Asking for help - Please! How to play CD's in car with no CD player!

iPhone or Android?

hi!

for music on the go, I’m not gonna be to fussy as to want lossless content playback.

with that in mind….

leave the CDs in the house. they don’t do well in the heat.

quick answer:
iphone or Android…. get an Apple music subscription and install the app on your phones.

use Alexis or google assistant. if they now allow personal content to be uploaded/shared.

otherwise…
essentially all you need is to have your desired content available outside the home.

its already been ripped and hopefully is still being stored locally, as you have made CDs from those files.

one minor concern going forward might be the file type. and if its lossy or lossless, or small or large files sizes?

most any cloud service can enable access to your content once they have been uploaded to it. .

some media apps incorporate cloud file storage and management

Perhaps someone here knows of a few that are easy or inexpensive and will chime in.


alternatively,
another way could be to buy a portable music player that supports Blue Tooth or allows for attachment to a mobile device. there are a few around that have on board storage and DA conversion which support many file types. then all you need to do is to load the portable device with the content and remember to take it with you and have its batteries charged up.

if the amount of the content is not immense, one could simply load them onto the mobile phone and be done.

I would prefer this method as it will not depend on wireless connectivity, and it seems, a more secure way to keep my private stuff, private.

enjoy.

The above is better. This is what I thought of at first. 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Discman-D-E206CK-Portable-CD-Player-W-DCC-E2455-CPA-7-Cassette-Adapter...

Have you investigated the capabilities of the audio system in the car? My 2017 Toyota has Bluetooth and various other inputs to the audio system, one being a USB. Haven't tried it yet, but from looking at the car's manual, it appears that I can just put music files on a flash drive, then plug and play in the car.

Sony Discman or Walkman portable CD player. Problem solved! 🤗

What about if your wife does not like your music choice?

Most of the cars audio systems, unless high end like the Levinson, ect. only play MP3 files.  So, you should read the car manual first to see what types of files can be put on a memory stick.  My 2017 Hyundai only accepts MP-3.  In my case, I listen to fm or xd radio.  My iPhone is only 16gb and won't hold much music.

You have the CDs you want to copy music from and a laptop to copy them to. What you need to capture, catalog and transfer the music to a player of some kind is a music management application running on the laptop. There are a number of those but the most commonly used one is iTunes, there are versions for both Windows and Mac OS.

From there you would plug your player (Android or iPhone, tablet, dedicated mp3 player, etc.) into the laptop, transfer the music to it and plug it into the player in your car if it has a wired input or use Bluetooth to connect.

One big advantage for me of that kind of setup is that you're not limited to the content of individual CDs. Building playlists gives you tremendous flexibility. I have a 'roadtrip' playlist I've been building for years. It has over 1,200 songs, all chosen because they're good driving music. I can plug in my iPhone, put it on shuffle and play for a week without hearing the same song twice. If you're planning on driving fast, do a Tom Petty playlist, if it's a relaxed Sunday afternoon drive maybe the Bach French Suites.

I agree that you shouldn't use the physical CDs in your car. More important than the possibility of damage to the CDs is that handling CDs while you're driving is just not safe. I've done it but won't do it again.

The fidelity of MP3 files certainly isn't as high as CD files but in a car, that doesn't matter. With road noise and wind noise the difference won't matter.

If you don't want to use your phone for music playback while driving you could get an inexpensive tablet to hold the music and use its Bluetooth output to connect. You can get a refurbished iPad Mini from a4c.com for $130 and because of the larger screen have a much easier time navigating through your music while you're driving

 

Unless you have some really rare music or recordings you personally made at live events, just get a Spotify or Tidal account. So easy to rebuild your playlist on either of these platforms and you’re going to discover so much new music. Low monthly cost and you can try it for free for thirty days. You mentioned your vehicle has Bluetooth so it’s a no brainner and so easy. Once you try it you’ll never look back. 

Hello All,

Thanks for the advise so far.

Phone is a Google Pixel with 32 GB.  It is a Android set up.  (Not apple)

Pixel (Gen 1) does not contain a Micro or Mini SD slot.

Vehicle is a 2019 Kia Sportage SX.

Music was originally made via Amazon; download one at a time for 99 Cents a song. 
  
Time span over two computers.  I may have some of the music in this current computer.  The previous computer was destroyed by a noxious virus which ate the hard drive.

I've looked online for the obvious external CD player.  You can purchase one with ear buds.  I would like to play through the car stereo.

Wife likes the same music so no issue there.

I'm a little over half full on my phone memory storage right now.  I have 6 favorite CD's at ~one hour each.  Not sure the phone has enough memory left.

Any other suggestions is greatly appreciated.
Thanks....

As long as you are getting cell phone coverage you do not need to download the files onto your phone, so you can stream any song or playlist you build. You can obviously download them to your phone so if you don’t have phone coverage you still have your music but you have to have WiFi access so you have to plan a little ahead. It’s really simple to toggle between just streaming or download. You can get a family plan and share your playlist with whoever as long as they have a Spotify or Tidal account as well. Real simple and again you can play around for thirty days at no cost and can cancel at anytime so no locked in contract. 

I use both Spotiy and Tidal. Spotify I’ve had for several years and use it in the car and bike riding - pedal bike. I just downloaded Tidal for inhome use with a streamer. If I end up liking and knowing Tidal I’ll probably drop Spotify but we’ll see as I really like Spotify.

I haven’t tried this but I don’t see why you couldn’t get a small tablet if you want to download the music at home then use that in your car if you have storage problems. I’m betting you work or know some younger people who are all over Spotify and can help you out in person. It’s really easy.

It's true that you can use your cell phone coverage to listen to music but check whether your plan has unlimited data and what you'll pay for any time you might use over your monthly data allowance if you have one. Also, some carriers will reduce your download speed if you go over your monthly limit.

All, Thanks again for the help. 

Our phone data plan with Verizon is only a gig a month, not a lot of data.
I do not wish to increase our data usage.....retired on a fixed income.  
Reason is we use our phones as phones.  I don't play games, etc.

We have our phones 'set up' to tap into the house Comcast wireless internet when we are home.  But once away from home we only have the one gigabyte of data in the plan. 

BTW the car does have a USB port on it.  So, I may be able to insert a thumb drive into it, with the music on the thumb drive?  (I have not looked at the owner's manual as of yet if that is possible.  Been helping a neighbor all day install a new hot water tank in his house.)

It sounds like I need to copy my CD's back to my current computer, naming each one in a file. 
Then put the music either onto a iPod or iPad, or perhaps a thumb drive.
From there either bluetooth it or cable it to the aux or USB port. 
Sounds like using the smartphone is feasible, but data usage accumulates.
On the surface it seems the thumb drive is the least expensive way, if that is even possible........

Most cars with thumbs drives can be really difficult.  For some reason car audio is not up to the task.  I would suggest trying it.
MP3's take up very little room.  I would think that if you use even media player you could fit a ton of music into 8gb on your phone.  Then just use bluetooth.
Does the car have an audio in 1/8" jack?  Buy a simple mp3 player?
Final option:  Tidal has a "download" feature that will allow you to download music to your phone when you have wifi and they you don't have to stream ever.  We worth 9.99 a month.

I am not sure about Kia but many, if not most, of the new cars play FLAC and Mp3 (I would go for FLAC, but you need to decide). Take a little USB drive, put some songs on it, plug into USB port, see what happens.

If that does not work, put music on the phone (you may have some last generation phone laying around) and plug it in that USB port. It should work.

quincy,

I just noticed your question how to get your CDs to some "carable format". If you want, send them to me and I will do it. It is quite easy but I would get tangled explaining.

the simplest most glarring solution is....

6 hours of music if compressed on average ought to end up being less than 100 songs. at roughly 5MB per, that's only half a gig of music more or less.

I had a 16GB phone and know the issue very well. you should be able to carry 2GB or maybe more on your phones, since they are not cluttered up with games or other non essentials.

that comes to several hundred files.
 
you said you bought them all from Amazon.

meaning you have an account. meaning you also have a history with Amazon. even if you don't have the compiled CDs Amazon ought to be able to allow you to redownload them.

if so, just load them onto your phones instead of the laptop.

alternatively....
I would find out what my car can if at all, do with that USB jack, or some other hidden jack there may well be in there somewhere.

does the car have a radio in it at all? there might be a way to tap into that via RCA/Headphone jack, or simply via BT from a small portable media player.

a friend's new Chevy came with Cirrus or XM radio.... punching its buttons he found that its screen doubled as his car's information and maintenence center.

I think its time to read the owner manual and see what options the car does or does not offer. and go from there.

OK, Got out the manual and here is what I can discern.....

Supported USB music specifications:
MPEG-1/2 layer3, OGG (Vorbis), FLAC, WAV, WMA (std /pro)
Then it goes on about bit rates and sampling frequency for quite some time....I'm not going to post all of that stuff.......

Only USB devices formatted to FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 are recognized.
Only music files with compression rates btw 8Kbps~320Kbps can be played.

iPod mini, and shuffle are not supported.
IPod Nano is supported 
iPod Touch is supported except for iOS1.1.
iPad, iPad Mini - supported but normal operation not guaranteed.
iPod Classic - not supported

Radio does have a USB port and AUX (tiny RCA type jack)
Radio does have Bluetooth Audio.  May or may not be supported depending on music player being used.  Streaming may or may not be supported.

May not support when using formats such as HDD Type, CF, or SD memory.

(time for a small vent from a 60's something year old.....AM was simple, FM was simple, Vinyl was simple, 8 track was simple, cassette was simple, CD's were simple.  What the heck happened????)

First Attempt:  I'm going to purchase a thumb drive at Walmart per some of the recommendations already made.  I'll try to ask Mr. Amazon Prime if they have a record of my music over the years.  It may be easier (but not time saving) to copy all the music CD's to my computer then copy paste into the thumb drive?? (Asking a question here.)

My fear is because so many requirements must be met, and your not even sure if your supported, you may not know if you did something wrong or you're just not being supported.......

Second Attempt : will be to load the music into my smartphone, as recommended above.

Thanks for now...

Get one of the low profile USB drives. They come in multiple storage sizes (not only 256GB) and they are much more convenient in the car.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-Low-Profile-Drive-SDCZ33-016G-B35/dp/B005FYNSZA

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1384375-REG/sandisk_sdcz430_256g_a46_ultra_fit_usb_3_1.html/?...

Yes, get all the music from CDs to computer and just transfer it to that USB drive.

that 'mini' jack on the radio obviously is for inputting info.

running a stereo headphone cable from the phone to the radio and selecting aUX should do the trick. use the phopne to select and play files.

you should be golden now either way... adding the content to your phones, or onto the USB drive. those are unquestionably the cheapest ways to go.

one caveat is to poke the USB drive into the laptop to see its formating. often the cheaper ones still use FAT, but I've bought some lately that were all NTFS, or windows only pretty much. Apple can read from NTFS but not write to it. both OS can read/write to FAT.

regardless the formating, it can be easily changed by any personal confuser with the confuser's disk utility.. often the formating is liisted on the packaging.

as to bit rates I read that as saying 'from' yada yada to 320 which is max for compressed files.

odd that it does not support AAC, or ALAC, or AIF all Apple types.

no worries. stick with MP3 or Windows WMA. you should be golden.

as for those "... not guaranteed to work with...." these are just disclaimers nearly everyone uses to avoid responsibility yet imply they should all do just fine.

of the things likely not fully supported might be ID tags.

the names of the tracks may not populate fully or correctly.

in fact, things like 'folder' or too many folders may not be supported.

its easy enough to find out. dump some on the USB drive and plug it in!

you'll also find out how to navigate them. hopefully from the steering wheel.

several portable media players are listed and I suspect that IF they are running recent or latest IOS or Droid OS again, you should be golden.

as for what happened?

the sun kept coming up and going down.

somewhere on a few of those instances, people came up with what they thought were good ideas, which as it turned out, were good ideas.

the problem is very little of it ever crossed our radar close enough to get our  attention.

catching up is not that hard.

Keeping up is.

"as for what happened?

the sun kept coming up and going down.

somewhere on a few of those instances, people came up with what they thought were good ideas, which as it turned out, were good ideas.

the problem is very little of it ever crossed our radar close enough to get our  attention.

catching up is not that hard.

Keeping up is."

Ha, Ha, Ha,...excellent.  You've got a great sense of wit & humor.  

THX! 

Good luck.

If you are going to convert your CDs get Foobar2000, it is free.
https://www.foobar2000.org/download

Here is a guide on converting from FLAC (same process for other original file formats) to MP3 (includes steps for installing MP3 decoder). For encoding bit rate I would suggest 192KHz VBR (variable bit rate) with a 44.1K sample rate, good compromise between file size and sound quality.

You can also edit the file Tag info (Artist, Album, Track, Artwork, etc) with Foobar2000.

(time for a small vent from a 60's something year old.....AM was simple, FM was simple, Vinyl was simple, 8 track was simple, cassette was simple, CD's were simple. What the heck happened????)

Plenty of info one click away. I have a 256GB iPhone, it's really nice carrying around a large portion of my music library in lossless FLAC format.

Hi Everyone!
Thanks to all who helped me out!
I was successful!
Used Steve Jobs software (iTunes)
to copy 7 CD's and put them onto the 
mini 'fingernail' drive which was recommended.
Once I got the hang of the apple software the
process went rather quickly.
Installed in car and working!!
Thanks again to a great group!