Home > Consumer Reviews > Boss Audio 534UA In-Dash CD/MP3 Receiver with Drop-Down Front Panel

Didnt read any cds.
I decided to use it only with usb drives. Didnt work either. I emailed customer service, they said the usb is only for drives of 512 mb or less!! I only have 1, 2, and 4 gb drives.

So it only worked for fm radio, and i have to plug my mp3 player through the audio input to listen to my own music. Thats the only way i could use it. I cant return it or anything since i live outside the US.

I've been living with this for two weeks. I think it's a great product. Sound quality is superb. AM and FM radios work fine. The full-size USB Type A port finds all the MP3s on my flash drives. The big volume knob is easy to find and use. I love the basic functionality - I can easily listen to all digital media, not just commercial CDs like my old car CD player which cost $600 in 1997.

But this stereo comes with several annoyances. The front panel displays a visualization of your audio in red lights. It doesn't affect night vision, but it's cheesy and distracting.

Two buttons that I never use - mono/stereo and loudness - are big, red, and backlit. Buttons I often use - mode, next/prev, band - are small, unlit, and hard to find. Disp - to show the clock - is particularly awkward. To alternate between AM and FM stations you have to cycle through the three FM bands - to jump from FM1 to AM means pressing mode,mode,mode. The scheme for locating songs by name is hopelessly complicated, but it might occupy the front seat passenger for the better part of a long trip. Removing and replacing the front panel is a little tricky, and the latch doesn't have the positive feel of my old stereo. This device does NOT support the Ogg Vorbis digital audio format. It works fine with my 1GB and 2GB USB drives.

The product works great, and it's a terrific value at the current price, but the user interface wants improvement.

If you don't care about sound quality or features and just need a simple receiver to play your music from CDs or USB flash drives this is good for the price. However, you cannot expect this to have the quality of other more expensive brands.

I live outside of the united states and bought this radio through a friend who visited the states. when I got the radio it did not work, and a proffesional technician checked it and confirmed that the system is out of order. I wrote a mail to ANTonline service and did not get any answer.