CD player not dead yet

[supton]

At least not according to this:
http://wardsauto.com/blog/cd-players-not...&YM_MID=827

If nothing else I thought the statistics were interesting.

Quote:

According to WardsAuto installation-rate data, CD players started replacing audio cassette tape players in the mid-1990s. Almost 10% of U.S. light vehicles were equipped with them in 1995. Their popularity peaked 10 years later, enjoying a 93.7% installation rate in ’05 cars and trucks.

But since then, their demise is occurring at a positively glacial pace considering the rapid advance of superior MP3 and digital-streaming technology.

Installation rates dipped to 90.9% for the ’10 model year, then 86.6% for ’12 models. And they slid from 86.3% in ’13 models to 83.4% for the just-ended ’14 model year. The ability of the CD player and the cassette player before it to live long past their expected departure date should be a lesson to all technology forecasters. They are pretty good at predicting when new technologies will be available for early adopters, but not so good at determining when mainstream buyers will let go of old technology they still like.


I'm not sure anymore if I "want" a CD player in my car. Gimme Bluetooth and an 1/8" jack and I'll probably be content. A USB port is nice but I'm not sure yet about navigation using "dumb" head units vs an iPod. I'm not quite sold yet on expensive LCD's in cars, so I'd rather have a dumb stereo and an some sort of other device for nav and music (although I do 90% of my driving using neither).

Most of my CD's are pretty old and anything I like got ripped to an iDevice already. I do once in a while buy used CD's at garage sales (when I can get 'em for a buck) but I've noticed that I've already grown tired of having "only" 70min of music, if that.

 

[NateDN10]

Originally Posted By: supton
I'm not sure anymore if I "want" a CD player in my car. Gimme Bluetooth and an 1/8" jack and I'll probably be content. A USB port is nice but I'm not sure yet about navigation using "dumb" head units vs an iPod. I'm not quite sold yet on expensive LCD's in cars, so I'd rather have a dumb stereo and an some sort of other device for nav and music (although I do 90% of my driving using neither).

Most of my CD's are pretty old and anything I like got ripped to an iDevice already. I do once in a while buy used CD's at garage sales (when I can get 'em for a buck) but I've noticed that I've already grown tired of having "only" 70min of music, if that.

Agreed 100%.

I do sometimes still listen to CDs, but I do it at work so I don't have to worry about changing CDs while driving. In my car I have an iPod with an FM transmitter since my car doesn't have a 3.5mm jack.

 

[A_Harman]

I think CD players are hanging on because a lot of people have an investment in their CD's. I proably have about 100, and I haven't seriously thought of throwing them over for MP3 or digital streaming. I still have a box full of cassette tapes that I stopped using when I went CD in 1989.

 

[exranger06]

I used to keep a large CD wallet in my car with about 100 CDs in it. I like having my whole music library with me, as I never know what I'll be in the mood to listen to. That CD wallet was cumbersome, to say the least. Especially when I had to transfer it from one car to the other. The CDs would inevitably get scratched, no matter how careful I was with them, and they would skip relentlessly. I eventually upgraded all my cars to aftermarket head units with USB inputs. Now I use either my iPod or a USB flash drive, both of which have my whole music library on them, and I easily control everything from the head unit.

 

[itguy08]

I can't tell you the last time I used the CD player in the Taurus. I think it was to rip CDs for the jukebox (of which there are few).

The truck has one that plays MP3's and its used a little more but I'll stream music (free with T-Mobile) or listen to the regular old radio.

Although I'll gladly take the LCD screen and voice commands of Sync over fumbling with the phone. Much less dangerous to say "play xxx" vs unlock phone, find the app, wade through the songs, etc.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Both of our vehicles have in-dash 6-disc changers, and we keep 'em both filled. I can't say that I routinely listen to music from CDs, but I sometimes do. I don't tend to plug anything into the car (phone, iPod, etc), so CDs loaded into the player are still a hassle-free way to listen to my own music. Most of my listening is XM anyway.

 

[Chris142]

My truck and jeep only play cassettes.

 

[Jimmy9190]

I ripped all my CD's to 320 kbps MP3 amd put them on a micro 32 GB flash drive. I use a Pioneer MVH-X370BT digital media player in my truck with 4 Pioneer 6 1/2" speakers and a pair of Pioneer tweeters up on my sail panels. The 370 has no CD mechanism. It sounds great and I do not miss CD's at all. I actually prefer the sound of a 256 or 320 kbps MP3. I still check out CD's from the library or buy cheap ones at yard sales but I rip them to MP3. I also buy MP3 files cheap on mp3million.com. I use Itunes to rip MP3's but stopped using my Ipod a couple years ago. I can not tell any difference between 320 mbps MP3 and CD. 256 is standard Itunes format and also sounds great but some files have just a little less high frequency response which usually is not enough to matter anyway. Mrs. Jimmy's Nissan has a usb port too and I made her an MP3 flash drive from her favorite CD's and Itunes files as well. She and I both love not having to fiddle around with CD's while driving. I do not use my phone for music but I do like having a Bluetooth deck for making phone calls. It really is the best and safest way to use my phone since my truck has a 5 speed manual transmission.

 

[meep]

Giving in-dash CD data CD wth mp3 playback probably helped kepp it alive. Until I had a smartphone, it was easy to cut a couple of CD's per year with 100+ songs each and just let them spin on their own whenever I started the car. I did that until I acquired HU with rear USB. I now just run that to an old ipod with a few GB or storage---- track/title/playlist all on the 1-din display and the ipod gets resynced every now and then for music updates.... the only thing easier was leaving wifi up and pushing updates to it from the PC inside... but the battery wouldn't last that way. Regardless, haven't used any media since then...

 

[racer12306]

First thing I do when I get a CD or download an album from Amazon:

rip it to iTunes and put it on my iPod.

I have almost 70GB of music on my iPod. No point in carrying that many discs when it all fits on something that is smaller than your phone.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: meep
Giving in-dash CD data CD wth mp3 playback probably helped kepp it alive. Until I had a smartphone, it was easy to cut a couple of CD's per year with 100+ songs each and just let them spin on their own whenever I started the car. I did that until I acquired HU with rear USB. I now just run that to an old ipod with a few GB or storage---- track/title/playlist all on the 1-din display and the ipod gets resynced every now and then for music updates.... the only thing easier was leaving wifi up and pushing updates to it from the PC inside... but the battery wouldn't last that way. Regardless, haven't used any media since then...


I think that's why the CD is still so popular. It's much easier for an average user to rip a CD, which can be easily done with windows media player, than to deal with iTunes and play list creation, because let's face it, most people with smartphones or portable mp3 players have an iproduct.

 

[HerrStig]

The commercial CD contains music NOT compressed to death to fit on some sort of "I" stick. On the right gear, you can hear the difference. "Digital storage technology" gains space by removing from the music "data" portions of it that a compression program determines you aren't going to miss. Probably fine for the average car audio system, but if that sort of storage is the only source you have, you probably won't be pleased to hear the difference on a good home system. Otherwise you'll probably never notice. Hey, people used to like the "sound" of rock on an AM radio with a 4 inch speaker and 10% distortion.

 

[Rhymingmechanic]

Originally Posted By: NateDN10
I do sometimes still listen to CDs, but I do it at work so I don't have to worry about changing CDs while driving. In my car I have an iPod with an FM transmitter since my car doesn't have a 3.5mm jack.


What FM transmitter are you using? I was looking for awhile, but none of the Amazon reviews gave me much confidence. It would be nice to use the iPod in my truck without messing with a cassette adapter.

I'm hanging onto CDs for the sound quality HerrStig mentioned. It might not be the case, but a physical disk also seems more permanent than relying on the memory in a computer or handheld gadget.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I use MP3 CDs on occasion in the car. That's pretty nice to use with a CDRW. Most of the time, though, I just plug the phone into the input jack and that's good enough for me!

The Cherokee has a cassette player. For a while I had a CD/USB/Input capable head unit in there. Turns out I missed a ground, it was grounding through the doors and eventually burnt itself up. Back to the cassette player. However, I now use one of the cassette to 3.5mm adapters and it works well enough.

 

[dishdude]

Amazing how times have changed. I remember having to convert my CDs into tapes to listen to in the car. Then downloading and burning to a CD. Then downloading to an MP3 player and plugging that into an AUX cable every time I got in the car. Now I just start the car and the Bluetooth streaming starts automatically.

 

[mrsilv04]

On my Goldwing, a 6 CD player kit is optional, and is around $900 (plus installation, if you have a dealer install it).

In other news, Honda apparently likes to screw their customers over. Same goes for the $700 Honda CB radio/antenna.

So, I went to an XM radio.

Once I got tired of XM's fees, I'm now storing all of my music on a thumb drive, which I'm playing through a $100 player from GROM Audio. It connects to the CD port on the audio system, emulates a CD player, and uses the factory audio controls on the handlebar.

So, in this case.... CD was dead on arrival, thanks to the sheer greediness of Honda.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: Rhymingmechanic
Originally Posted By: NateDN10
I do sometimes still listen to CDs, but I do it at work so I don't have to worry about changing CDs while driving. In my car I have an iPod with an FM transmitter since my car doesn't have a 3.5mm jack.


What FM transmitter are you using? I was looking for awhile, but none of the Amazon reviews gave me much confidence. It would be nice to use the iPod in my truck without messing with a cassette adapter.

I'm hanging onto CDs for the sound quality HerrStig mentioned. It might not be the case, but a physical disk also seems more permanent than relying on the memory in a computer or handheld gadget.

Try a site called "FMuser dot org", (might be com). They have everything from milliwatt PLL stereo systems which use 12 volts to real broadcast transmitters and the prices are good.

 

[NateDN10]

Originally Posted By: Rhymingmechanic
Originally Posted By: NateDN10
I do sometimes still listen to CDs, but I do it at work so I don't have to worry about changing CDs while driving. In my car I have an iPod with an FM transmitter since my car doesn't have a 3.5mm jack.


What FM transmitter are you using? I was looking for awhile, but none of the Amazon reviews gave me much confidence. It would be nice to use the iPod in my truck without messing with a cassette adapter.

I'm hanging onto CDs for the sound quality HerrStig mentioned. It might not be the case, but a physical disk also seems more permanent than relying on the memory in a computer or handheld gadget.


I used to have one that was a piece of junk that broke. The one I have now my wife bought me and it actually ties in with a cable behind the dash to the main FM radio antenna; there's a switch to switch between the two feeds. This works much better because you don't have to worry about whether your frequency is available, but it's obviously more work to install.

 

[OneEyeJack]

I listen to books on CD.

 

[rfeir]

Heck, I have a Sony Multi-channel cd/DVD/SACD/Dolby Digital, DTS player in several of my cars and continue to enjoy superb multi-channel sound from my SACD and DVD-A disks while I drive. If there was a multi-channel storage alternative I would give that a try as well, (but there currently is no such alternative).