Kenwood DNX6190 with Garmin

Is their by chance any one out their with a different Kenwood model experiencing something similar?

I'm an owner of a Kenwood 9980 navigation receiver and after much trial and error I was able to get a wav voice file to work for announcing upcoming highway rest stops, "rest stop coming up three miles ahead". I used the voice file along with the database RestAreaCombined CSV files that I downloaded here on this forum. Many times I tried to use the same voice file in mp3 format but could not get it to work so I stayed with the wav file that worked.

I reported my experience on the Kenwood forum here: http://kenwoodforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=16098#p16098

Do you use Garmin's POI Loader to install custom POIs to the Kenwood device?

My guess is that the Kenwood can't play mp3 audio (unless you can show Kenwood specs stating that it can play mp3) so I'd look more towards using wav files.

Have your exactly followed the directions in this faq:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25730

I think that 95% of the time when we hear that Custom POIs with alerts give a "dong dong" alert instead of the desired custom wav file audio, it's due to one or more of the following:

.wav file double extensions (xxxxxxx.wav.wav)

wav file has a non-matching filename compared to the csv or gpx

wrong sox version

sox.exe placed in the wrong computer folder (probably the most common problem when folks are trying to follow the above link)

incompatible wav file

In addition to loading POI files with alerts and the attempt to load a custom audio file, can you also load bmp icons? If so, have you tried and do they appear?

The Kenwood plays my audio MP3 files from usb stick just fine. The same wav files poi build worked in my other GPS. Have used same names in files and no double extensions. The icon display is working fine. I will try building some different wav files this w/e to see what happens. I like the radios all in one features just miss my custom alerts. I am encouraged that someone did get a custom sound file to work in another kenwood model. Some other forums talk about firmware changes that started problems in latter models.

Sattyfied, I too use a USB stick, a Kingston 32GB stick, for my music files and they play mp3 just fine. I tried both mp3 and nav audio files for custom POI audio alerts and i was only able to get the nav files to function. I am not saying that mp3 won't work for voice alerts, it just didn't work for me the few times I tried it but I was able to get the nav files working just fine.

However, it seems there is a lot of variability between different Kenwood models and model years. My e-mail contact with Kenwood tech support to try to get specific information about my model pertaining to mp3 and nav voice alerts never got a reply.

still no luck yet

but still no sound

I never could get any audio alert to work other than the standard DING on my DNX6990HD. Did you ever get it to work on your 6190?