749009

Completely separate issue from the questions I had posted earlier on the CEL, so posted as a separate topic.

As I had indicated in a previous post, I was having my local Audi dealer replace my factory Symphony II / 6 CD in dash head unit under their exchange program due to an internal fault in my original head unit. This is on an '02 A6 2.7, but, I think most 2002 and newer Audi's with a factory stereo unit would have a very similar unit with identical features to the one on my car.

New unit is installed and I have a concern on the Random setting during the CD's operation. I've read through the Sound System manual and on page 27, under the Random Off, CD or CD Changer settings, it states for the CD Changer setting:
"the Random function is activated for all CD's in the currently selected CD changer". However, it does NOT state in what manner or in what order CD's are chosen in random fashion.

Having owned numerous other luxury cars with this same option, in those cars, the CD unit will select 1 CD and then randomly select 1 song off that CD and play it. The unit will then randomly select another CD in the machine and again randomly select another song on that CD and play it. And so on.

What my newly installed unit is doing is this:
Selects 1 CD and then randomly plays 5 - 8 songs on that CD, BEFORE switching to another CD and starting the random selection of 5 - 8 songs on that 2nd CD, and so on.

The tech's at my dealer clearly were not well versed on this particular function and could only say that the new unit was coded properly , otherwise operating properly and they believed was operating as it should.

For those of you with the Symphony II head units with the 6 CD changer in dash (I believe started with 2002 models), when set on the Random play function set to "CD Changer", does your unit work the same as mine is now working OR does it select 1 song on 1 CD, play it, and then choose another song on a different CD?

Thanks for sharing your random experiences.

afretes

It works the way it's doing it now.

749009

unusual operating procedure, but, thank you for your "random" confirmation

DeMOROlized

My experience with other brands works pretty much the same as the Audi.

749009

I can understand Audi's offering 2 distinct random modes...
1) to randomly select songs on a single CD and
2) to randomly select songs on all the CD's within the unit, but, to randomly select 5 - 8 songs on 1 CD, BEFORE switching to another CD seems so close to the random operation on a single CD that it almost makes the second random mode pointless.

In any event, I much prefer it when the random operation selects a single song and plays it and then switches to randomly select another song from ALL the available CD's.
All the Lexus products I've owned offered that and I think the Infiniti's did as well. I think the Acuras only shuffled songs on a single CD even when the changer held 6 CD's. The last BMW I owned just had a single CD, so I can't comment on what random procedure they offer on their CD changers.
My '01 A6 2.7 had the single CD in dash and the 6 CD changer in the trunk and I think when it was on random mode for all the CD's, it just played a single song on 1 CD before switching to another CD, but, I honestly can't remember for certain.

4Bidden

It also duplicates songs from that CD. It seems like there was no intelligence built into the unit to know which tracks it already played. Maybe a glitch...who knows.