No CD player in new coach

As mentioned, CDs are pretty much dead, even file formats like MP3 are now on their deathbed since most folks have moved to streaming everything instead of owning.

I personally enjoy buying and owning physical media, it can't be deleted or removed from my own personal library unlike what does and can happen with the Internet.

Since my last two vehicles no longer have CD drives I have fully converted to ripping all of my CDs to MP3 and putting everything on USB flash drives.

Right now I have 6 GB of a 32 GB flash drive of music, that is over 2000 songs I have at my fingertips. It is like having a huge "jukebox" on a microchip.

Many of the newer car stereos, they have removed physical analog inputs but they often now have BlueTooth capability, you can find some portable CD players that have BT transmitter built in. That may also be a viable method although very clunky (many yrs ago when CDs were new to the market, I used portable CD players via analog or FM transmitter, was clunky but worked).

As far as ripping to MP3 goes, easy to do, most OS systems will have capability built in to the media player but there are lots of free software and apps which may make it easier to do.

Getting MP3s to play in album order takes a bit of learning but once you understand why it is easy to get it to work.

#1 Flash drive needs to be FAT32, not NTFS, FAT32 does have a size limitation which will be 32GB (FAT32 on larger drives can be done but requires some advanced trickery). USB flash drives larger than 32GB will come with exFAT (Extended FAT) which may or may not be compatible, I have not tried that on my car stereos as of yet. NTFS is not compatible with car stereos.

#2 You want each album ripped in it's own folder, do not copy all the files to the "root" of the drive, it will jumble up the play order.

#3 Play order will play numerical order first and alphabetical order after numerical. Files and folders named 1, 2, 3 will play before files and folders named A, B, C.

#4 Some car stereos may play folders in DATE/TIME order they were copied to the USB drive which can play havoc and make you think you have gone insane when that happens. Not all do this but be aware of this.

#5 When ripping to keep play order inline with album order you need to make sure the name has a consistent beginning to the file names. I found adding T (for track) and then 01 and increment the number takes care of 99% of the play order issues. So, the files will begin with T01, T02, T03 and so on and the title of the song after the T01, T02, T03..

Extremely important, you must include the 0.. Once you get to T10, the car stereo interprets T10 like it is the first track and all files beginning with T1 will play before all other files.

Adding the 0 forces the stereo to play 01-09 first, then T10, T11, T12 and so on..

Its a computer order thing..

Matt_Colie wrote:
Two Travelers,
The way easy way to get by would be to look up a remote (external) CD/DVD drive at a place that sells computers. The price will be from 25$us to whatever want to spend. If you don't have a place to land it, look for a USB extension cable at the same place.
The entertainment radio in Chaumière was installed when she came to us. That was long before the current memory capacities so we carry copies of a small number of the CDs in our library.
Matt

External USB computer CD/DVD drives do not and will not work by plugging it into car stereo systems which have a USB port. So that recommendation is wrong.

Car stereos with USB ports are looking for a file system format that is compatible with USB memory sticks/flash drives (AKA "thumb drives"). USB flash drives have a file system format that is the same as a hard drive.

CD/DVDs has a completely incompatible raw file format and only a computer is able to interpret that format through the computer OS.

For some select vehicle manufacturers and model yrs there is a company that makes special USB CD players that have firmware which interprets CD file format and converts it to emulate a USB flash drive plus specialized commands only found on CD players for Play, FF, RW, Stop and pause.

The biggest downside of those specially built CD players is cost, last time I looked at them a couple of yrs ago they were running $150 and no guarantee that it would work in your next vehicle if you decided to replace your vehicle.

For example, HERE is one specifically for 2019-2020 Ford with Sync versions 3.3 and 3.4 only.. It will only work within those model yrs and sync versions.

I'm an old dog who had to learn the new trick. First, I went to my computer store for advice. I bought an inexpensive LG "slim portable DVD writer" which can copy a CD to a computer in a short amount of time. I used iTunes on my Mac (which I had never used before, and haven't used since). The entire library of about 500 CDs went onto one thumb drive. I listen to classical music, so the music is organized by composer rather than by performer.

Two Travelers,
The way easy way to get by would be to look up a remote (external) CD/DVD drive at a place that sells computers. The price will be from 25$us to whatever want to spend. If you don't have a place to land it, look for a USB extension cable at the same place.
The entertainment radio in Chaumière was installed when she came to us. That was long before the current memory capacities so we carry copies of a small number of the CDs in our library.
Matt

Y-Guy wrote:
The CD is pretty much dead. I ripped my entire collection of music to MP3 format a long time ago. iTunes and other music players can do this easily, then you can save to a USB thumb drive. My entire library is about 10k songs and roughly 90GB in size, a larger thumb drive lets me take everything, but normally I have 44 different play lists that I keep on a thumbdrive in our various vehicles, plus through Apple I can download the playlists to my phone as well.

This ^^^. Another advantage is you don't have to carry CDs around.

Rob

As other's stated you can rip them to mp3 format. I did that with most of my music, but actually I find that owning music anymore is more of a pain that just having a Pandora or Spotify account. Play what you want, when you want, entire genres, find new music, etc, all cheaper than buying every song.

Check the owner's manual for the dash/house radio
As someone mentioned for the "house" system if you have a DVD (or blue ray/DVD) most handle CD's well.

For the Dash Radio (Autotive types) often they have an "Aux" input or an "I/P" connection (Aux is generally on the front and usually a 1/8" (3.5MM) stereo phone plug) (the other is usually manufacture specific and on the back) If yours has an Aux you can use any portable and patch in in. if it has the connector on the back you may find you can buy a plug in add on.

CD players are going the way of 8 tracks and cassetts. Convert to MP3

There are several portable CD players that provide connections to a in dash system, and most now support Bluetooth connectivity so no cables.

Instead of burning all my CD’s to a laptop (don’t use one anymore) to move to iPhone, as I don’t like every song on every CD, I just purchase the songs I listen to from iTunes Store and there available on all My Apple devices. Plus with Family Share, the wife has access to them as well.

The CD is pretty much dead. I ripped my entire collection of music to MP3 format a long time ago. iTunes and other music players can do this easily, then you can save to a USB thumb drive. My entire library is about 10k songs and roughly 90GB in size, a larger thumb drive lets me take everything, but normally I have 44 different play lists that I keep on a thumbdrive in our various vehicles, plus through Apple I can download the playlists to my phone as well.