some hidden capability to hook up with the web over USB. Sadly, it did not work, dashing my hopes of a cellular-enabled sound system.
A Laptop computer Did not Work
I wasn’t certain precisely what I wished it to do, however I additionally tried connecting my Linux laptop computer to my AVR simply to see what occurred. As warned by the guide, nothing occurred in any respect.
They Can Energy Any Regular USB System
My AVR’s USB ports (that are USB A) appear to be fairly run-of-the-mill, which limits them to a most output of 5 volts at 3 amps, or 15 watts.
One of many extra fascinating AVR-specific peripherals I’ve seen are USB fans.
Most AVRs are passively cooled and might get fairly heat. In case your AVR lacks a fan, there are small followers that plug immediately into the USB port and develop into lively when the unit powers on.
Nevertheless, there are normally good causes that AVRs do not have followers, or in the event that they do, they do not sometimes kick on. The large one is fan noise. Followers, even quiet ones, could be immersion-breaking in case you’re watching a quiet scene in a film or tv present.
Moreover, followers may generate electromagnetic interference (EMI) that would produce audible distortions in your audio.
You would additionally connect low-power ornamental USB-powered lights in case you wished to.
Not All Receivers Are the Identical
Even if AVRs look largely unchanged, there are some fairly essential variations which have cropped up over time.
In wanting by the manuals of some older AVRs have been able to immediately interfacing with an iPod over USB. That’s an fascinating characteristic that appears to have been fully dropped lately.
Newer, costlier AVRs additionally normally help drives which have been formatted utilizing exFAT, which ought to have been common years in the past.
Software program Is a Larger Limitation Than {Hardware}
Regardless of the {hardware} limitations of an AVR, the software program might be an excellent larger limitation.
Even after fiddling round with it for some time, I nonetheless discovered the AVR’s software program very clunky and finnicky. The older Yamaha unit I’ve wasn’t actually any higher.
Despite the fact that my strong state drive was acknowledged, I am unable to think about truly utilizing 4TB of storage with this interface. If encoded as MP3s, the drive may retailer round 1,000,000 songs. It could be completely unmanageable and not using a full redesign.
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