new 2015 car=no CD player?!

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cfz2882

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noticed recenty that some new cars,especially GM it seems,no longer affer a CD player in the radio-just an AM/FM with an AUX input...suppose it does help with dashboard packaging since the radio can be flat with no player mechanism sticking back behind the dash...I have noticed many people under 30 do not own physical music media-mostly downloads,so that probably a factor as well.I like good sound in the car,so i gotta have at least CD quality sound-i think downloads sound AZZ...
 
I believe Chrysler started doing that too. My nephews 2014 RAM did not have a CD option available.  It's really great I told him. No clutter.  I know there are some bad points too.
 
I guess this is because most people have shifted away from CDs to all electronic storage of music. I have a ton of music CDs but never use them and I just realized that I don't even have a player anymore. I guess I can still play them on my computer though.

For the most part I have moved all of the music from CD's to electronic storage. Funny but I just realized this - not even a player - WOW.
 
A car is badly the ideal listening space, so I see little need for very high quality reproduction. CDs are easily damaged in that environment too. I am well over 30 and have zero interest in playing a CD anywhere. If I do buy a CD it is quickly ripped to an appropriate format and stored.
 
Well, I respect older technologies but, at the same time, It doesn't make sense to have something "useless".

Thanks to newer tecnologies, like the OneDrive, the last time I used my CD player was.... YEARS ago.

My computer (Samsung Ultrabook Ativ 5) doesn't have a CD/DVD Drive and honestly, I never missed it.

In my living room I still have some "vintage" stuff like VCR, Video Laser (that huge "DVD" that looked like a LP), and also a MD player (gosh i even spent money buying a MD Walkman) and two Technics professional turntables and two Pioneer CDJ-100 professional CD players. (Dj as a hobby) All of them would be covered with dust and spider webs if I didn't have an excellent maid.

The last gadget i wasted my money was a Bluray player.... Used it twice or 3 times... maybe!

Netflix does everything! and for the songs, I have almost 2tb in the cloud.

Other thing that I don't need anymore is a huge hard disk in the computer. 500gb is much more than enough. Right now I have only 3gb of personal files in the computer, but almost 5tb in Onedrive and a backup folder in Google Drive. And when i want to share something with friends, i just need to create a shared folder and copy the files I want to share. simple as that.
 
We rented a 2015 Chevy Impala a couple weeks ago, and I'm pretty sure it had one. I hated the car and couldn't wait to turn it in though, so maybe not! My current car doesn't have one, (2003 Impala) and it is a feature I really miss.
 
That's surprising. I knew this would eventually happen, but not so soon.

I personally am not sure why they are doing this so quickly. I know not everyone out there is using smartphones and MP3 players, a lot of them aren't, so what are they listening to if they don't want to listen to a broadcast? Although I guess they could use a portable CD player and jplay through the input jack.

My car has a CD player, but does not have an input jack. It's annoying since I like to listen to Pandora on my smartphone and there's no way to listen in the car unless I use a transmitter with poor quality, or replace the stereo with an aftermarket. I don't like how aftermarket stereos look in the dash so I'm not doing that. If I bought any modern car with an aftermarket stereo installed, I would probably rip it out ASAP and replace with the TOL stock stereo. I know some people say aftermarket sound better, and I'm sure they might, but I like how things look stock, and honesty the functionality of my old stock stereo is better than many new aftermarkets.
 
BTW, I meant to say I had a 2014 Dodge rental last year and it had a CD player. I really like how the new Impala looks, but not the interior. Someone said the steering wheel looked like a video game and I agree.
 
I still have a CD player, a Pioneer Elite from 1993-94.  It's part of the audio system so I'll keep it but lately, vinyl has been more fun.  Elvis in concert anyone?  Mormon Tabernacle choir sings Handel's Messiah?

 

My 2012 Honda has a CD player, and auxiliary input and a USB input.   No reason to lug around a collection of CDs when all the content is on my phone that plugs into the USB.  

A while back, I bought a sleeved three ring binder for the CDs.  Went through and pitched many that I'd already loaded to digital storage (and still don't listen to) and filed the rest away in the binder.  Backed up to the home server and cloud storage, I could probably get rid of many more.  

 

My new MacBook Pro doesn't have a disc drive either, so far haven't missed it. 
 
For my home HiFi system all content comes either from CD's of from uncompressed digital files streamed into my DAC. I have fed my iPod into the home system and it works but I do "think" I can sense a quality difference.

I have a CD player in my car but I find it's not worth the hassle, changing a disc every 10-12 songs? I have burned some MP3 discs for the car but even that is a pain. I have an old iTouch iPod that just stays in the glove box with thousands of songs on it. Car radio has a nice USB interface to operate the iPod.

As for quality, any MP3 sampled over 128kbp will be indistinguishable from a CD in an automotive surrounding.

I suppose I don't like seeing them removing the option, but I don't think I'd miss it. I'd likely swap the factory stereo anyhow as I can't stand losing the programming I get in my area from HD radio.
 
 
I don't have an iPod, have never (yet) bought music via MP3 download.  My new car (2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid) does have a CD player, and Aux/USB ports ... but I rarely listen to music in the car any more since my right ear went deaf 7+ years ago.  My home audio system does have a CD player.  I have a mix of (mostly) MP4 and MP3 and FLV files saved from free downloads out of YouTube and other sources but only play them on my computer, and sometimes Pandora and a specific Live365 channel.  I have an iPad (given to me by a friend/business associate), use it on occasion to stream Pandora with 30-min sleep timer.
 
Plus add the fact that as you get older you start losing the high frequencies in your hearing. By the time you are 40, you may not hear anything over 16,000 KHz and by the time you are 60 you may not hear anything over 14,000 Khz.

There is an internet hearing test that you can take to see how high you can hear.
I can't hear anything above 15,000. The only way I knew the test was actually working at 22,000Khz was the dogs in the room looked towards the computer with their ears up and on alert when it made the sound. I didn't hear a thing.
 
RE: HD radio, I think a lot of newer cars can receive HD stations. Also, a lot of or most newer cars have stereos that have an integrated design, not like the traditional square style that can be removed and replaced with aftermarket.

I've just made due listening to Pandora in the car via my phone's speaker. It's not great quality but it works. I don't bother turning it on unless I'm making a trip more then half an hour. Shorter trips, I just listen to CDs, the radio, or nothing.
 
Cd

I have one in my 2015 car. Which is generally the only place I listen to music. HDRadio is far superior to satellite in quality. We have a few HD stations that are all music, no dj's.

Malcolm
 
Cole, indeed HD radio is _finally_ starting to come in factory radios, but it is still in a minority of new models that I have seen. As for the integrated radios, many cars that seem unsuitable for a swap are easy. I swapped out the radio in my Honda Fit using a aftermarket dash piece provided free by Crutchfield. Always check with the aftermarket stereo people, the pieces needed to make a replacement look factory are often there.

HD radio is very under appreciated by most people. The satellite providers get a lot more attention due to the cubic dollars they spend on advertising. The fact that Sirius sounds far inferior to normal analog FM stereo doesn't seem to be covered in their ads. HD radio isn't drastically better audio quality wise then analog FM if the signals are solid. It does eliminate multipath and picket fencing etc. The joy is that in many markets there are basically "free" HD channels that ride along on the analog FM carriers. This gives more choice and often the HD channels are commercial free (or DJ free and Malcolm mentions!)

Also if you have HD AM stations in your area (and you want to listen to them) an HD receiver turns analog AM into near CD quality!
 
I'm also a fan of HD radio.

 

One peeve is the dearth of affordable home HD radio units. It can't cost that much to put HD Radio capability into a receiver or theatre system, but only the very most expensive ones (like Yamahas costing over $1000) seem to have had it.

 

For my older vehicles I've been able to buy some HD Radio capable CD/FM/AM aftermarket radios that work great. For newer cars, the factory setup for a radio is not aftermarket friendly (curved fascia, weird form factors). I've even fitted a modern radio system to my six volt postive ground 1950 Plymouth. The trick was stacking six to 12 volt converters in parallel, to handle the amp load, and mounting the head unit under the dash.
 
Rich,

You made me look and boy an I saddened now too! I have a Sagean HDT-1X here at home and it is a wonderful component. It appears that all the Sangean home HD receivers are gone now as is the Sony XDR-F1HD. Again the lack of advertising and sales appear to have doomed the format.

Time to troll up eBay for a spare!
 
CANT RELATE?

No new cars and just Cassettes in my older cars, have tons of them , mostly high quality decks that get up around 18,000hz, cant remember the low end. Was thinking to transfer some to CD's but I better wait for chips or death, things changing too fast for me....mostly listen to AM anyway these days in the car:)
 

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