CD Player?

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JOhnH

Touchdown! Greaser!
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We opened a cabinet door the other day and lo and behold, we found our stash of about 500 CDs. Alas, we no longer have a CD player.

I looked online for a CD player that we could feed into our surround sound audio amplifier but they were all ridiculously priced. I was expecting I could find a simple CD player that we could hook up for about$30, but they were all in the high hundreds. I saw some portables in the price range I was thinking of, but they had 3.5mm headphone jacks, which doesn't help me.

Anyone have a suggestion for a reasonably priced CD player that hopefully has an HDMI output, although RCA would work too.
 
Or get an amplifier that can take USB in. A cheap USB external drive is around $30. My TV surround amp has a front panel USB port for plugging in your ipod/whatever. It plays one of these USB sidecar cd players just fine.
 
Kelvin said:
Get a DVD player that can play CDs.
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Should be able to find one at Walmart or Amazon for around $30 to $40 or even less.

As an aside, a couple years ago we sold off a collection of about that number of CD’s for several hundred dollars. With streaming music, have not so far missed them even once.
 
Thanks. Why didn't I think of that. A DVD player with a USB or HDMI or even RCA would work. My Audio amp does have a USB port on the front that I use to hook up the iphone to play streaming music.
I'll go back and look for that.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Garage sale
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I haven't been to one of those since my Mother kept having them and made me help. That was approximately 55 years ago.
She would drag me to garage sales where she would buy stuff, and then sell it a few months later, usually for less than she paid.
 
I've been looking for a 250+ CD changer to replace one that's getting long in the tooth. As near as I can tell they don't make them anymore.
 
pmanton said:
I've been looking for a 250+ CD changer to replace one that's getting long in the tooth. As near as I can tell they don't make them anymore.
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I had a 400 CD one that stopped working several years ago and could never find a replacement. I also have 400+ CDs that I seldom listen to anymore. I have been planning to transfer them all to a hard drive but keep procrastinating. But most days at home I just listen to Pandora and in my jeep I listen to some xm radio stations that I like.
 
JOhnH said:
I saw some portables in the price range I was thinking of, but they had 3.5mm headphone jacks, which doesn't help me... RCA would work too.
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So just get a 3.5mm to RCA patch cord, simple and cheap. Or, do you have a laptop with a CD drive? Then use the 3.5 adapter cord or the laptop's HDMI out.
 
A couple years ago I spent several hours spanned over several evenings passing our old CD's through an external USB CD/DVD drive attached to me kid's computer and ripped them all to digital files
Then I attached them all to our Google Play Music accounts. Then sometime later Google did away with that in favor of Youtube Music...so I had to swap them over to that.
Pain in the neck...and to be honest the only time I think either one of us has used it is I use a selection of a few songs downloaded as a "play list" to my phone...and now to my watch...and I use it when running
 
I have several boxes of DVD and VHS movies. I so regret spending money to buy them.
 
Rushie said:
I have several boxes of DVD and VHS movies. I so regret spending money to buy them.
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I enjoy watching my DVDs. If you only watch a movie once, then streaming rather than buying the DVD can make sense. I also like watching them again....and again. And the special features can be quite enjoyable.
 
Old computer with a Bluetooth USB sender; install a bluetooth input to your traditional stereo or just bluetooth it to a bluetooth speaker....
 
Any computer with a cd/dvd drive. Rip them to mp3s and load them to your favorite player.
 
Agree.
I had about 150 and ripped them to digital years ago.
After that you can click/drag them into favorite folders, copy to your phone, ipad, etc. and make them available a lot of places. Share with friends ;)
In the hangar I get no reception so it's great to play from a device out to the stereo.

I forget what I used to rip them but it would finish one CD, eject, drop the next one in, and press enter. Kept it going till it was done.
Then gave the CD's to a friend.
Best move ever.
 
JOhnH said:
I saw some portables in the price range I was thinking of, but they had 3.5mm headphone jacks, which doesn't help me.
Click to expand...
Get one of these at Five Below (or similar on Amazon) and plug it into the cheapo CD player. Now you can Bluetooth it to the receiver - or your phone. We use one of these exact ones in our 2007 RAV4 to send from our iPhones to the car Aux In. Works well.
https://www.fivebelow.com/products/bluetooth-adapter-wireless-audio-receiver-w-built-in-mic

Or rip them to iTunes via a DVD drive on your computer. Burdensome but gives you options.

ADD: Oops - got it backwards. Use one of these instead. ZIIDOO Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter and Receiver, 3-in-1 Wireless Bluetooth Adapter,Low Latency Bluetooth Audio Adapter for TV,Car,Home Stereo System https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0829S6K1...abc_YTGZYNMA4TFJW6HHN3CM?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
 
I bought one of these from Amazon last year to replace an old Bose tabletop CD player that finally quit. It's nothing more than a Volkswagen car stereo head in a box with a couple of nice speakers (actually does as well as the old Bose). It still has the automobile logic, such that if you turn it on with the knob, it senses that the "car's" ignition has not started, so it shuts itself off after an hour. Using the remote bypasses that logic.

Screen Shot 2022-01-01 at 10.38.46 AM.jpg
 
JOhnH said:
I haven't been to one of those since my Mother kept having them and made me help. That was approximately 55 years ago.
She would drag me to garage sales where she would buy stuff, and then sell it a few months later, usually for less than she paid.
Click to expand...

or of course, craigslist, the digital garage sale
 
Load them into your laptop. That should read read CDs as well. Then, convert them to audio files and copy to a USB. If your laptop does not have a DVD reader, you can get one with a USB cable and plug into the laptop. Those are reasonable.
 
Any basic DVD player can play CDs. If you're a true audiophile this won't do, but you'll be well-versed on CD transport drives and external DACs.

I also like the idea of ripping the CD collection to a computer. MUCH easier to work with. Be careful about which encoder you use as there are audible differences in them, especially MP3 encoders. Not all MP3 encoders sound the same. iTunes' built-in encoder is notoriously bad.
 
AirHare said:
Be careful about which encoder you use as there are audible differences in them, especially MP3 encoders. Not all MP3 encoders sound the same. iTunes' built-in encoder is notoriously bad.
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Don't use MP3. Use FLAC (lossless).
 
I spent countless man hours over the years ripping CD’s and importing Napster and Limewire files into my iTunes library.

Now, with an Apple Music subscription (included with Apple One),virtually any album or song is available for streaming, so that large library so laboriously put together really never gets used.
 
flyingron said:
Not to mention the slightly-less-popular beta format.
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I have an old Tascam DAT (Digital Audio Tape) machine that doesn't get used much these days.

Before that, many of us amateur studio guys were using the stereo beta audio tracks from video recorders for mastering. When CDs entered the scene the DAT machines were doomed to the dustbin of history.
 
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