Kenwood Kiv Bt900 and Alpine Cda 117

Caraudio friends, I am in need of some detailed specific information about the startup operation of these two units, and would greatly appreciate any help that you guys might be able to offer. I'm asking for quite a bit of detail here. I wouldn't trouble you guys with these questions if I could visit a local shop and perform some tests on these units, but there aren't any shops in my location that carry the products. Also, some of the items about which I'm inquiring below can be observed in YouTube videos or from other online sources. But some of these sources are difficult to gauge in reliability, such as manufacturers (they create video mockups of onscreen displays and functionality that are not real in response time or fidelity, etc.) So, I'm really hoping for some solid information from this community because I feel that it will be the most helpful. Thanks for your understanding. The usage case will be a USB flash drive as the storage media, with music stored in folders nested at two layers deep in the drive. So, the drive, which is actually a Sansa Clip+ 4GB but acts like a USB drive when connected, has the following file path with music and audiobooks: Root Directory(named Sansa Clip+ 4GB)/Internal Memory/Audio Books and Root Directory(named Sansa Clip+ 4GB)/Internal Memory/Music The usage case would be to have the USB device connected before or after power on, and I will ask some questions about these two scenarios below. I would be grateful if owners of the named HUs would be so kind as to offer some insight into the following startup operation details: Hardware Used If possible, please give me the details of your USB storage device. For example, please tell me the media storage device type, brand, and model along with the drive size and number of GBs of music. If there are video files in addition to music, please include these details. The reason I am looking for these details is because I believe these aspects of the usage case may affect reading/banking times along with selection operations. For example, in my experience, a small (8GB or so) expensive USB flash drive or SD card from a name brand, optimized for speed such as those intended for digicams, with only two or three GBs of content would result in faster read rates in GBs/sec on a Windows machine than an economical 500GB 3.5" HDD full of thousands of folders of content running at only 4500 RPM rather than speedier 7200 or even 9600 RPM devices. In the case of the Kenwood, are you running the latest firmware released in Feb 2011? Power On What actually occurs when the unit powers on? And what is the duration in seconds for each stage of the startup sequence? I'm referring to what kind of splash screen or welcome messages are displayed, and the duration in seconds of each of these steps of bootup, so to speak. If the USB device is connected prior to power on, what does the HU do? Does it automatically begin reading or banking immediately following the startup sequence? Or does the user have to perform some kind of selection such as manually choosing the USB by pressing the Source button? Resume Assuming the HU was playing a music track upon shutdown, and the USB device remains connected upon restart, what occurs? Does the HU resume playback after the startup sequence? Cold Start Assuming the USB device was not connected to the HU upon shutdown, or in the event that the media on the USB device has changed, what exactly is required in order to reach and begin playback of music stored in folders nested two levels deep as described above? If possible, please include a description of each button press/scroll operation required along with the duration in seconds taken for the unit to respond (some operations on modern HUs appear to take as long as 1, 2, or even 3 seconds to respond with line item update or menu level entry/exit). GBs per sec Reading/Banking Speed I want to approximate a calculated Reading/Banking speed for each HU, for my usage case. So I need to ask if I can trouble someone to offer me some user experience details about reading and banking times. If possible, please give me the details of your usage case rather than just an arrived upon GBs/sec calculation. For example, please tell me the media storage device type, brand, and model along with the number of GBs of music. If there are video files in addition to music, include these details. I'm hoping to learn of what I can rely on as something like a reference reading/banking speed for the machines, so it would be ideal if there is someone who uses a media storage device with only music (no album art or video files), as these additional items may affect reading/banking times. Quirks, Failures, Other Are there any behaviors about which a shopper should be aware such as performance aspects that are extremely poor or would be considered outright failures or would be considered to be broken. Examples include the problem I read about for the CDA-117 in which it does not make the content on a USB flash drive available for browsing via the folder structure on the drive. Rather, for some users the HU apparently just hurls all of the content on the drive into a bank and allows only line by line scrolling for selection. And the content is not displayed alphabetically, but rather is displayed according to Date Modified or something. Any behavior such as this one that you guys are finding that makes operating the device with a USB flash drive to be prohibitively difficult or overly cumbersome would be very helpful to know. Thanks very much for reviewing this post and for offering any details you may have about these aspects of the HUs.